The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 10, July 1906 - April, 1907 Page: 5
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The Louisiana-Texas Frontier. 5
same province from the mouth of the Rio Grande1 or of the Panuco.
Additional important motives were the desire for a commercial
colony at the mouth of the Mississippi and the conversion of the
natives2, but the attraction of the Mexican mines long remained to
fire the imaginations of French explorers.3
The attempts of Pefialosa and the grant to LaSalle roused the
Spanish Council of the Indies to make an inquiry concerning the
possibility of an invasion from the Gulf of Mexico.4 When the
certainty of LaSalle's attempt became apparent, the viceroy of
New Spain authorized no less than six expeditions by land and sea,
between 1686 and 1689, to find and break up his infant colony,'
but these discovered only the wreck of one of LaSalle's ships to
reward their search. Finally in April, 1689, another land expedi-
tion, under Alonso de Le6n, known in Texas history as the first
entrada, succeeded in reaching the site of LaSalle's feeble settle-
ment some two months after the destruction of its surviving mem-
bers by the Indians." The expedition of the following year burned
this fort and removed all other vestiges of the temporary sojourn
of the French upon the Lavaca River.
That LaSalle's settlement upon the coast of Texas was wholly
unintentional is shown by the fact that he continued long after his
arrival to regard the Bay of St. Louis as one of the mouths of
the Mississippi; and that when he learned his mistake he made
three desperate but unavailing attempts to find "the fatal river."7
The strategic point both for commerce and for warfare, accord-
ing to his various memoirs, was the mouth of the Mississippi, and
Matagorda Bay (his Bay of St. Louis) was too far away to give
him the desired control of this point. His various expeditions
into the interior of Texas, extending as far as the country of the
'That this proposal is largely devoid of geographical significance is
shown by the fact that he confounded the Rio Grande with the Missis-
sippi. Margry, Dcouvertes, III 56-60.
2Margry, III 17-28.
8It appears in the proposal of Tonty in 1694 (Margry, IV 45) to con-
tinue the enterprise of La Salle, and in that of Louvigny in 1697 (Mar-
gry, IV 9-18), who proposes a plan, almost identical with that of Pefia-
losa, to utilize the PAnuco or the Madelaine (his name for the Bravo).
4Historia XLIII, Opesculo VII, Par. I.
Cavo, Tres Siglos de Mexico, II 65-72.
OCarta of Damian Manzanet (Massanet). Translated by Professor Lilia
M. Casis, in THE QUARTERLY, II 281 et seq.
'Cf. Joutel, in French, Hist. Coll. La., Pt. I ('1846) 85-193; Cox, Jour-
neys of La Salle, II 57-132.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 10, July 1906 - April, 1907, periodical, 1907; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101040/m1/13/: accessed March 29, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.