Jean-Baptiste Labat

Jean -Baptiste Labat (* 1663 in Paris, † January 6, 1738 in Paris) was a missionary, plantation owners and travel writer.

Life and work

Jean Baptiste Labat occurred in 1684 in the Dominican Order in 1694 and went as a missionary to the West Indies. There he owned a plantation on which he kept slaves and rum burned. Later he was appointed Attorney General of the mission of his order in the East Indies, from where he returned in 1705 to Europe.

His travel reports from the New World were very plastic and held popular in Europe until modern times.

Jean -Baptiste Labat died on January 6, 1738 at the age of 75 years in Paris and was buried in the Jacobin convent of the rue Saint- Honoré.

Works

• Nouveau voyage aux îles de l' Amérique (Paris 1722, 6 volumes)
• Voyage du Chevalier Demarchais en Guinee, iles Voisines, et al Cayenne, fait en 1725, 1726 et 1727 (Paris, 1730, 4 volumes)
• Nouvelle relation de l' Afrique occidentale (Paris 1728, 5 volumes)
• Relation historique de l' Ethiopie occidentale, 1732
• Voyage en Espagne et en Italie ( Paris 1730, 8 volumes)