HENNEPIN, LOUIS

Missionary, explorer; b. Ath, Belgium, May 12, 1626; d. probably Rome, Italy, after 1701. He entered the novitiate of the Récollet Order of Friars Minor at Béthune, France, was ordained, and served as a missionary in Holland (1673–74). On July 14, 1675, he sailed for Canada, where Bp. François de Laval de Montmorency of Quebec appointed him Lenten and Advent preacher. During this time he carefully studied native dialects and customs until appointed to an Iroquois mission at Fort Frontenac on Lake Ontario, near the present site of Kingston. In 1678, Hennepin accompanied René Robert, Sieur de la Salle, on his expedition westward. From a Niagara outpost on Lake Erie, they traveled through both Illinois and Louisiana country, navigated the Detroit and St. Clair Rivers named by La Salle, and founded Fort Crève-Coeur near Lake Peoria. Here La Salle left on foot for Fort Frontenac and Quebec while Hennepin and his companions continued toward the Mississippi River. On April 12, 1681, as they moved northward, they were captured by the Issati Sioux and obliged to accompany them in their wanderings. During one of these journeys, they stopped at a cataract in the Mississippi, which Hennepin named St. Anthony Falls. Through the intercession of the French explorer Daniel Greysolon Du Lhut the missionaries were finally released, and after a long and difficult journey Hennepin returned to Montreal, Canada, to report to Count Louis de Frontenac, the Governor General. At the suggestion of Laval, Hennepin spent the summer at the Franciscan monastery of Our Lady of the Angels, Quebec. In the autumn he returned to France to write Description de la Louisiana (1683), an account of his explorations. Experiencing difficulties with his superiors, Hennepin left Artois, where he had been stationed, and established himself in Utrecht, Netherlands. There he published two new versions of his travels, Nouvelle découverte (1697) and Nouvelle Voyage (1698), which were translated in more than 60 editions. In these books he claimed to have descended the lower Mississippi and discovered the Gulf of Mexico prior to La Salle. Rejecting his claims, historians have since debated his accuracy and originality. At this time Hennepin lost the favor of Louis XIV, and his books were dedicated to King William III of England. In 1698 Hennepin received a grant of money from William, for whom he offered to guide a fleet to the Gulf of Mexico. He did not accompany this fleet, however, but instead made his way to Italy, where his remaining days were spent in a monastery in Rome.

Bibliography: j. delanglez, Hennepin's Description of Louisiana (Chicago 1941) bibliog. 144–156, a leading American authority, who questioned the originality of Hennepin's writings. More recent, and based on documents favorable to Hennepin found in the State Archives, Mons, Belgium, are the writings of a. louant, "Le P. Louis Hennepin: Nouveaux jalons pour sa biographie," Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique 45 (1950) 186–211; "Precisions nouvelles sur le Père Hennepin," Academie Royale de Belgique. Bulletin de la classe des lettres … 42 (1956) 215–276; "Une Confirmation de l'identification du Père Louis Hennepin," Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique 52 (1957) 871–876. These documents have resulted in some revision of traditional biographical details.

[j. l. morrison]