Henri Joutel

Henri Joutel was a French explorer and soldier from Rouen, born around 1643. He is remembered above all as the eyewitness chronicler of René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle’s final expedition to North America, a disastrous attempt in the 1680s to establish a French colony near the mouth of the Mississippi.

Before joining La Salle, Joutel had spent many years in the army. On the expedition, his steadiness and discipline helped place him close to La Salle’s inner circle. After the colony’s collapse and La Salle’s death in 1687, Joutel survived the long overland journey out of Texas and later turned his notes into the journal for which he is still known.

That journal remains his lasting achievement. Historians have described him as the leading eyewitness historian of the La Salle expedition, and his account is still prized for its careful observations of travel, hardship, leadership, and colonial life on the Gulf Coast frontier. Sources located during this search give his death as around 1725, so the date 1735 does not appear to be the best-supported one.