Part 8

[7] LA SALLE asserts that the Jesuits told the men he had engaged to do this that the friar had been killed, so preventing them from going.

[8] THE SIOUX ALSO. Recall the fact stated earlier, that Marquette fell in with the Sioux at or about Green Bay.

THE LOST COLONY: ST. LOUIS OF TEXAS.

Thus, in 1682, La Salle had secured an empire for France, and at last found a legitimate field for his own ambition. His Louisiana comprised every thing between the Alleghanies and Rio Grande, the Gulf of Mexico and Hudson's Bay. Upon opening the maps of the time we find the English crowded into the comparatively narrow limits extending from the eastern slopes of the Appalachian range to the sea, the Spaniards occupying those between the Rio Grande and Gulf of California, while the whole great heart of the continent, including portions of Carolina and Florida, with its magnificent system of waterways, is covered by the names New France and Louisiana.

But La Salle himself, the man of large and luminous views, had now reached the high-water-mark of his achievements. The wave which owed its impetus to his active brain, expended its force with his life.

Upon his return voyage up the Mississippi the explorer fell sick. He was taken to Fort Prudhomme, the one built by his order on the way down, where he lay for months a helpless invalid, chafing under the inaction thus forced upon him. As soon as he felt strong enough to bear the journey, La Salle proceeded on to Michilimackinac, where he was no sooner arrived than he set about the work of rebuilding the trading-post on the Illinois, in room of the one his treacherous followers had destroyed in his absence.

This was to be his half-way house to the Mississippi. Here he trusted to gather a colony alike capable of drawing to itself all the trade of a vast tributary region, as of defending itself and his allies, the Illinois, against the incursions of the Iroquois.

But La Salle's greater project for securing the results of his discoveries, by planting a colony at the mouth of the Mississippi, henceforth looked to reaching that point by sea and not by land. To transport every thing overland from Quebec to the Gulf was of course impracticable. No one knew this better than La Salle himself, yet he also foresaw the importance of keeping the way to Canada open if the colony at the Gulf was to thrive. To this end the fort on the Illinois, and that at the Chickasaw Bluff, were but incidents.

After establishing himself strongly on the Illinois, La Salle went to France in order to lay his projects before the King.

In consequence of a rupture with Spain he found the court well disposed to listen to his proposals. These contemplated the building of a fort sixty leagues above the mouth of the Mississippi, which La Salle assumed would draw around it, as to a common centre, all the neighbor tribes. Gifts and good usage had already disposed these tribes favorably toward the French, while the Spaniards had already alienated them by harsh treatment. With their help La Salle asserted that the conquest of New Biscay,[1] with its rich silver-mines, would be an easy matter, because there were not more than four hundred Spaniards in all that province.

The plan met instant favor. To enable La Salle to carry it out, four vessels were given him instead of the two he asked for. A naval officer by the name of Beaujeu was assigned to command them at sea. La Salle set himself to work with his usual energy. Soldiers, priests and colonists, arms, munitions and stores, were provided in sufficient number or quantity to put the colony on its feet at once.

Long before the ships were ready to sail from Rochefort, La Salle and Beaujeu had quarrelled. Beaujeu overrated himself, and underrated La Salle. Often betrayed by those he trusted most, La Salle's naturally suspicious nature led him to distrust every one, above all Beaujeu, who constantly ridiculed him and his schemes to his friends. So La Salle's reserve gave offence to Beaujeu, who grew sulky, and was at no pains to conceal his dislike for the whole affair. Here then at the very outset the seeds of disaster were sowed. It was under such unpromising conditions that the fleet set sail in July, 1684, for the Gulf of Mexico.

Three of the vessels reached St. Domingo in two months, with a large number of sick on board, of whom La Salle himself was one. The fourth had been taken at sea by Spanish buccaneers, thus depriving the colonists of the tools and provisions with which she was loaded.

Upon La Salle's recovery from what came near proving a fatal illness, the fleet again put to sea, though it was now November, and much precious time had been lost.

Steering westward into the Gulf, they made their landfall on New Year's Day, but when La Salle went on shore to look about him, he could discover no sign of the great river he was in search of. The colonists were upon a low, flat coast, without natural landmarks to guide them, or knowledge of the longitude of the place they were seeking, or of the currents which the Gulf sets in motion. No wonder, then, that La Salle failed to recognize any part of the inhospitable coast before him.

Finding no trace of the Mississippi, and as the failure to do so was every day productive of disputes between himself and Beaujeu, La Salle resolved to land where he was, notwithstanding his belief that he had gone too far to the westward. He was, in fact, at the time of taking this resolution, on the coast of Texas, more than four hundred miles from the Mississippi.

Almost at the moment of landing, La Salle's storeship, which contained the greater part of his provisions, grounded, and became a wreck; it is said, through the carelessness or treachery of her master, who also was on bad terms with La Salle. Indeed, from first to last La Salle's enemies seem to have exerted themselves to ruin him with a zeal that, if honestly employed, would easily have insured the success of all his plans.

This disaster, taken with the fact that he knew not where he was, would have staggered any one but La Salle. His dispirited people were huddled together on the sands, among the bales and boxes saved from the wreck, out of which they made themselves a temporary intrenchment and shelter, for like vultures who scent their prey from afar, hostile Indians hovered about the encampment, watching their chance to cut off any who should stray away from its protection.

Yet misgiving for the success of an enterprise so disastrously begun, was turned into dread when the colonists learned that they were nowhere near their actual destination. La Salle, indeed, tried to put heart in them by pretending to believe otherwise, but a little time soon dispelled this fallacy. He, however, took the best means of quieting discontent by setting every one at work. Beaujeu had sailed away after promising much, but performing little else. The colonists now had much more to fear from the Spaniards, than the Spaniards from them. Yet for La Salle nothing remained but to make the best of the situation until he should have time to look it fairly in the face.

Meanwhile, the essential thing to be done was to get his people housed in a situation which should admit of their living in some comfort and security, as the place where they first landed was alike destitute of wood, water and comfortable lodging.

He therefore chose a site on the Lavaca River,[2] two leagues above its entrance into Matagorda Bay. To this place the colonists removed themselves and their goods, and under the energetic direction of La Salle, whose previous training now stood him in good stead, they set about building themselves a home in this out-of-the-way corner of the world. As it rose from the soil, the ever-loyal La Salle named it St. Louis,[3] in honor of his sovereign.

The summer was hot and sickly. Death was soon busy among the colonists, those who ate wild fruits imprudently suffering first of all. Now and then the Indians would kill some straggling hunter. Thus, in one or another form, death lurked about them. And beneath these apparent dangers, in which all shared alike, smouldered the embers of unreasoning discontent which certain of La Salle's followers were always fanning into a flame.

Having seen his people comfortably housed, and in condition to defend themselves, the indefatigable La Salle now turned his attention to the prime purpose of his expedition, with the certainty of the needle to its pole, for all he had so far done was merely a step in this direction. There was no time to lose.

Although it is not clear why La Salle should determine to march overland, rather than make search along the shores, the character of the Gulf coast affords a possible clew. This is described by Mr. Cable as follows: "Across the southern end of the State,"—he is speaking now of Louisiana,—"from Sabine Lake to Chandeleur Bay, with a north and south width of from ten to thirty miles, and an average of about fifteen, stretch the Gulf marshes, the wild haunt of myriads of birds and water-fowl, serpents and saurians, hares, raccoons and wildcats, deep-bellowing frogs, and clouds of insects, and by a few hunters whose solitary and rarely frequented huts speck the wide green horizon at remote intervals."

It was now October, 1685. With fifty men La Salle set out for the river he had discovered only to lose again. Those who staid behind, lived on buffalo-meat,[3] turtles, oysters, fish, and wild fowl which the prairies or lagoons around them plentifully supplied in their season.

In March, the exploring party came back unsuccessful and in rags. They had wandered far, but had not found the Mississippi. One crowning disaster now befell these exiles. Up to this time they had kept one little vessel of their fleet with them, which was to take them to the Mississippi so soon as its exact situation should be discovered. This vessel, in which their sole dependence lay, was now lost.

In desperate situations, desperate measures are alone to be availed of. La Salle's resolve was heroic. He determined to make a last effort to reach the Mississippi and the lakes. Indeed, there was now no hope of obtaining relief nearer than Canada, therefore to Canada he must go, leaving the colonists to await his return.

For this purpose La Salle chose twenty men, with whom he again set out from the fort on the 22d of April, 1686. Each man carried his own pack and weapons, and as the little band filed out upon the prairie, the hopes of the lost colony went forth with them in their desperate venture.

But these hopes sunk low when La Salle came back with only eight of the twenty who had gone with him. The explorers had penetrated as far as the country of the Cenis Indians,[4] when sickness and desertion had so crippled their strength as to make further progress hopeless for the time. They, however, procured some horses from the Indians which were brought back to the fort.

No other resource being open, La Salle once more essayed the task before him. In the straits in which he and his people were placed, his splendid qualities for leadership shine out of the gloom like a guiding star. The resources of the colony were nearly exhausted in fitting out previous parties, but the scanty stores were ransacked anew to equip those who were to be the saviors of the rest. The horses which La Salle had brought in were loaded with baggage and ammunition. All was ready. A midnight mass was solemnly said. La Salle spoke a few hopeful words to those who were to endure a suspense perhaps even greater than his own, and then, mastering his own feelings, he turned away to join his followers,—the forlorn hope of the expiring colony.

On the 15th of March, 1687, the hunters who were out killed a buffalo. The party therefore halted till the meat could be brought into camp. Here it was that the hatred, long nursed in secret, openly revealed itself in murder. Misery always begets quarrels, but in this case the sole incitement was revenge. La Salle had the unhappy faculty of making enemies, of whom his worst ones were then close at hand, and plotting for his life. A quarrel about the meat hastened the work on. Those who were faithful to La Salle became the conspirators' first victims. Three of these, whom La Salle had sent over to the hunters' camp, were butchered while they slept.

La Salle himself was encamped six miles distant from the place where these murders were committed. Growing uneasy at the long absence of the men he had sent away, he started with an Indian guide for their camp. A friar named Douay also accompanied him. This friar noted in La Salle's talk and manner the presentiment of coming evil. On reaching a point which he supposed to be near the hunters' camp, La Salle fired his musket as a signal. One of the conspirators showed himself, while the others lay hid in the long prairie-grass unobserved. La Salle fell into the snare thus set for him. While advancing toward the decoy, whose insolent replies angered him, La Salle constantly neared the ambuscade. Suddenly a shot was fired. When the smoke cleared away, La Salle was seen stretched lifeless upon the prairie. He was quite dead.[5] The bullet had gone through his brain.

Thus, in the prime of life, fell Robert Cavelier de La Salle, and thus again must history record its indignant protest in the death of a man of highest intellectual force, whose worth to the world was monumental as compared with that of the vulgar assassin who slew him.

NOTE.—THE COLONISTS AT ST. LOUIS, except three or four who were carried into captivity, were all massacred by the Indians. A Spanish expedition in 1689 found the place a solitude. Those who escaped subsequently related what had occurred. Although this was the first white colony to be founded in Texas,[6] in itself it was an accident, no less productive of results, because it led the Spaniards to occupy the country in order to keep out intruders like La Salle. Geographical knowledge was also remarkably extended.

FOOTNOTES

[1] NEW BISCAY. Refer to chapter "New Mexico."

[2] LAVACA RIVER, also called by the French La Vache (the cow).

[3] ST. LOUIS. This name was some time preserved in connection with St. Bernard, or MATAGORDA BAY. Not to be confounded with St. Louis of the Illinois.

[4] CENIS INDIANS occupied the east bank of the Trinity, toward Red River.

[5] THE MURDER is located at a point nearly midway between the Brazos and Trinity Rivers, on a map in the author's possession, and not far from the old Spanish trail between Nacodoches and the Presidio del Norte. After the murder, the survivors went forward to the Cenis villages. In a quarrel about the plunder, two of the ringleaders, Duhant and Liotot, were killed by their confederates. This left the way open for Joutel, the two priests, Cavelier (La Salle's brother), and Douay, with three others, to continue their attempt to reach the Mississippi. Those implicated in La Salle's murder, dared not return to the settlements. With Indian guides the river was struck at the Arkansas villages, where the fugitives met with two of Tonty's men, who helped them on their way. Tonty had been down the river on a fruitless search for La Salle.

[6] TEXAS. The name, in its present orthography, occurs at this time in connection with La Salle's colony, but is first found in "A Briefe Relation of Two Notable Voyages" (Hakluyt iii. 464), made first by the friar Augustin Ruiz, in 1581, to the Tiguas Indians, and next by Antonio de Espejo in 1583. Shortened to Tejas (Tahas), the name was easily turned into Texas, its present rendering.

IBERVILLE FOUNDS LOUISIANA.

Where La Salle had sowed, others were to reap, yet so comprehensive were his plans, so well matured, so entirely feasible withal, that what followed was but the natural result of his efforts. La Salle was like the general who falls in the moment of victory. All honor then to his name![1]

Therefore while we record his failure, individually, to do all he purposed in this, his last expedition, the success which came later was due to the master mind of La Salle. We shall not find, in any explorer of his time, so original a mind united with such rare gifts for doing the work to which he devoted himself.

For a time, the project of colonizing Louisiana[2] quietly slept. It was then revived by a naval officer named Iberville,[3] who thus became, in a manner, heir to La Salle's projects.

Iberville promised to rediscover the mouth of the Mississippi, and hold it afterward by building a fort at its mouth, just as La Salle would have done if he had lived to carry out his schemes.

Although it had slumbered long, the moment the project was renewed by so capable a man as Iberville, every intelligent Frenchman saw its importance. The minister Ponchartrain approved it directly it was broached to him, the more because he knew that if any man could succeed in what he undertook, Iberville would.

Iberville had seen much service in Canada, Hudson's Bay and Newfoundland. Being himself a naval officer of rank, he would command his own ships, and not be hampered by a divided command, or the jealousy of a rival, which had proved such a formidable stumbling-block to La Salle.

As the war was now over, Iberville wished to distinguish himself by some worthy action done in the interests of peaceful conquest.

Two ships were therefore got ready, which sailed from Rochefort in October, 1698, and anchored at St. Domingo[4] in December. Sailing thence they fell in with the Florida coast January 27. A bay opened before them. Iberville wished to put into this port, but on attempting to do so he found it in the possession of three hundred Spaniards from Vera Cruz, whose commander forbade his landing there. This place was called Pensacola.[5]

Fearing the Spaniards were on the same errand[6] with himself, Iberville at once made sail for the westward, hugging the shores as closely as possible in order not to miss the river among the mists which commonly hang over and hide it from view. Finding in Mobile Bay a harbor where his ships could safely ride, while he himself continued the search along the shore in boats, Iberville came to an anchor there.

Very shortly his exploring parties came to the Pascagoula River, where they found many savages living. From this river they pushed on through the intervening lagoons that everywhere intersect this shallow shore, till, on the 2d of March, the Mississippi itself was entered through one of its numerous passes.

Sailing on up the river, Iberville passed first one populous town and then another, receiving everywhere a cordial welcome from the savages, yet doubting within himself whether he was on the true Mississippi, till one day a chief brought him a letter[7] which Tonty had left for La Salle thirteen years before, when, after searching for his chief in vain, this trusty comrade had turned back for the Illinois.

After mentioning that he had found La Salle's cross thrown down, and had set up another in a better place, the letter concludes by saying, "It is a great chagrin to me that we are going back without finding you, after having coasted the Mexican (Louisiana) shore for thirty leagues, and the Florida twenty-five."

This letter having removed all Iberville's doubts, he fell down the river again, and having nowhere found, within sixty leagues of the Gulf, a proper place to begin a settlement on, he turned back to the Bay of Biloxi, where a spot was chosen and the ground marked out for one.

After seeing the establishment at Biloxi well under way, Iberville took ship for France. He was back again early in January, 1701. During his absence an English corvette had sailed twenty-five leagues up the Mississippi to a point where the river sweeps grandly round to the east. At this place her captain was warned back by the French, from which circumstance the bend received the name of the English Turn, which it has ever since borne.

Iberville also learned that English traders from Carolina[8] had penetrated into the Chickasaw country above him. Finding himself menaced both by sea and land, and delay dangerous, Iberville shut up the entrance from sea by mounting some cannon near the mouth of the river.

The century turned noiselessly on its hinges with no other establishments in all this great domain of Louisiana except that planted by La Salle on the Illinois, and the one at Biloxi.

In 1701 Iberville began a settlement at Mobile. The next year he erected storehouses and barracks on Dauphine Island[9] for permanent occupation. In a few years this island became the general headquarters of the Louisiana colony. Nothing worthy of the name, however, existed before 1708. Up to this time the handful of colonists lived on what was sent them from France, or obtained by trading French goods with the savages. They sowed wheat, but found the climate too damp for growing it with success. They also began the planting of tobacco, which did so well that its culture presently became a mainstay of the colony.

But while Iberville had thus gained a foothold, in what might be called a good strategic position for approaching the Mississippi, either from sea or through Lake Ponchartrain, he was actually but little nearer than the Spaniards at Pensacola, who kept a watch on all his movements. Never did nature seem more persistently thwarting the schemes of men than in the attempt of these Frenchmen to enter upon what they considered their rightful inheritance.

FOOTNOTES

[1] LA SALLE'S NAME is perpetuated in many places in the United States, notably in a city and county of Illinois.

[2] COLONIZING LOUISIANA quietly slept, partly, but not wholly, in consequence of war between England and France.

[3] IBERVILLE, LE MOYNE DE, was one of eight brothers, all eminent in the annals of Canada. He was considered one of the greatest sailors France has produced. In 1685 he assisted in expelling the English from Hudson's Bay. Afterward he took part in the defence of Quebec by Frontenac; destroyed Pemaquid; and took St. John's, Newfoundland. As a commander he was almost uniformly successful. Iberville's name is perpetuated in a town and parish of Louisiana.

[4] ST. DOMINGO, or Hayti, had been seized by French buccaneers, 1630. The French government took possession of the island, 1677, thus establishing a _dépôt_ for their operations in the Gulf of Mexico.

[5] PENSACOLA (Indian). A place of much historic interest. First discovered, according to the Spaniards, by Narvaez, then by Maldonado, one of De Soto's captains. It received several Spanish names, notably that of Santa Maria de Galve, but finally retained that of the neighboring tribe of savages.

[6] ON THE SAME ERRAND. That the Spaniards knew of the Mississippi is clear from their having given it the name Iberville afterward found so apt when ascending it,—Rio de los Palissades,—a title suggested by the enormous rafts of uprooted trees which the river brought down and left stranded at its mouth.

[7] TONTY'S LETTER was left in the forks of a tree where the Indians found it. It may be seen in full in Charlevoix, ii. 259.

[8] ENGLISH TRADERS from Carolina were pushing their way across the Appalachians. Many French Protestants who had fled from their country on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, were settled in South Carolina, and it was feared the English would attempt to settle a colony of them in Louisiana.

[9] DAUPHINE, originally Massacre Island.

FRANCE WINS THE PRIZE.

"_A soldier, fire, and water, soon make room for themselves._"