LA’s French Colonial Era Chpt. 6 Locations for the test • • • • • • • • • Ft. Maurepas (present-day Ocean Springs, MS…near Biloxi) Ft. Mississippi (de la Boulaye) Ft. Louis (present-day Mobile, AL) English Turn Natchitoches Ship Island Dauphin Island New Orleans (in 1718) The German Coast (not labeled in your book…goes from Destrehan up to Edgard) • Ft. Rosalie (present-day Natchez) • Balize (not labeled in book…it was a fort at the very end of the Mississippi River) • Place d'Armes (it’s called Jackson Square in N.O. today) In 1673, French explorers, Louis Joliet and Fr. Marquette, go down the Mississippi…but they stop before they get to LA(present-day) & go back. Why? They’re sent to explore the land & possibly look for a passage to the Pacific Ocean. • Stopped at mouth of Arkansas River on the Mississippi by Indians – Luckily they had a calumet, peace pipe, on them from an Indian tribe upriver & weren’t killed. Joliet: Guns?....Alright, well, um, I guess that’s all there is to see here…whataya say we turn this bad boy around & go home, Maackett? Marquette: Sounds good to me…I’m not afraid or nothin’…I just think, well, you know, Canada has just so much more future potential than this slummy area down here. • Heard from local Indians that the tribes downriver could defend themselves with Spanish guns So someone else had to claim LA for France… La Salle • Rene Robert Cavelier (Sieur de La Salle) • Feb. 1682 entered Upper Mississippi River • April 9, 1682 at mouth of Mississippi, La Salle claims all land drained by Mississippi for King Louis XIV. This Day in Treasure History The Tablet La Salle buried at the mouth of the river…how much do you think it was worth when a Cajun trapper found it in the 1920s? Ooops… • Dude couldn’t read the Latin inscription so he melted it down into fishing weights & buckshot. Captain Henri de Tonti came to the Americas with LaSalle…& he tried searching for LaSalle when LaSalle was missing. Tonti also had the respect of the Indians… • Bravery • He had an “iron hand.” RWB: Dude…Stands With Hatchet…check out this Frenchie with the hook!!! SWH: That is very awesome, Runs With Buffalo. I would very much like to get one of those hands of iron. – Amputated it himself (grenade injured it during war with Spain in Sicily) – Wore a glove over his hook Capt. Hook & Tonti…coincidence? I think not. LaSalle went missing? Oh, no…what happened? Did they find him? Whaaa!? They killed him? Not La Salle! LaSalle’s fateful trip… • King Louis gave LaSalle a fleet of ships and 300 colonists to make a colony in LA. • 1687 – can’t find the mouth of the Mississippi, sails to Matagorda Bay in TX. Location of La Salle's settlement now known as Fort St. Louis. Established roughly 40 miles inland from where the French expedition landed on the Texas coast, the site was intended only as a temporary outpost for the colonists while La Salle continued searching for the mouth of the Mississippi River. Map by Roland Pantermuehl, courtesy of the Texas Historical Commission. Men mutinied & killed him. • He set up a “fort” and tried to find the Mississippi. • 17 men go on this trip, 1 kills La Salle & 7 others at camp • Pierre Duhaut shot La Salle…and Duhaut was killed not to long after. Which would you have chosen? • 6 men decide to return to Canada & the rest return to Ft. St. Louis. With your neighbor…which would you have chosen? • Come up with 1 positive & negative possible result of your decision. • (don’t have to write it down) • The 6 men make it safely to Canada • Those who return & the 20 other men left at Fort St. Louis were attacked by Indians the next year, 1689, along with the women & children. The Karankawa allowed 4 children to live but killed at least 1 infant. – These were raised by the Karankawa Indians So why they called the “explorers”? The sports reporter in Philly thought… St. Jean Baptiste de La Salle Rene Robert Cavelier (Sieur de La Salle)