La Belle (ship)
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La Belle was one of Robert de La Salle's four ships when he explored the Gulf of Mexico with the ill-fated mission of starting a French colony at the mouth of the Mississippi River in 1685. La Belle was wrecked in present-day Matagorda Bay the following year, dooming La Salle's Texas colony to failure. For over three centuries the wreckage of La Belle lay forgotten until it was discovered by a team of state archaeologists in 1995. The discovery of La Salle's flagship was regarded as one of the most important archaeological finds of the century, and a major excavation was launched by the state of Texas that, over a period of about a year, recovered the entire shipwreck and over a million artifacts.
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[edit] Construction of the ship
La Belle was built by master shipwright Pierre Mallet in Rochefort, France, in 1684. She was a type of vessel known as a barque-longue, a 17th century ship type that would eventually evolve into what would be known as a sloop of war or light frigate. The Belle was made predominately of white oak (Quercus robur pedunculata) with iron and wooden (treenail) fasteners. The Belle had three masts, was 40-50 tons, was 51 French feet (16.5 meters) in length (stem to sternpost), 14 French feet (4.5 meters) in breadth, and with 7 French feet (2.3 meters) depth of hold. She was thus a rather small ship though still quite capable of crossing the Atlantic. She was armed with six iron cannons and a number of swivel guns.
[edit] La Salle's expedition and the loss of La Belle
Shortly after her construction, King Louis XIV assigned her to La Salle for his expedition to the Gulf of Mexico. Some history books claim the Belle was a personal gift to La Salle from the King, though no primary document confirms this, and the French government still considers this ship a naval vessel and sovereign property of France.
La Salle mistakenly sailed past his intended target of present-day Louisiana and ended up settling in Matagorda Bay, Texas. By the time the nascent settlement of Fort St. Louis was established, all of his ships had either wrecked, been captured by pirates, or had returned to France, except La Belle.
La Salle's misfortune would continue. While he and a small party were out exploring the extensive wetlands and river systems, searching for the Mississippi, La Belle was left at anchor with a skeleton crew. After running out of fresh water, the crew decided to stop waiting for La Salle's return and attempted to sail back to the colony. They lost control of the vessel in a northeaster, and it ran aground "a musket shot from shore," according to a Spanish expedition that later found the wreckage. The story of La Belle's survivors was recorded in the journal of Henri Joutel, a priest and one of La Salle's loyal followers on the expedition. After the loss of La Belle, the colony was doomed, and La Salle was eventually shot by his own men as he attempted to lead them to France's northern colonies by foot.
A Spanish expedition sent to locate and destroy the French colony discovered La Belle about two years after it had wrecked. Spanish sailor Enriquez Baroto left an account of the wreck site, which he recognized as a French warship. The Belle's deck was awash, and the Spaniards salvaged several iron guns and other goods from the vessel, but apparently did not penetrate very far inside the hull.
[edit] Search for and discovery of La Belle
The wreck lay forgotten for over three hundred years in the dark murky waters of Matagorda Bay. In 1978, the first attempt to discover this historically significant wreck was made by the underwater archaeology program of the Texas Historical Commission (THC). Another THC magnetometer survey was carried out in 1995, directed by then-state underwater archaeologist J. Barto Arnold III. One of the magnetic anomalies identified during this survey turned out to be the wreck of La Belle.
On the first day of diving on this target, in early July 1995, archaeologist Chuck Meide discovered a bronze cannon which, when subsequently recovered, proved that this shipwreck was indeed that of the Belle. The cannon was ornately decorated, and bore the crest of King Louis and the Count of Vermandois, the Admiral of France. A serial number on the gun (and two others found in 1997) was later matched in a French archival record with the numbers of four bronze cannons that had been loaded onto the Belle for the Fort La Salle was to establish.
[edit] Archaeological excavation of La Belle
The team of state archaeologists spent one month diving on the wreckage, documenting its extent and condition, and recovering a number of artifacts. Because of the historical significance of the wreck, and because of the dark waters of the Bay which severely limited visibility for divers, the decision was made to construct a cofferdam around the wreck site. This was a double-walled steel structure, with compacted sand between the two walls, surrounding the entire wreck. The 1.5 million dollar structure was paid for by the state of Texas, though private funding and federal grants would fund much of the subsequent excavation. After completion in September 1996, the water inside the cofferdam was pumped out and the ship was exposed to air for the first time in centuries.
A much larger team of archaeologists, numbering around 20, had been assembled in the nearby town of Palacios and were charged with the complete excavation of the shipwreck, under the direction of Dr. Jim Bruseth. This endeavor lasted from July 1996 to May 1997, and was considered one of the most significant maritime archaeological excavations of its time. As the muddy sediments were carefully removed from the wreckage, many wooden boxes and casks were exposed loaded with a wide variety of artifacts. The Belle had contained all of the salvaged supplies from La Salle's wrecked storeship (L'Amiable) and thus offered a unique insight into the supplies deemed necessary for a successful colonization venture. As this was considered enemy territory by the French (Texas was claimed by their Spanish rivals) and the local Native Americans proved hostile, there was a wide array of weapons on board the vessel, including three bronze cannons, one iron swivel gun, several boxes of muskets, many casks of lead shot and gunpowder, a handful of ceramic firepots (used like hand grenades), and several sword handles. There were also numerous trade goods, including hundreds of thousands of blue, white, and black glass beads, brass finger rings with Catholic religious symbols, brass pins, brass hawk bells, wooden combs, and a barrel of iron axe heads. Tools and supplies such as smelting crucibles, a cooper's plane, a shovel, rope, and long bars of iron stock were also recovered, as were a wide variety of ship's hardware and rigging components. Faunal remains included the remains of salt pork, skeletons of rats, and the trophy skulls of deer, complete with antlers. One complete human skeleton was discovered, that of a middle-aged male with signs of arthritis. Part of this individual's brain was intact, preserved by the anaerobic environment caused by the thick muddy sediments at the bottom of the bay.
All of the artifacts were removed from the hull by the start of March 1997. From that point on, the archaeologists concentrated on the remains of the ship itself. The entire ship was disassembled, each timber being carefully recorded before and after its removal from the hull remains. The timbers were eventually reassembled in a special cradle and vat designed at Texas A&M University, which was in charge of the conservation of all the artifacts from the shipwreck site. The hull is at present still being treated by long-term soaking in polyethanol glycol, a process which will take over ten years. The hull and many of the recovered artifacts will eventually be on display at the new Texas History Museum in the state capital of Austin.
