A Company Man: The Remarkable French-Atlantic Voyage of a Clerk for the Company of the Indies

This is the first publication of Caillot's long-lost travel memoir with its original title translated as Account of the Voyage to Louisiana, or New France, made by Sieur Caillot in the Year 1730, which was recently acquired by the Historic New Orleans Collection and translated from French. Caillot evenly splits his story between a detailed daily account of his treacherous trip across the Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean and then New Orleans, and a graphic firsthand account of the tense and sometimes violent relations between French settlers and the Natchez and other Native American tribes. The author, a young clerk for the French Company of the Indies and an amateur naturalist, also describes the flora and wildlife encountered upon arriving in Colonial America. Editor Greenwald (historian and curator, Historic New Orleans Collection) provides a lengthy introduction that helpfully places Caillot's tale in historical context; her extensive footnotes provide key clarifications. This handsome volume includes fold-outs of beautiful reproductions of Caillot's original illustrations, including his maps, plans, and drawings that bring early Louisiana to life, plus a few pages of images of the original manuscript of the memoir.