For the greater part of the first half of the eighteenth century, Louis Juchereau de St. Denis was the guiding force on the Louisiana-Texas frontier. It is probable that no other man exercised such a determining influence over so long a period in the early affairs of Louisiana and Texas. His rare talents served a vital and peculiar need for colonial France in a critical and most formative period.

Published accounts of St. Denis have been as inconsistent as the documents of his lifetime and by their very nature, as prejudiced. Interpretations of him have run the gamut from patriot to...