Home |  PublicationsEncyclopedia |  Du Tisné, Claude-Charles

The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

DU TISNÉ, CLAUDE-CHARLES (1688?–1730).

A French explorer in central North America, Claude-Charles du Tisné was born in France circa 1688. He became a soldier and in 1705 was posted to Canada. In 1719 he was ordered to take a small company of men to explore the Illinois country and then to go southwestward across the Mississippi River into the plains, in order to try to open trade with Santa Fe, in Spanish-held New Mexico. Historians differ in their assessment of the exact route of his expedition in the summer of 1719. They agree that his line of travel brought the group into the plains directly west from the Mississippi River to an Osage village on the Osage River. By reading the expedition's reports and documents, Oklahoma historian Anna Lewis asserted that he led his men southwestward to the Verdigris River in present Oklahoma, to the site of an American Indian village, presumably of the Wichita, in the vicinity of present Chelsea or Vinita. Other scholars, notably archaeologists Mildred Mott Wedel and Waldo Wedel, read the records differently, arguing that the encounter with the Wichita took place near Neodesha, Kansas. The archaeological record, however, remains too sparse to allow a precise location of the site of the village or the explorer's route. Du Tisné's activities, and those of his fellow French explorer Jean Baptiste Bénard de la Harpe, also in 1719, paved the way for future exploration in the plains and encouraged competition between Spain and France for trade in the area. Leaving the plains, Du Tisné returned to the Illinois country, where he died in 1730.

Dianna Everett

Bibliography

William B. Lees, "Archeological Evidence for European contact with the Wichita in Kansas and Oklahoma: Paper Presented at the Plains Conference, 1990, Oklahoma City," at www.uwf.edu, accessed 24 September 2015.

Anna Lewis, "Du Tisné's Expedition into Oklahoma, 1719," The Chronicles of Oklahoma 3 (December 1925).

F. Todd Smith, The Wichita Indians: Traders of Texas and the Southern Plains, 1540–1845 (College Station, Tex.: Texas A&M University Press, 2000).

Mildred Mott Wedel, "Claude-Charles Dutisné: A Review of His 1719 Journeys, Part 2" Great Plains Journal 12 (Spring 1972).


Browse By Topic

European Exploration

Explore

People
Explorers

Citation

The following (as per The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition) is the preferred citation for articles:
Dianna Everett, “Du Tisné, Claude-Charles,” The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry?entry=DU015.

Published February 16, 2016

Copyright and Terms of Use

No part of this site may be construed as in the public domain.

Copyright to all articles and other content in the online and print versions of The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History is held by the Oklahoma Historical Society (OHS). This includes individual articles (copyright to OHS by author assignment) and corporately (as a complete body of work), including web design, graphics, searching functions, and listing/browsing methods. Copyright to all of these materials is protected under United States and International law.

Users agree not to download, copy, modify, sell, lease, rent, reprint, or otherwise distribute these materials, or to link to these materials on another web site, without authorization of the Oklahoma Historical Society. Individual users must determine if their use of the Materials falls under United States copyright law's "Fair Use" guidelines and does not infringe on the proprietary rights of the Oklahoma Historical Society as the legal copyright holder of The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and part or in whole.