PUBLICATION DETAILS: Weimar, Verlag des F. G. pr. Landes-Industrie-Comptoirs, 1804. 8”h x 5”w. Only German edition. Three-quarter leather on marbled boards. Library stamps. Introduction by Theophil Friedrich Ehrmann (1762-1811).

CONTAINS TWO MAJOR PARTS.:

LOUISIANA. The first part, pertaining to Louisiana, is a 344- page German translation of the French edition of Berquin-Duvallon’s Vue de la Colonie Espagnole du Mississipi : ou des Provinces de Louisiane et Floride Occidentale, en l’Année 1802, par un Observateur Résident sur les Lieux. (Paris : A l’Imprimerie Expéditive, rue St.-Benoît, no. 21, 1803). Pierre Louis Berquin-Duvallon was a San Domingo planter and writer who lived in Louisiana from 1799 until 1802.

MAP: Includes a folding map, “Louisiana”, 9”h x 7”w, in German and extending from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, including much of today’s Texas. Very good condition.

BACKGROUND: An exhibit at the American Philosophical Society, “Louisiana 1683-1803”, features four books, one of them the French version cited above. Part of their description of the book follows: “When Louisiana passed from Spanish to French to Jeffersonian hands in 1803, there was a renewed tri-national spark of interest in the colony. Languishing under French and Spanish hands alike, the colony had never achieved the profitability predicted for it, and the little-known author Berquin-Duvallon painted a less than attractive picture of the place. Providing a general survey of climate, soil, the city of New Orleans, slavery, and creole culture, and with an important description of sugar culture and production, Berquin Duvallon recoiled in horror at the effects of the Revolution in Saint Domingue (Haiti) and the treatment of refugees in U.S. and Louisiana. Berquin Duvallon is also notably drawn deeply into the racialized thought characteristic of the 19th century. Convinced that the “independent spirit” of American Indians made it impossible to enslave them, he wrote “It is not the same with Negroes, and for them slavery is, as it is in the countries in which they originate as elsewhere, a natural state from which they leave only with violence, and into which, on the contrary, they enter with ease, like a flock of sheep entering the stable.”

ROCHON vOYAGES: The second part is a 146-page German translation of the French edition of Father Alexis-Marie de Rochon’s Voyages a Madagascar, a Maroc et aux Indies orientales… As can be seen from the German title, this German translation does not include Rochon’s voyage to Madagascar, but does include the voyage to Morocco and the East Indies . Rochon was a famous French astronomer and navigator whose fame included his Voyages. The following is an excerpt of Peter Abraham’s presentation to the Antique Telescope Society, Oct. 1999. “Alexis Marie Rochon (1741-1817) was an experimental, practical physicist; and also an instrumentalist and tinkerer. He held the title of Abbe until the Revolution, and wrote a series of memoirs on optical instruments, which were given to the Academie in 1766. In 1771, he became a member of this French Academy of Sciences. King Louis XV had assembled a collection of instruments at the Chateau of La Muette at Passy, and Rochon was placed in charge of the optical instruments in 1775. He was also astronomer-optician to the French Navy, and director of the observatory at Brest.”

CONDITION: Text pages very good. Coves and spine worn. Signature on first free fly leaf with faint pencil notes. Stamped deaccessioned (in German) over university ownership stamp. The front and back pastedowns have stains in the corners which bled into the facing leaves, apparently from the binding process. The binding might be original. The title on the spine is difficult to read. Contents very good.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Howes, Wright. B389.

Pierre Louis Berquin-Duvallon [and] Alexis-Marie de Rochon