Angelique (Caddo) Dumont (bef. 1694 - 1758)

Descendants

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Biography

Angelique was born in 1696. ^[1]. She passed away in 1758^[2].

The Indian Princess: Marie Carmelite's Great Grandmother "Angelique"

The French explorers and settlers knew this remarkable woman as "Angelique". We do not know her original name, although she may have started life as the daughter of a chief of the Hasinai, [possibly "Bernardino", see My Natchitoches, Nardini)], a tribe of the Caddo Confederation living on the Trinity River in Texas. Baptized "Angelica" and educated by Spanish monks at a mission (Hidalgo?) in present day Texas, she met the French when Sieur Louis Juchereau de St. Denis and his men ventured into Spanish territory in 1714. The French had come in order to establish trade between their Company of West and the Spanish missions which were too distant from Mexico City to easily obtain supply goods. This was in response to a written request from Reverend Father Francisco Hidalgo to La Moth De Cadillac, Governor of Louisiana. Though initially detained as a threat by the Spanish, St. Denis married Manuela Sanchez Y Ramone, daughter of Don Diego Ramone, and eventually returned to establish the French outpost of St. Jean Baptiste des Natchitoches (Natchitoches, Louisiana) at the Natchitoches Indian village, a location he had earlier selected as suitable for a trading outpost. In 1714, the Hasinai tribes traded much needed horses to the French and led them, instead of the Hidalgo mission, to "Presidio San Juan Bautista on the south bank of the Rio Grande River" [Nardini, 30]. Fluent in Spanish, Angelique accompanied them as both guide and translator between the Hasinai chief, Bernardino, other Indians, and St. Denis. Later, she became the wife of Charles Dumont, originally of Paris, who served in St. Denis's company. Her death is registered 19 March 1758 (Mills, #).

Entry #816 ANGELIQUE*

March 19, 1758, burial "of the corpse of an Indian, the grandmother of Madame St. Prix."

Like Pocahontas before her and Sacajawea after, she would have been an invaluable asset to the new European settlers, as she not only spoke the local Native American dialects, but also Spanish and then French. One can only guess at the scope and importance of her contributions to the successful foundation of a permanent French settlement at Natchitoches

Sources

1. ↑ Eighteen years before the birth of her oldest known child.
2. ↑ Elizabeth Shown Mills, Natchitoches 1729-1803 (Polyanthos, 1977), #816, p. 101. (online).

• http://www.rocheteau.org/New_World/Louisiana/Louisiana_Rocheteaus.htm