A. (Auguste) Guinnard

Born in Paris on June 8, 1831, Auguste Pawloski Guinnard was a French traveler and adventurer who set out for South America as a young man. He later became known for turning his experiences there into one of the notable captivity narratives of the era.

Guinnard is chiefly remembered for Trois ans d'esclavage chez les Patagons, later published in English as Three Years' Slavery Among the Patagonians. In it, he recounts his capture and years of forced life among Indigenous peoples in what is now Argentina, mixing personal survival story with observations on landscape, daily life, and local customs.

Sources describe him as having been born in 1831 and dying in 1882, though some details of his later life appear uncertain. That uncertainty only adds to the rough-edged, adventurous image left by his writing, which continues to interest readers of travel literature and frontier history.