The Reason the Spanish FINALLY Began to Colonize Texas La Salle The Reason the Spanish FINALLY Began to Colonize Texas

La Salle’s Mississippi River Expedition (No Texas) La Salle’s Mississippi Expedition La Salle spent a total of about 20 years exploring the New World He mostly explored what would be the Great Lakes, northeastern US and southeastern Canada

The Mississippi River Expedition In La Salle’s 1682 expedition, he sailed down most of the Mississippi River to it’s end in present-day New Orleans He then claimed the Mississippi River and all the land it drained for the King of France French English Spanish

La Salle’s Unintended Texas Expedition In 1684, La Salle sailed from France again to create a settlement on the Gulf of Mexico at the mouth of the Mississippi River When he set out, Spain and France were at war He was hoping to set up a fort to help attack Spanish territories in New Spain This expedition was plagued with trouble with pirates, poor navigation and BAD MAPS They left France with four ships and 300 colonists One ship was lost to pirates in the West Indies (Saint Francois) A second ship, ran aground in Matagorda Bay off the coast of Texas (Aimable) Frustrated, the crew and many colonists took the third ship and sailed back to France (Joly) They had one ship left… the La Belle

La Salle in Texas 1685 - By the time a temporary settlement, called Fort Saint Louis was built on the eastern end of Matagorda Island, there were only 180 colonists left La Salle believed that the Mississippi River was nearby La Salle left the colonists to build the settlement and went exploring his surroundings from Oct. 1685 to March 1686

Fort Saint Louis For now… In the winter of 1686, the colony’s last ship, the La Belle, sank in a storm in Matagorda Bay The French colonists were stranded!!! So, La Salle took 17 men and marched east hoping to find one of his other settlements and help for Fort St. Louis At the settlement, he left about 20 people… mostly women, children, the physically handicapped and others that La Salle didn’t like (from TSHA) Luckily, the Karankawa were friendly… For now…

La Salle’s Fate La Salle was travelling east and north in hopes of finding other French settlements to help with Fort Saint Louis On March 19, 1687, one of the men he had taken with him shot La Salle dead Of the 17 men that left Fort Saint Louis for help, five of them reached Canada… and eventually France

Fort Saint Louis’ Fate The colonists waited for two years for help to come from La Salle’s “rescue mission”… none came During the Christmas celebration of 1688-1689, the Karankawa came by the colony, in a guise of friendship… And proceeded to kill all the colonists, except for the children They took the children into their families One group of kids, the Talon children, were later discovered among the Indians by the Spanish and sent to Mexico City to serve as servants in the viceroy’s house One of the boys served as the only eyewitness account for the attack

Spanish Reaction to the French The first mission built in EAST TEXAS was San Francisco de los Tejas New Spain Until 1688, the only part of Texas that Spain cared about was El Paso Louisiana (French) First Texas Mission Mission Ysleta Alonzo de Leon came upon Ft. St. Louis in April 1689 The Spanish sent out five sea searches and six land marches to try to find the colony and destroy it De Leon found the bodies of the French colonists… And went back to Mexico City to tell the viceroy that the French colony had been destroyed Ft. St. Louis Alonzo de Leon They started building Spanish Missions in East Texas in an effort to try to keep the French out of Texas The Spanish decided it was time to STOP IGNORING Texas and start colonizing The Spanish government got MAD!!!!!! However, when captured pirates told the Spanish about the French colony at Matagorda Bay

Mission San Francisco de los Tejas

Mission Ysleta in El Paso

Discovery – the wreckage for the La Belle was found in 1997 http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/belle/skeleton.html

Fort Saint Louis

Map confusion. Early French map showing the charted course of the Mississippi River (denoted here as a blue line) far west of its true course and its actual mouth (outlined in red) near present-day New Orleans, some 400 miles up coast from La Salle’s landing point. La Salle was hampered by inaccurate maps and navigational devices.

http://www.texascenterforregionalstudies.com/texas-legacy.html