France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third

F >> Francis Parkman >> France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third

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The Bay of St. Louis, now Matagorda Bay, [Footnote: The St. Bernard's Bay
of old maps. La Salle, in his letter to Seignelay of 4 March, says, that
it is in latitude twenty-eight degrees and eighteen or twenty minutes.
This answers to the entrance of Matagorda Bay.

In the Archives de la Marine is preserved a map made by an engineer of the
expedition, inscribed _Minuty del_, and entitled _Entree du lac ou on a
laisse le Sieur de la Salle_. It represents the entrance of Matagorda Bay,
the camp of La Salle on the left, the Indian camps on the borders of the
bay, the "Belle" lying safely at anchor within, the "Aimable" stranded
near the island at the entrance, and the "Joly" anchored in the open sea.

At Versailles, Salle des Marines, there is a good modern picture of the
landing of La Salle in Texas.] forms a broad and sheltered harbor,
accessible from the sea by a narrow passage, obstructed by sand-bars, and
by the small island now called Pelican Island. La Salle prepared to
disembark on the western shore, near the place which now bears his name;
and, to this end, the "Aimable" and the "Belle" must be brought over the
bar. Boats were sent to sound and buoy out the channel, and this was
successfully accomplished on the sixteenth of February. The "Aimable" was
ordered to enter; and, on the twentieth, she weighed anchor. La Salle was
on shore watching her. A party of men, at a little distance, were cutting
down a tree to make a canoe. Suddenly, some of them ran towards him with
terrified faces, crying out that they had been set upon by a troop of
Indians, who had seized their companions and carried them off. La Salle
ordered those about him to take their arms, and at once set out in
pursuit. He overtook the Indians, and opened a parley with them; but when
he wished to reclaim his men, he discovered that they had been led away
during the conference to the Indian camp, a league and a half distant.
Among them was one of his lieutenants, the young Marquis de la
Sablonniere. He was deeply vexed, for the moment was critical; but the men
must be recovered, and he led his followers in haste towards the camp. Yet
he could not refrain from turning a moment to watch the "Aimable," as she
neared the shoals; and he remarked with deep anxiety to Joutel, who was
with him, that if she held that course she would soon be aground.

They hurried on till they saw the Indian huts. About fifty of them, oven-
shaped, and covered with mats and hides, were clustered on a rising
ground, with their inmates gathered among and around them. As the French
entered the camp, there was the report of a cannon from the seaward. The
startled savages dropped flat with terror. A different fear seized La
Salle, for he knew that the shot was a signal of disaster. Looking back,
he saw the "Aimable" furling her sails, and his heart sank with the
conviction that she had struck upon the reef. Smothering his distress,--
she was laden with all the stores of the colony,--he pressed forward among
the filthy wigwams, whose astonished inmates swarmed about the band of
armed strangers, staring between curiosity and fear. La Salle knew those
with whom he was dealing, and, without ceremony, entered the chief's lodge
with his followers. The crowd closed around them, naked men and half-naked
women, described by Joutel as of a singular ugliness. They gave buffalo-
meat and dried porpoise to the unexpected guests; but La Salle, racked
with anxiety, hastened to close the interview; and, having without
difficulty recovered the kidnapped men, he returned to the beach, leaving
with the Indians, as usual, an impression of good-will and respect.

When he reached the shore, he saw his worst fears realized. The "Aimable"
lay careened over on the reef, hopelessly aground. Little remained but to
endure the calamity with firmness, and to save, as far as might be, the
vessel's cargo. This was no easy task. The boat which hung at her stern
had been stove in,--it is said, by design. Beaujeu sent a boat from the
"Joly," and one or more Indian pirogues were procured. La Salle urged on
his men with stern and patient energy; a quantity of gunpowder and flour
was safely landed; but now the wind blew fresh from the sea, the waves
began to rise, a storm came on, the vessel, rocking to and fro on the
sand-bar, opened along her side, the ravenous waves were strewn with her
treasures; and, when the confusion was at its height, a troop of Indians
came down to the shore, greedy for plunder. The drum was beat; the men
were called to arms; La Salle set his trustiest followers to guard the
gunpowder, in fear, not of the Indians alone, but of his own countrymen.
On that lamentable night, the sentinels walked their rounds through the
dreary bivouac among the casks, bales, and boxes which the sea had yielded
up; and here, too, their fate-hunted chief held his drearier vigil,
encompassed with treachery, darkness, and the storm.

Those who have recorded the disaster of the "Aimable" affirm that she was
wilfully wrecked, [Footnote: This is said by Joutel and Le Clercq, and by
La Salle himself, in his letter to Seignelay, 4 March, 1685, as well as in
the account of the wreck drawn up officially.--_Proces verbal du Sieur de
la Salle sur le naufraqe de la flute l'Aimable a l'embouchure du Fleuve
Colbert_, MS. He charges it, as do also the others, upon Aigron, the pilot
of the vessel, the same who had prevented him from exploring the mouth of
the Mississippi on the sixth of January. The charges are supported by
explicit statements, which render them probable. The loss was very great,
including nearly all the beef and other provisions, 60 barrels of wine, 4
pieces of cannon, 1,620 balls, 400 grenades, 4,000 pounds of iron, 5,000
pounds of lead, most of the blacksmith's and carpenter's tools, a forge, a
mill, cordage, boxes of arms, nearly all the medicines, most of the
baggage of the soldiers and colonists, and a variety of miscellaneous
goods.] an atrocious act of revenge against a man whose many talents often
bore for him no other fruit than the deadly one of jealousy and hate.

The neighboring Bracamos Indians still hovered about them, with very
doubtful friendship: and, a few days after the wreck, the prairie was seen
on fire. As the smoke and name rolled towards them before the wind, La
Salle caused all the grass about the camp to be cut and carried away, and
especially around the spot where the powder was placed. The danger was
averted; but it soon became known that the Indians had stolen a number of
blankets and other articles, and carried them to their wigwams. Unwilling
to leave his camp, La Salle sent his nephew Moranget and several other
volunteers, with a party of men, to reclaim them. They went up the bay in
a boat, landed at the Indian camp, and, with more mettle than discretion,
marched into it, sword in hand. The Indians ran off, and the rash
adventurers seized upon several canoes as an equivalent for the stolen
goods. Not knowing how to manage them, they made slow progress on their
way back, and were overtaken by night before reaching the French camp.
They landed, made a fire, placed a sentinel, and lay down on the dry grass
to sleep. The sentinel followed their example; when suddenly they were
awakened by the war-whoop and a shower of arrows. Two volunteers, Oris and
Desloges, were killed on the spot; a third, named Gayen, was severely
wounded; and young Moranget received an arrow through the arm. He leaped
up and fired his gun at the vociferous but invisible foe. Others of the
party did the same, and the Indians fled.

This untoward incident, joined to the loss of the store-ship, completed
the discouragement of some among the colonists. Several of them, including
one of the priests and the engineer Minet, declared their intention of
returning home with Beaujeu, who apparently made no objection to receiving
them. He now declared that since the Mississippi was found, his work was
done, and he would return to France. La Salle desired that he would first
send on shore the cannon-balls and stores embarked for the use of the
colony. Beaujeu refused, on the ground that they were stowed so deep in
the hold that to take them out would endanger the ship. The excuse is
itself a confession of gross mismanagement. Remonstrance would have
availed little. Beaujeu spread his sails and departed, and the wretched
colony was left to its fate.

Was Beaujeu deliberately a traitor, or was his conduct merely a result of
jealousy and pique? There can be little doubt that he was guilty of
premeditated bad faith. There is evidence that he knew the expedition to
have passed the true mouth of the Mississippi, and that, after leaving La
Salle, he sailed in search of it, found it, and caused a map to be made of
it. [Footnote: This map, the work of the engineer Minet, bears the date of
_May_, 1685. La Salle's last letter to the minister, which he sent home by
Beaujeu, is dated March 4th. Hence, Beaujeu, in spite of his alleged want
of provisions, seems to have remained some time in the Gulf. The
significance of the map consists in two distinct sketches of the mouth of
the Mississippi, which is styled "La Riviere du Sr. de la Salle." Against
one of these sketches are written the words "Embouchure de la riviere
comme M. de la Salle la marque dans sa carte." Against the other, "Costes
et lacs par la hauteur de sa riviere, _comme nous les avons trouves_." The
italics are mine. Both sketches plainly represent the mouth of the
Mississippi, and the river as high as New Orleans, with the Indian
villages upon it. The coast line is also indicated as far east as Mobile
Bay. My attention was first drawn to this map by M. Margry. It is in the
Archives Scientifiques de la Marine.]

A lonely sea, a wild and desolate shore, a weary waste of marsh and
prairie; a rude redoubt of drift-wood, and the fragments of a wreck; a few
tents, and a few wooden hovels; bales, boxes, casks, spars, dismounted
cannon, Indian canoes, a pen for fowls and swine, groups of dejected men
and desponding, homesick women,--this was the forlorn reality to which the
air-blown fabric of an audacious enterprise had sunk. Here were the
conquerors of New Biscay; they who were to hold for France a region as
large as the half of Europe. Here was the tall form and the fixed calm
features of La Salle. Here were his two nephews, the hot-headed Moranget,
still suffering from his wound, and the younger Cavelier, a mere school-
boy. Conspicuous only by his Franciscan garb was the small slight figure
of Zenobe Membre. His brother friar, Anastase Douay; the trusty Joutel, a
man of sense and observation; the Marquis de la Sablonniere, a debauched
noble whose patrimony was his sword; and a few of less mark,--comprised
the leaders of the infant colony. The rest were soldiers, recruited from
the scum of Rochelle and Rochefort; and artisans, of whom the greater part
knew nothing of their pretended vocation. Add to these the miserable
families and the infatuated young women, who had come to tempt fortune in
the swamps and cane-brakes of the Mississippi.

La Salle set out to explore the neighborhood. Joutel remained in command
of the so-called fort. He was beset with wily enemies, and often at night
the Indians would crawl in the grass around his feeble stockade, howling
like wolves; but a few shots would put them to flight. A strict guard was
kept, and a wooden horse was set in the enclosure, to punish the sentinel
who should sleep at his post. They stood in daily fear of a more
formidable foe, and once they saw a sail, which they doubted not was
Spanish; but she happily passed without discovering them. They hunted on
the prairies, and speared fish in the neighboring pools. On Easter day,
the Sieur le Gros, one of the chief men of the company, went out after the
service to shoot snipes; but, as he walked barefoot through the marsh, a
snake bit him, and he soon after died. Two men deserted, to starve on the
prairie, or to become savages among savages. Others tried to escape, but
were caught; and one of them was hung. A knot of desperadoes conspired to
kill Joutel; but one of them betrayed the secret, and the plot was
crushed.

La Salle returned from his journey. He had made an ominous discovery; for
he had at length become convinced that he was not, as he had fondly hoped,
on an arm of the Mississippi. The wreck of the "Aimable" itself was not
pregnant with consequences so disastrous. A deep gloom gathered around the
colony. There was no hope but in the energies of its unconquerable chief.

CHAPTER XXV.
1685-1687.
ST. LOUIS OF TEXAS.

THE FORT.--MISERY AND DEJECTION.--ENERGY OF LA SALLE.--HIS JOURNEY
OF EXPLORATION.--DUHAUT.--INDIAN MASSACRE.--RETURN OF LA SALLE.
--A NEW CALAMITY.--A DESPERATE RESOLUTION.--DEPARTURE FOR CANADA.
--WRECK OF THE "BELLE."--MARRIAGE.--SEDITION.--ADVENTURES OF LA
SALLE'S PARTY.--THE CENIS.--THE CAMANCHES.--THE ONLY HOPE.--THE LAST
FAREWELL.

Of what avail to plant a colony by the mouth of a petty Texan river? The
Mississippi was the life of the enterprise, the condition of its growth
and of its existence. Without it, all was futile and meaningless; a folly
and a ruin. Cost what it might, the Mississippi must be found. But the
demands of the hour were imperative. The hapless colony, cast ashore like
a wreck on the sands of Matagorda Bay, must gather up its shattered
resources, and recruit its exhausted strength, before it essayed anew its
desperate pilgrimage to the "fatal river." La Salle during his
explorations had found a spot which he thought well fitted for a temporary
establishment. It was on the river which he named the La Vache, [Footnote:
Called by Joutel Riviere aux Boeufs.] now the Lavaca, which, enters the
head of Matagorda Bay; and thither he ordered all the women and children,
and most of the men, to remove; while the remnant, thirty in number,
remained with Joutel at the fort near the mouth of the bay. Here they
spent their time in hunting, fishing, and squaring the logs of drift-wood,
which the sea washed up in abundance, and which La Salle proposed to use
in building his new station on the Lavaca. Thus the time passed till
midsummer, when Joutel received orders to abandon his post, and rejoin the
main body of the colonists. To this end, the little frigate "Belle" was
sent down the bay to receive him and his men. She was a gift from the king
to La Salle, who had brought her safely over the bar, and regarded her as
a main-stay of his hopes. She now took Joutel and his men on board,
together with the stores which had remained in their charge, and conveyed
them to the site of the new fort on the Lavaca. Here Joutel found a state
of things that was far from cheering. Crops had been sown, but the drought
and the cattle had nearly destroyed them. The colonists were lodged under
tents and hovels; and the only solid structure was a small square
enclosure of pickets, in which the gunpowder and the brandy were stored.
The site was good, a rising ground by the river; but there was no wood
within the distance of a league, and no horses or oxen to drag it. Their
work must be done by men. Some felled and squared the timber; and others
dragged it by main force over the matted grass of the prairie, under the
scorching Texan sun. The gun-carriages served to make the task somewhat
easier; yet the strongest men soon gave out under it. Joutel went down in
the "Belle" to the first fort, and brought up the timber collected there,
which proved a most seasonable and useful supply. Palisades and buildings
began to rise. The men labored without spirit, yet strenuously; for they
labored under the eye of La Salle. The carpenters brought from Rochelle
proved worthless, and he himself made the plans of the work, marked out
the tenons and mortises, and directed the whole. [Footnote: Joutel, 108.
_Proces Verbal fait au poste de St. Louis le 18 Avril, 1686,_ MS.]

Death, meanwhile, made a withering havoc among his followers; and under
the sheds and hovels that shielded them from the sun lay a score of
wretches slowly wasting away with the diseases contracted at St. Domingo.
Of the soldiers enlisted for the expedition by La Salle's agents, many are
affirmed to have spent their lives in begging at the church doors of
Rochefort, and were consequently incapable of discipline. It was
impossible to prevent either them or the sailors from devouring persimmons
and other wild fruits to a destructive excess. [Footnote: Ibid.] Nearly
all fell ill; and, before the summer had passed, the graveyard had more
than thirty tenants. [Footnote: Joutel, 109. Le Clercq, who was not
present, says a hundred.] The bearing of La Salle did not aid to raise the
drooping spirits of his followers. The results of the enterprise had been
far different from his hopes; and, after a season of flattering promise,
he had entered again on those dark and obstructed paths which seemed his
destined way of life. The present was beset with trouble; the future,
thick with storms. The consciousness quickened his energies; but it made
him stern, harsh, and often unjust to those beneath him.

Joutel was returning to camp one afternoon with the master-carpenter, when
they saw game, and the carpenter went after it. He was never seen again.
Perhaps he was lost on the prairie, perhaps killed by Indians. He knew
little of his trade, but they nevertheless, had need of him. Le Gros, a
man of character and intelligence, suffered more and more from the bite of
the snake received in the marsh oil Easter Day. The injured limb was
amputated, and he died, La Salle's brother, the priest, lay ill; and
several others among the chief persons of the colony were in the same
condition.

Meanwhile, the work was urged on. A large building was finished,
constructed of timber, roofed with boards and raw hides, and divided into
apartments, for lodging and other uses. La Salle gave to the new
establishment his favorite name of Fort St. Louis, and the neighboring bay
was also christened after the royal saint. [Footnote: The Bay of St.
Louis, St. Bernard's Bay, or Matagorda Bay,--for it has borne all these
names,--was also called Espiritu Santo Bay, by the Spaniards, in common
with several other bays in the Gulf of Mexico. An adjoining bay still
retains the name.] The scene was not without its charms. Towards the
south-east stretched the bay with its bordering meadows; and on the north-
east the Lavaca ran along the base of green declivities. Around, far and
near, rolled a sea of prairie, with distant forests, dim in the summer
haze. At times, it was dotted with the browsing buffalo, not yet scared
from their wonted pastures; and the grassy swells were spangled with the
bright flowers for which Texas is renowned, and which now form the gay
ornaments of our gardens.

And now, the needful work accomplished, and the colony in some measure
housed and fortified, its indefatigable chief prepared to renew his quest
of the "fatal river," as Joutel repeatedly calls it. Before his departure,
he made some preliminary explorations, in the course of which, according
to the report of his brother the priest, he found evidence that the
Spaniards had long before had a transient establishment at a spot about
fifteen leagues from Fort St. Louis. [Footnote: Cavelier, in his report to
the minister, says: "We reached a large village enclosed with a kind of
wall made of clay and sand, and fortified with little towers at intervals,
where we found the arms of Spain engraved on a plate of copper, with the
date of 1588, attached to a stake. The inhabitants gave us a kind welcome,
and showed us some hammers and an anvil, two small pieces of iron cannon,
a small brass culverin, some pike-heads, some old sword-blades, and some
books of Spanish comedy; and thence they guided us to a little hamlet of
fishermen about two leagues distant, where they showed us a second stake,
also with the arms of Spain, and a few old chimneys. All this convinced us
that the Spaniards had formerly been here."--Cavelier, _Relation du Voyage
que mon frere entreprit pour decouvrir l'embouchure du fleuve de
Missisipy_, MS. The above is translated from the original draft of
Cavelier, which is in my possession. It was addressed to the colonial
minister, after the death of La Salle. The statement concerning the
Spaniards needs confirmation.]

It was the first of November, when La Salle set out on his great journey
of exploration. His brother Cavelier, who had now recovered, accompanied
him with thirty men, and five cannon-shot from the fort saluted them as
they departed. They were lightly equipped, but La Salle had a wooden
corselet as a protection against arrows. Descending the Lavaca, they
pursued their course eastward on foot along the margin of the bay, while
Joutel remained in command of the fort. It stood on a rising ground, two
leagues above the mouth of the river. Between the palisades and the stream
lay a narrow strip of marsh, the haunt of countless birds, and at a little
distance it deepened into ponds full of fish. The buffalo and the deer
were without number; and, in truth, all the surrounding region swarmed
with game,--hares, turkeys, ducks, geese, swans, plover, snipe, and
partridges. They shot them in abundance, after necessity and practice had
taught them the art. The river supplied them with fish, and the bay with
oysters. There were land-turtles and sea-turtles; and Joutel sometimes
amused himself with shooting alligators, of which he says that he once
killed one twenty feet long. He describes, too, with perfect accuracy,
that curious native of the south-western prairies, the "horned frog,"
which, deceived by its uninviting aspect, he erroneously supposed to be
venomous. [Footnote: Joutel devotes many pages to an account of the
animals and plants of the country, most of which may readily be recognized
from his description.]

He suffered no man to be idle. Some hunted; some fished; some labored at
the houses and defences. To the large building made by La Salle he added
four lodging-houses for the men, and a fifth for the women, besides a
small chapel. All were built with squared timber, and roofed like the
first with boards and buffalo-hides; while a palisade and ditch, defended
by eight pieces of cannon, enclosed the whole. [Footnote: Compare Joutel
with the Spanish account in _Carta en que se da noticia de tin viaje hecho
a la bahia de Espiritu Santo y de la poblacion que tenian ahi los
Franceses: Coleccion de Varios Documentos_, 25.] Late one evening in
January, when all were gathered in the principal building, conversing
perhaps, or smoking, or playing at games of hazard, or dozing by the fire
in homesick dreams of France, one of the men on guard came in to report
that he had heard a voice in the distance without. All hastened into the
open air; and Joutel, advancing towards the river whence the voice came,
presently descried a man in a canoe, and saw that he was Duhaut, one of La
Salle's chief followers, and perhaps the greatest villain of the company.
La Salle had directed that none of his men should be admitted into the
fort, unless he brought a pass from him; and it would have been well, had
the order been obeyed to the letter. Duhaut, however, told a plausible and
possibly a true story. He had stopped on the march to mend a shoe which
needed repair, and on attempting to overtake the party had become
bewildered on a prairie intersected with the paths of the buffalo. He
fired his gun in vain, as a signal to his companions; saw no hope of
rejoining them, and turned back, travelling only in the night, from fear
of Indians, and lying hid by day. After a month of excessive hardship, he
reached his destination; and, as the inmates of Fort St. Louis

[Transcriber's note: missing page in original]

worn and ragged. [Footnote: Joutel, 136, 137. The date of the return is
from Cavelier.] Their story was a brief one. After losing Duhaut, they
had wandered on through various savage tribes, with whom they had more
than one encounter, scattering them like chaff by the terror of their
fire-arms. At length, they found a more friendly band, and learned much
touching the Spaniards, who were, they were told, universally hated by the
tribes of that country. It would be easy, said their informants, to gather
a host of warriors and lead them over the Rio Grande; but La Salle was in
no condition for attempting conquests, and the tribes in whose alliance he
had trusted had, a few days before, been at blows with him. The invasion
of New Biscay must be postponed to a more propitious day. Still advancing,
he came to a large river, which he at first mistook for the Mississippi;
and, building a fort of palisades, he left here several of his men.
[Footnote: Cavelier says that he actually reached the Mississippi; but, on
the one hand, he did not know whether the river in question was the
Mississippi or not; and, on the other, he is somewhat inclined to
mendacity. Le Clercq says that La Salle thought he had found the river.
Joutel says that he did not reach it.] The fate of these unfortunates does
not appear. He now retraced his steps towards Fort St. Louis; and, as he
approached it, detached some of his men to look for his vessel, the
"Belle," for whose safety, since the loss of her pilot, he had become very
anxious.

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