Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, August 26, 1997

Coureurs de bois were early traders in south Louisiana

by Jim Bradshaw

Indeed, the first recorded church ritual at Opelousas was the baptism on May 16, 1756 of Jacques Andre Desbordes and Jean Desbordes, sons of Claude Desbordes and Marguerite Kintrec, daughter of Joseph Le Kintrec. This was performed at the home of Jacques Guillaume Courtableau, a leading military figure in the early years of the Opelousas posts. The priest noted in the record that the baptisms were done at the home of Sieur Courtableau by special permission of the Bishop of Quebec "because of distance and difficulty of roads."

It was in December 1738, in New Orleans that LeKintrec and Joseph Blanpain formed a partnership to trade with the Opelousas and Attakapas Indians. A few members of the Opelousas tribe had gone to New Orleans in 1733. They told the Superior Council of French Louisiana that they would settle down in a village if the French would send fur traders to the region.

LeKintrec and Blanpain apparently formed their partnership to trade with these Indians. They came to the Opelousas country in 1740, and set up a trading post where Bayou Boeuf and Bayou Cocodrie meet to form Bayou Courtableau. A third partner, Gerald Pery, became involved in a short time, when he agreed to provide French imports to the partnership in exchange for all of their furs. The traders also agreed to sell Pery whatever tallow and bear grease they might come by, at 8 cents a pound for tallow and bear grease at 30 cents a jar.

(Tallow was mixed with oil from myrtle leaves to make candles. Bear grease was used, among other things, as a cooking oil.)

The trading apparently went well at first. In January 1740, Blanpain hired help, agreeing to pay a man named Dupont and his wife 200 livres to work six years among the Attakapas. In March 1740, LeKintrec signed a contract for himself and Blanpain with Francois Gautreau, the royal storekeeper at New Orleans, agreeing to supply Gautreau with raw deerskins for export to France.

Blanpain and LeKintrec strengthened their partnership in a document signed aux Houpelousas(sic) in April 1740.

But, somewhere along the line, things appear to have begun to sour. We hear no more of Blanpain until January 1743, when the Superior Council (the high court of the Orleans territory) ordered him to pay 500 deerskins against a note he had signed. This would be the first in a long series of court decisions against him. The record for the next few years tells the story of his being sued, sued again, and sued some more--and apparently seldom paying his bills.

On Feb. 1, 1744, the Superior Council ordered Blanpain to deposit 85 quarts of grain in payment for an Indian slave he'd bought. He claimed not to have received the judgment until April, when he wrote from the Indian territory that he was sending a pirogue loaded with corn to pay for the slave. He offered to pay cash, as soon as he was paid by another man who owed him money, but the creditor took the corn.

Blanpain's partnership with LeKintrec expired on Jan. 1, 1744, and Blanpain formed another with Andre Fabry de la Bruyere, Secretary of the Marine at New Orleans. There was quick trouble. These new partners split up almost immediately.

On Oct. 31, 1742, J. Banco Piemont sued Blanpain for 500 deerskins for failing to deliver the goods on time. Piemont apparently kept trading with Blanpain, because in August 1743, the Superior Council would order Blanpain to pay Piemont 2,300 livres and 175 deerskins.

It appears that whatever could go wrong for Blanpain did go wrong. For example, a Sieur Chaperon paid Blanpain 250 livres for an ass. He also bought six mares to mate with the ass. But the ass did not "notice them." As usual, Blanpain lost the suit.

In 1745, he was hired to search for the captain and crew of La Superbe, a French ship that had been lost along the Louisiana shore. He didn't find it.

Blanpain's trading partnership with Andre Fabry was dissolved on June 16, 1745. In a court document, Blanpain renounced any title to trade in the Attakapas country and gave to Andre Fabry 100 deer skins and a slave named Kola. Fabry agreed to pay all debts arising out of the partnership with Blanpain.

Over the next decade, Blanpain would venture farther and farther into Indian territory, until he finally ran afoul of Spanish authorities in Texas. He was arrested near Moss Bluff on the Trinity River in November 1754, carrying a boatload of beads and other trading goods.

He and some companions had built a cabin on what was later called Punta de Gusto near Galveston Bay. The Spanish had heard that Blanpain was expecting 50 New Orleans families to settle there to trade with the Indians. The authorities decided that the old trader had been sent by the French to infiltrate Spanish territory. The Louisiana government claimed to know nothing about the settlement and refused to negotiate for Blanpain's release. (There are some who see the hand of the king's man and Blanpain's old trading partner, Andre Fabry, in this. In 1741, Fabry had organized an excursion into Spanish territory, traveling through Oklahoma and eventually to Santa Fe--where, he received an unfriendly reception and scooted for home.)

Blanpain and his companion were finally ordered to Spain to be questioned by authorities there but he never crossed the Atlantic. He died in a Mexican jail a year before the orders were received.

He was broke at the time of his death, of course.

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