Pierre-François-Xavier de Charlevoix, a French Jesuit sent on a scientific and exploratory mission to Canada, where he had previously stayed, he traveled up the St. Lawrence River in 1720, passed through the Great Lakes, made the portage to the Mississippi River, survived shipwreck in the Gulf of Mexico, and visited the island of Santo Domingo.

Returning home to France, he has written Histoire de Saint-Domingue (1730), based on manuscript memoirs of P. Jean-Baptiste Le Pers and original sources, and Histoire et description générale de la Nouvelle-France (1744; in English 1769; tr. J. G. Shea, 1866-1872), the latter especially of permanent value.