Henri de Tonti [SEP] country of citizenship
Henri de Tonti
Henri de Tonti (1649/50 – August 1704) was an Italian soldier, explorer, and fur trader in the service of France.
Early life.
Henri de Tonti, an Italian from the Kingdom of Naples, was most likely born near Gaeta, Italy, in either 1649 or 1650. He was the son of Lorenzo de Tonti, a financier and former governor of Gaeta. Alphonse de Tonti, one of the founders of what is now Detroit, was his younger brother. His father,
commander Henri de Tonti built a post on the Arkansas River, near its mouth, that later was known as the Arkansas Post. This began European occupation of the Quapaw country. Tonti arranged also for a resident Jesuit missionary, but apparently without result. About 1697 a smallpox epidemic killed the greater part of the women and children of two villages. In 1727 the Jesuits, from their house in New Orleans, again took up the missionary work. In 1729 the Quapaw allied with the French against the Natchez, resulting in the