The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 8, July 1904 - April, 1905 Page: 22
xiii, 358 p. : ill., maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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22 Texas Historical Association Quarterly.
cattle, and other stock from our Texas missions, which they believed
to be in existence.'
San Denis stated (declar6) that he had been summoned by the
aforesaid governor for that purpose; that having left Movila [Mo-
bile] with twenty-four Canadian soldiers, he had sailed westward
along the Misisipi River, forty leagues to the fort of San Juan,
of which he was captain for the Most Christian King2; that from
1"And when, by order of His Excellency the Viceroy, the Duque de
Linares, they were taken to Mexico, San Denis showed them a patent
from the governor of la Mobila dated in September of the year [seventeen
hundred and] thirteen [ordering him] to go with twenty-four men to
Texas and buy there cows, horses, and other stock for the Colony of
Luiciana, under the impression that our missions were [still] kept up in
Texas." (Test., Sec. 27.)
In the passport (Patente Luisiana y Septe. 12 de 1715, Memorias,
XXVII, fol. 120) Antonio de la Mota Cadillac, etc., gives permission to
Sefior de San Denis and the twenty-four Canadians with him to select as
many savages as necessary to go to the Roxo [Red] River and to look for
the Mission of Fray Francisco Hidalgo, recollect religious, "according to
his letter written to us on the 17th of January, 1711, to buy cows, horses,
and other stock for the Province of Luisiana."
P6nicaut (Margry, V 495) says that Cadillac's plan in sending Saint-
Denis to Mexico was to see whether it were possible to establish trade
relations between the French and the Spanish colonies.
'The Declaracion (fols. 121 and 122) divides Saint-Denis's voyage into
stages, the first of which was from la Movila to San Juan, "forty
leagues along the Misisipi River to the west;" the second, from San Juan
to the mouth of the Roxo [Red] River, forty leagues along the Misisipi
to the north; the third, along the Roxo to the Nachitoches village, eighty
leagues to the west-in all, one hundred and sixty leagues by water.
Again, describing the voyage more in detail, it says, "Setting out from
Movila, then, in their canoes, they coasted along the shore westward to
the mouth of the Misisipi, or Palizada, River, continuing their course to
the said Fort of San Juan. . . . Coming to this fort, which has a
garrison of twenty men, he went on with the men under his command to
the north, forty leagues, still in his canoe on the Misisipi River, to the
mouth of the River Roxo del Espiritu Santo, which empties into the great
river. . . . From there, changing his course, he went in his canoe
along the said Roxo River eighty leagues to the west."
It is evident that these estimates of the distance Saint-Denis traveled
by water leave out of consideration the distance from Mobile to the
mouth of the Mississippi, which by a rough estimate, not counting the
ins and outs of the coast line, would have added at least forty-five leagues
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Texas State Historical Association. The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 8, July 1904 - April, 1905, periodical, 1905; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101033/m1/24/: accessed May 1, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.