Henri Joutel

Henri Joutel (French pronunciation: [ɑ̃ʁi ʒutɛl]; c. 1643 – 1725), a French explorer and soldier, is known for his eyewitness history of the last North American expedition of René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle.

La Salle's expedition to plant a new settlement and secure earlier French claims had missed the approach to the mouth of the Mississippi River landing far to the southwest.

Joutel's journal provides some of the earliest written information on the interior, natural history, and ethnography of central North America.

He was unpersuaded by the Minister of Marine, Louis de Pontchartrain, to return to America but lent his journal.

The journal returned to the Gulf Coast in the Iberville expedition that finally established a lasting French presence near the mouth of the Mississippi in 1699.

Carte Nouvelle de la Louisiane et de la Riviere de Missisipi (1713) prepared in part on the information provided by Joutel from the 1687–88 expedition