The Reason the Spanish FINALLY Began to Colonize 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
 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
Spanish
English
 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
 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
 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 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
 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
New Spain
Until 1688, the only part
of Texas that Spain cared
about was El Paso
First Texas
Mission
Mission Ysleta
And
went
back
to
Mexico
The
Spanish
sent
out
five
Alonzo
defound
Leon
came
upon
De Leon
the
bodies
City
to
tell the
viceroy
that
sea
searches
and
six 1689
land
Ft.
Louis
in
April
of St.
the
French
colonists…
the French
colony
hadthe
marches
to try
to find
been destroyed
colony
and destroy it
The first
mission built
in EAST TEXAS
was San
Francisco de
los Tejas
Louisiana
(French)
Ft. St.
Louis
Alonzo de Leon
The Spanish
was
They
started decided
buildingitSpanish
time to STOP
IGNORING
Missions
in East
Texas in an
Texas and
start
colonizing
effort
to try
to keep
the French
out of Texas
However, when captured pirates told the Spanish
about the French colony at Matagorda Bay
The Spanish
government got
MAD!!!!!!
Mission San Francisco de los Tejas
Mission
Ysleta in
El Paso
http://www.texa
sbeyondhistory.
net/belle/skelet
on.html
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.co
m/texas-legacy.html