By Paul Carrier
This endearing coming-of-age tale for young readers is set in a time and place that rarely merit a mention in the annals of American history.
The year is 1687. René-Robert Cavelier de La Salle, the famed but autocratic French explorer, is struggling to save his small settlement in what is now Texas.
Although La Salle sailed the length of the Mississippi River in 1682, he failed to find the river’s mouth during an expedition from France in 1685. In fact, he missed his destination by hundreds of miles. By 1687, he has lost his ships. Most of his supplies have been destroyed. The local Indians are hostile. Starvation and disease are taking their toll on the shrinking French colony. And some of his men harbor mutinous intentions.
Beset by such problems, La Salle and a group of settlers set out in search of the Mississippi, hoping to follow it north to New France (Canada), to seek help and supplies. But grown men are not his only companions. Tagging along is a 10-year-old boy, Pierre Talon, who leaves behind his mother, sister and brothers to join La Salle’s relief expedition.
Pierre was a real person, and The Crimson Cap is his story.
La Salle is assassinated on that journey, and some of his men, together with Pierre, find their way to a nearby village of Hasinai Indians. Pierre initially concludes that the Indians are savages, but he is adopted into the tribe and comes to view the Indians much more sympathetically over time.
Pierre eventually learns that the struggling French settlement has been destroyed by the Clamcoëh Indians and that his mother is dead, but he remains convinced that his siblings are living with the Clamcoëhs. When Spaniards searching for La Salle capture Pierre and another Frenchman, Pierre’s life becomes more complicated. He wrestles with his dual identity as a Frenchman and an Indian, while trying to decide how best to find and rescue his older sister and three younger brothers.
The year is 1687. René-Robert Cavelier de La Salle, the famed but autocratic French explorer, is struggling to save his small settlement in what is now Texas.
Although La Salle sailed the length of the Mississippi River in 1682, he failed to find the river’s mouth during an expedition from France in 1685. In fact, he missed his destination by hundreds of miles. By 1687, he has lost his ships. Most of his supplies have been destroyed. The local Indians are hostile. Starvation and disease are taking their toll on the shrinking French colony. And some of his men harbor mutinous intentions.
Beset by such problems, La Salle and a group of settlers set out in search of the Mississippi, hoping to follow it north to New France (Canada), to seek help and supplies. But grown men are not his only companions. Tagging along is a 10-year-old boy, Pierre Talon, who leaves behind his mother, sister and brothers to join La Salle’s relief expedition.
Pierre was a real person, and The Crimson Cap is his story.
La Salle is assassinated on that journey, and some of his men, together with Pierre, find their way to a nearby village of Hasinai Indians. Pierre initially concludes that the Indians are savages, but he is adopted into the tribe and comes to view the Indians much more sympathetically over time.
Pierre eventually learns that the struggling French settlement has been destroyed by the Clamcoëh Indians and that his mother is dead, but he remains convinced that his siblings are living with the Clamcoëhs. When Spaniards searching for La Salle capture Pierre and another Frenchman, Pierre’s life becomes more complicated. He wrestles with his dual identity as a Frenchman and an Indian, while trying to decide how best to find and rescue his older sister and three younger brothers.
Thoughtful and preternaturally mature, Pierre is a likable protagonist who is forced, despite his youth, to grapple with difficult questions.
Who is more civilized; the Hasinai or the French? How does living with a different culture alter one's religious views? Can a person be torn between his biological family and his adopted family? Are the competing territorial claims of France and Spain of any real consequence to a child who simply wants to survive and find what’s left of his family?
In an afterword, author Ellen Howard notes that there are gaps in the sometimes conflicting historical accounts of Pierre’s life. Pierre is only 14 when The Crimson Cap draws to a close, yet Howard explains that he lived much longer than that. The author summarizes what is known about Pierre’s subsequent adventures, although, as she says, the record is incomplete.
