31.8 America: a.d. 1601 to 1700  (Page 13/16)

Finally La Salle's application to form a colony on the south of the Mississippi was authorized and this time he approached from the sea in the summer of 1684, with 4 vessels. Unfortunately, after passing Cuba they inadvertently missed the river and finally landed in what appears to have been Matagora Bay. La Salle built a fort there, left 130 men to man it and then left in March, 1685 with another 50 men to find the Mississippi. Still not locating his goal, he built another fort on a river he named "Vaches" and abandoning the first fort, 70 men, women and children moved to this new place. But 30 of his company had died and the master carpenter had been lost. Still this second fort had more people than the colony of Smith of Virginia or of those who embarked in the Mayflower. This was the settlement on which France based claims that Texas was a part of Louisiana.

While La Salle's ship Belle sailed along the coast with his papers and equipment, he took 20 men and started overland, still seeking the Mississippi delta. He returned in 4 months but the Belle had apparently been lost. The leader then selected 20 men to accompany him back to Canada overland, leaving the fort on April 22, 1686. He became ill on the Trinity River, however, and had to return to Vaches. There then remained about 40 of the original 180 people, who had landed in Texas. La Salle again started north in January of 1687 only to be assassinated along with some of his most faithful followers, by a group of 4 disgruntled Frenchmen, at Navasoto, Texas. A few of the party eventually reached St. Louis, where De Tonty was found. In the spring of 1686 he had sailed down the Mississippi and, reaching the sea, had sent canoes east and west, vainly seeking his old companion and friend. The few survivors left in Texas from La Salle's expedition were subsequently either captured by Indians or by Spaniards, and taken to Mexico. (Ref. 63 , 39 )

The failure of this expedition did not deter the French government in its pursuit of Gulf settlement. In 1697 the Canadian D'lberville sailed down the Mississippi and with other voyages planted a colony which he left in charge of his brother Bienville. The brave and generous De Tonty joined D'lberville at the mouth of the Mississippi about the year 1700. (Ref. 63 ) This was at about the same time that Cadillac was founding a fort at Detroit in the north.

The southwest

Governor Don Juan de Onate set up the first Spanish government in the southwest at Santa Fe, 10 years before the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts. For the next 200 years Spanish outposts in Arizona, Texas, California and New Mexico slowly developed an economy. The Spanish introduced 2 indispensable elements in the life of western America - the horse and the cow. The horse, originally terrifying the Indians, eventually set them free from Mexico to the Canadian tundra. The Spanish also left the whole heraldry of ranching in the language - corral, mesa, arroya, patio, adobe, mustang, sombrero, desperado, poncho, alfalfa, bronco, lariat and others. (Ref. 39 ) By 1630 there were 1,000 people in Santa Fe and the immediate area, including 250 garrisoned soldiers. There were 50 friars distributed in 90 villages, each with their own church.