Encyclopedia Dubuque
"Encyclopedia Dubuque is the online authority for all things Dubuque, written by the people who know the city best.”
Marshall Cohen—researcher and producer, CNN
Affiliated with the Local History Network of the State Historical Society of Iowa, and the Iowa Museum Association.
BELTRAMI, Giacomo Costantino
BELTRAMI, Giacomo Costantino. (Bergamo, 1779--Filottrano, Italy, 1855). The earliest surviving Native American wooden flute was discovered by an Italian adventurer who traveled across present-day Minnesota in search of the headwaters of the MISSISSIPPI RIVER.
After politicial difficulties with the Italian Papal government surrounding his role in the French Revolution (he had been in Napolean's government), Beltrami began a series of expeditions in Mexico, the Great Plains, New Orleans, and the Caribbean. Beltrami arrived in St. Louis in 1823 and began a voyage up the MISSISSIPPI RIVER on board the "Virginia," the first steamboat to pass the Des Moines and Rock River rapids. He was accompanied by U. S. Indian agent Lawrence Taliaferro and explorer Stephen H. Long. Bribing the MESQUAKIE with whiskey to reveal the LEAD mines near Dubuque, Beltrami found the deposits so valuable that he doubted the natives' ability to hold them from the jealous whites. His observations were written in his A Pilgrimage in Europe and America published in 1828. After three months exploring and mapping the region, he set out on August 7th with three guides in search of the source of the Mississippi.
Abandoned by his guides, he was reduced to wading up the river, hauling his supplies in a birch bark canoe behind him complete with a red umbrella that he carried as a sign of peace. He eventually found what he incorrectly believed to be the Mississippi headwaters in present-day Beltrami County. He named the lake "Giulia."
Beltrami returned downriver, arriving in New Orleans in December where he wrote a French-language account of his travels, published a few months later. The Catholic Church condemned his work, but he went on to explorations in Mexico and Haiti.
Somewhere in the Great Plains portion of Beltrami's travels, he acquired two flutes. These were shipped along with his other artifacts back to his homeland, and they are displayed at the Museo Civico di Scienze Naturali (Civic Museum of Natural Science) in Bergamo, in Northern Italy.
---
Source:
Thayer, Bill, "Gazetteer of the Marche," http://bit.ly/MarcheWPT, American & Military History http://bit.ly/HistoryUSA
"The Beltrami Flutes," Fluteopedia: An Encyclopedia of the Native American Flute, http://www.flutopedia.com/beltrami.htm