BOSSU (Jean-Bernard). Nouveaux voyages aux Indes occidentale - Lot 10

BOSSU (Jean-Bernard). Nouveaux voyages aux Indes occidentales, contenant une relation des différens peuples qui habitent les environs du grand fleuve Saint-Louis, appellé vulgairement le Mississipi. À Amsterdam, chez D. J. Changuion, 1769. 2 volumes in one in-12, xx-187-(one blank)-(4 including the 2 blank versos)-193-(3) pp. half brown basane with corners; spine and corners worn with restorations, a clumsy hand has colored some elements of the frontispiece plate of the first volume, one plate has received an old handwritten caption in ink (modern binding in the taste of the time with old materials). Published the year after the rare Parisian original. 4 copper-engraved plates hors texte. ONE OF THE FIRST TRULY ETHNOGRAPHIC WORKS ON NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. Jean-Bernard Bossu presents his observations and reflections on his first two visits to Louisiana, between 1751 and 1762, during which he visited the peoples living along the Mississippi: the Alibamons (Alabamas), the Chactas (Choctaws) and the Chicachas (Chicasaw). He describes these tribes in terms of customs, religion, political organization, warfare and trade. ONE OF THE PRECURSORS OF ETHNOLOGY IN AMERICA, JEAN-BERNARD BOSSU (1720-1792) joined the army, and was wounded in 1744 at the siege of Casteldelfino. After joining the navy, where he earned the rank of captain, he was assigned to the garrison of New Orleans. He made two initial visits there between 1751 and 1762 (separated by a brief return to France in 1757), and explored the region by sailing up the Mississippi. On his return, he was imprisoned for a month for his critical remarks about the governor of Louisiana, but was rehabilitated. Returning for a third time to New Orleans in 1770-1771, he lived for a time with the Arkanças (Quapaws) tribe. He published two accounts, the present Nouveaux voyages aux Indes occidentales (1768), devoted to his first two sojourns, and Nouveaux voyages dans l'Amérique septentrionale (1777), to report on his third stay. Provenance: Désiré De Busscher, then De Cock (old handwritten ex-dono on verso of first pastedown).