# Nicholas Perrot *French explorer, fur trader and diplomat (c. 1644–1717); named in a Dakota County at-issue record as the author of a 1689 assertion of French possession.* Nicolas Perrot (c. 1644–1717) was a French explorer, diplomat and fur trader. This record's title spells his given name Nicholas. He is counted among the earliest European men to reach the Upper Mississippi Valley, a region now divided between Wisconsin and [[Minnesota]].[^1] He appears in this record through one at-issue item in the project's Dakota County package. That item dates European claims to the region to Perrot's 1689 assertion of French possession of [[Dakota]] lands.[^2] The item rests on a single self-published county source. The Wikipedia account cached in the record ends its biography before 1689 and does not describe that assertion.[^1][^2] ## Who Perrot was born in France between 1641 and 1644, possibly at Darcey in Burgundy, where his father held the office of lieutenant of justice.[^1] He went to New France around 1660 in the company of Jesuit missionaries. With several of them he travelled to the western Great Lakes, where the missionaries meant to preach, and he reached present-day Wisconsin in 1665.[^1] He gained the friendship of Native peoples by exchanging guns for furs, which let them defend themselves against their enemies on equal terms. He was nicknamed the "trafficker of iron" or "iron legs."[^1] In 1667 he and three Montreal settlers formed a fur trading company. He returned to the Green Bay region on August 12, 1667.[^1] In 1670 he was engaged as translator for Simon-François Daumont de Saint-Lusson, a military officer serving as deputy to Jean Talon. Saint-Lusson's commission was to claim, for Louis XIV, the lands of the Ottawa, Amikwa, Illinois and "other nations discovered or to be discovered in North America contiguous and adjacent to Lake Superior." The ceremony became known as "The Pageant of the Sault."[^1] He then married Madeleine Raclot. She had come to New France at seventeen under a French program to bring more women to the colony. Perrot received a land grant on the river Saint-Michel in present-day Quebec.[^1] The 1681 census lists the couple with six children; they had eleven in all. Perrot also published a memoir of his expeditions and of the Indigenous peoples he met.[^1] ## When - Between 1641 and 1644: born in France.[^1] - About 1660: arrived in New France with Jesuit missionaries.[^1] - 1665: reached present-day Wisconsin.[^1] - 1667: formed a Montreal fur trading company; returned to the Green Bay region on August 12.[^1] - 1670: served as translator at the Sault ceremony.[^1] - 1681: listed in the census with six children.[^1] - 1689: assertion of French possession of Dakota lands, as dated in the at-issue item.[^2] - 1717: died.[^1] ## Where His birthplace is possibly Darcey, in Burgundy. His documented travels and trade took place in the western Great Lakes, at Green Bay and in present-day Wisconsin and Minnesota. His land grant lay on the river Saint-Michel in present-day Quebec.[^1] ## In the at-issue record Item AI-Dakota-097 is filed under the dossier heading *VII. The Founding Instruments — Still on the Books*. It records that the Dakota County seat moved three times in four years: to Kaposia in 1853, to [[Mendota]] in 1854, and to [[Hastings]] in 1857, where it remains.[^2] The item quotes the county's own description of Mendota as "the first European settlement in Minnesota." Beside that description it sets the earlier date of Perrot's 1689 assertion of French possession of Dakota lands.[^2] Both statements come to the record through the item's single self-published source, a Dakota County document. That document's URL is not among the record's citable sources.[^2] The record does not carry the text of the 1689 assertion, the place where it was made, or the authority under which Perrot made it. The item describes him as a fur trader. The Wikipedia account also calls him a diplomat and records his 1670 service as translator to a royal deputy.[^1][^2] ## Notes [^1]: Wikipedia, *Nicolas Perrot* (revision 1371471887, retrieved 2026-10-28) — biographical account: birth, arrival in New France, travels, 1667 company, 1670 Sault ceremony, marriage, land grant, children, memoir, dates of life. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Perrot [^2]: The White House, *Restoring Integrity to America's Financial System* (presidential action, May 2026) — the anchor document attached to the project's at-issue item AI-Dakota-097. It is not itself a source for the item's statements about Perrot or Dakota County, which rest on a self-published Dakota County document (dakotacountymn.gov, via the dossier *Dakota_Founding_Instruments_2026-09-02*). https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/05/restoring-integrity-to-americas-financial-system/