"Pavie in the Borderlands describes the cultural forces that shaped the trans-Mississippi West between 1765 and 1838 by focusing on the extraordinary Pavie family. From their settlement on the Louisiana frontier, three generations of Pavies witnessed the creation of the United States and its territorial expansion through the Louisiana Purchase.

Betje Black Klier relates the experiences of the Louisiana Pavies through the adventures of their kinsman Theodore, an enterprising eighteen-year-old who left provincial France to visit Louisiana and Texas in 1829. Throughout his adventure, Theodore took meticulous notes and made sketches, and later he published an account of his exploits in a romantic travelogue entitled Souvenirs atlantiques.".

"In the first of its two parts, Pavie in the Borderlands provides the story of the family's early experiences in North America; a biographical study of Theodore; translations of some of his colorful letters from the borderlands; and an analysis of how his travels transformed him. The second part of the volume presents the first English translation of a substantial portion of Theodore's journal, including reproductions of his sketches of Louisiana and Texas environs.

The young adventurer's vivid observations preserve the thriving multicultural world that vanished with the success of the Texas Revolution and the California gold rush.".

"Klier unveils the youthful scholar and artist Theodore as one of the most significant nineteenth-century travel writers to journey west of the Mississippi. She also heralds three generations of Pavies, to whom she ties some of the great figures of French culture as well as the ancestors of many modern Louisianians.

By intertwining Louisiana and Texas history with French history, Pavie in the Borderlands provides important new insights on the region's environmental, social, economic, cultural, and intellectual history."--BOOK JACKET.