In François Vallé and His World, Carl Ekberg provides a fascinating biography of François Vallé (1716–1783), placing him within the context of his place and time. Vallé, who was born in Beauport, Canada, immigrated to Upper Louisiana (the Illinois Country) as a penniless common laborer sometime during the early 1740s. Engaged in agriculture, lead mining, and the Indian trade, he ultimately became the wealthiest and most powerful individual in Upper Louisiana, although he never learned to read or write.
 

Ekberg focuses on Upper Louisiana in colonial times, long before Lewis and Clark arrived in the Mississippi River valley and before American sovereignty had reached the eastern bank of the Mississippi. He vividly captures the ambience of life in the eighteenth-century frontier agricultural society that Vallé inhabited, shedding new light on the French and Spanish colonial regimes in Louisiana and on the Mississippi River frontier before the Americans arrived.
 

Based entirely on primary source documents—wills and testaments, parish registers of baptisms, marriages, and burials, and Spanish administrative correspondence—found in archives ranging from St. Louis and Ste. Genevieve to New Orleans and Seville, François Vallé and His World traces not only the life of François Vallé and the lives of his immediate family members, but also the lives of his slaves. In doing so, it provides a portrait of Missouri’s very first black families, something that has never before been attempted. Ekberg also analyzes how the illiterate Vallé became the richest person in all of Upper Louisiana, and how he rose in the sociopolitical hierarchy to become an important servant of the Spanish monarchy.
 

François Vallé and His World provides a useful corrective to the fallacious notion that Missouri’s history began with the arrival of Lewis and Clark at the turn of the nineteenth century. Anyone with an interest in colonial history or the history of the Mississippi River valley will find this book of great value.

The Missouri Biography Series, edited by William E. Foley

“The success of this biography lies in Ekberg’s use of the events of his interesting life as windows into Upper Louisiana before Lewis and Clark, an apt subtitle. Francois Valle and His World is an outstanding introduction to this world. Those who wish to begin learning about the Mississippi Valley before the English-speakers put in an appearance would do well to begin with this volume, because it teaches the relevant history clearly and entertainingly.”—Arkansas Historical Quarterly

“This valuable study will at long last rescue the Vallés from the shadows of the better-known Chouteaus of St. Louis and bring Ste. Genevieve’s preeminent French Creole family the recognition it rightly deserves. François Vallé’s story is remarkable. This book is characterized by a richness of detail that carries the reader into another time and place.”—William E. Foley, author of Wilderness Journey: The Life of William Clark