Fort Saint Louis

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Fort Saint Louis was a frontier fort built in 1685 by French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle near what is now Inez, Texas. The creation of the fort and small settlement in 1685 established royal France's claim to possession of the region that is now Texas, and later supported the United States' claim to the same region as part of the Louisiana Purchase. Spain considered the fort an incursion into the territory of New Spain. The elimination of the French settlers by native Americans and the destruction of the fort's remains by the Spanish in 1689 essentially terminated France's activities in Texas. Spain's establishment of a new presidio and missions reinforced Spain's claim to the region. The location is now an archaeological site.

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[edit] La Salle's Earlier Expeditions to North America

La Salle was one of the premier French explorers of North America. His previous expeditions had started in what is now Canada, and explored the Great Lakes Regions and the Old Northwest and the Midwest regions of what is now the United States. In 1682, La Salle led an expedition which canoed down the Mississippi River to near its terminus in the Gulf of Mexico. There, La Salle performed the traditional European rituals of claiming an entire region of the New World for King and Country, in this case claiming all territories drained by the great river and its tributaries. La Salle named all this unseen territory Louisiana, in honor of the King of France. This claim would encompass significant lands in the historical territory of Texas, as the Red River and Canadian River watersheds include portions of the Rocky mountains, the Staked Plains, the High Plains, and the Great Plains.

[edit] La Salle's Expedition to Texas

In February of 1685, La Salle arrived off the coast of Texas in the Gulf of Mexico with 3 ships and approximately 300 soldiers, sailors, and settlers (men, women, and children.) It is generally accepted that a navigational error had placed this expedition at the mouth of Matagorda Bay instead of the mouth of the Mississippi River. Establishing a reliable estimate of longitude at sea was a famous problem of the time. There is some speculation that La Salle intentionally chose to to build a settlement further west in order to establish a French claim in lands claimed by Spain. There is also evidence that, even if La Salle had established his settlement at the Mississippi River, he planned to harass Spanish interests and activities in the Gulf of Mexico. Certainly, the Spanish took La Salle's arrival as an intrusion and provocation. His three remaining ships, from the four that he left France with, were the supply ship Aimable and the support ships La Belle and Joly. Once the settlement was started, La Salle explored widely, expecting to find the Mississippi River. With the departure or loss of all the ships, the colony became very isolated and exposed. In 1687, La Salle and the the most able men (including his brother) set out overland to the east to seek help from the French settlements in the Great Lakes area. La Salle was murdered by one of his men, and the overland group broke up. Some joined friendly Indians in what is now East Texas. Others eventually reached New France, without reporting the situation of the remaining settlers at Fort Saint Louis. There would be no successful French rescue or relief effort.

[edit] Construction of Fort Saint Louis

The fort was a simple wooden structure, with one house constructed in a Canadian style from salvaged ship's timbers, a number of simpler huts, and a wooden fence. The fort included salvaged ship's cannons. The fort was situated on a high point in lightly-wooded prairie land, overlooking a creek. Construction of the fort is believed to have led to illness and death of many settlers.

[edit] Destruction of Fort Saint Louis

The Spanish considered the settlement an intrusion into New Spain and sent several armed parties to locate and destroy the settlement. The wreck of La Belle in Matagorda Bay provided one indicator of the general location of the French settlement. When the Spanish arrived in 1689, they found that all the French settlers, with the exception of the children, had been killed off by the Karankawa Indians. The Spanish retrieved the children from the Indians. The remains of the fort were destroyed by the Spanish, who also buried the French cannon left behind. The Spanish later built their own fort on the same location.

[edit] Today

An archaeological study of the site was made in 1950. However, the abundance of Spanish artifacts and the scarcity of French artifacts did not firmly establish the presence of the French fort. The exact location of Fort Saint Louis remained uncertain until the French cannons buried by the Spanish were located in 1996. Subsequently, extensive excavations of Fort Saint Louis and the overlying Presidio La Bahia were made. During this research, the Spanish-dug graves for the massacred French settlers' remains were also discovered and excavated.


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