Some elements of JeanBaptiste Truteau’s (1748– 1827) journal narratives and reports have been published, but this is the first comprehensive critical edition of documents related to Truteau’s twoyear sojourn among Indian nations of the Upper Missouri a decade before Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery arrived at the Mandan villages. Superbly translated, edited, indexed, and annotated, the book eclipses previous efforts. Sidebyside French and English transcriptions off er easy access to Truteau’s narrative, and an opportunity for readers to develop a feel for the early eighteenthcentury French that fur traders spoke in the pays d’en haut, the “upriver country.” Québécois historian and linguist Robert Vézina provides an enlightening, engaging linguistic and literary analysis of Truteau’s vernacular French. An experienced FrenchCanadian voyageur, Truteau served Spain’s St. Louis– based “Company of the Upper Missouri.” After France ceded Louisiana to Spain in 1763, Spanish and French residents struggled to develop the fur trade, with generally meager results. Almost no Americans had yet seen the Upper Missouri, but Montréalbased North West Company traders operated a few posts in the region, agitating Spanish fears of English meddlers. Truteau’s expedition, sometimes dismissed as a “failure,” actually stands out as Spain’s last best eff ort to achieve fur trade success before the US secured the territory in 1803. Highly educated and steeped in exploration narratives (and occasionally “lift ing” sections from predecessors’ works), Truteau carried a long list of instructions from his employers. A witty and keenly observant writer, he recorded a welter of details on geography, fur resources, trade prospects, Native ethnography, tribal and intertribal politics, warfare, cosmology, and the like. Truteau was a devout Catholic, but like other traders he embraced an old French proverb, Avec les loups il faut hurler (“Among wolves one must howl”). Filtering out French cultural norms and biases that lacked any utility in the “Indian Country” enabled Truteau to make clearminded observations and produce remarkably sound ethnographic data. During two challenging years punctuated with bad luck, potentially deadly confrontations, undependable lodgings, few companions, a paucity of substandard trade goods, and no support, reinforcements, or supplies from St. Louis, Truteau dutifully served his employers and provided future historians a wealth of information. In sum, this superb book refl ects the talents of topfl ight scholars who gave Truteau’s signifi cant narrative the attention it merits. An impressive example of “best practices” in fur trade scholarship, it makes compelling reading and is highly recommended.

中文翻译：

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密苏里河上游的皮草商：让-巴蒂斯特·特鲁托 (Jean-Baptiste Truteau) 的日记和描述，1794-1796 年版。作者：Raymond J. DeMallie、Douglas R. Parks 和 Robert Vézina

让巴蒂斯特·特鲁托 (JeanBaptiste Truteau)（1748-1827 年）的期刊叙述和报告的一些内容已经出版，但这是关于特鲁托在路易斯和克拉克的发现军团到达前十年在上密苏里州的印度国家中逗留两年的文件的第一个综合评论版在曼丹村。这本书经过出色的翻译、编辑、索引和注释，使之前的努力黯然失色。并排的法语和英语转录提供了对特鲁托的叙述的轻松访问，并让读者有机会了解 18 世纪早期的法语，即皮草贸易商在“上游国家”（pays d'en haut）所讲的法语。魁北克历史学家和语言学家罗伯特·韦齐纳 (Robert Vézina) 对特鲁托的白话法语进行了富有启发性、引人入胜的语言和文学分析。一位经验丰富的法加航海者，Truteau 服务于西班牙圣路易斯的“上密苏里公司”。1763 年法国将路易斯安那割让给西班牙后，西班牙和法国居民努力发展毛皮贸易，结果普遍微薄。几乎没有美国人见过上密苏里州，但总部位于蒙特利尔的西北公司贸易商在该地区经营了一些职位，激起了西班牙人对英国干预者的恐惧。特鲁托的探险有时被认为是“失败”，但实际上是西班牙在 1803 年美国获得该领土之前取得皮草贸易成功的最后一次最佳努力。前人的作品），特鲁托带着一长串雇主的指示。他是一位机智而敏锐的作家，记录了大量关于地理、毛皮资源、贸易前景、土著民族志、部落和部落间政治、战争、宇宙学等。特鲁托是一位虔诚的天主教徒，但与其他商人一样，他信奉一句古老的法国谚语，Avec les loups il faut hurler（“狼群中的人必须嚎叫”）。过滤掉在“印度国家”没有任何效用的法国文化规范和偏见，使特鲁托能够进行清晰的观察并产生非常可靠的人种学数据。在充满厄运、可能致命的冲突、不可靠的住所、很少的同伴、缺乏不合格的贸易商品以及没有来自圣路易斯的支持、增援或补给的两年充满挑战的岁月中，特鲁托尽职尽​​责地为他的雇主服务，并为未来的历史学家提供了财富的信息。总共，这本极好的书反映了顶级学者的才华，他们给予特鲁托的重要叙述应有的关注。毛皮贸易奖学金中“最佳实践”的一个令人印象深刻的例子，它引人入胜，强烈推荐。