The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 19, July 1915 - April, 1916 Page: 323

THE
SOUTHWESTERN HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
VOL. XIX APRIL, 1916 No. 4
The publication committee and the editors disclaim responsibility for views expressed by
contributors to THE QUARTERLY
THE SPANISH SEARCH FOR LA SALLE'S COLONY ON
THE BAY OF ESPIRITU SANTO, 1685-1689
WILLIAM EDWARD DUNN
So much has been written ,about the work of La Salle in
America, and of his fruitless settlement on the coast of Texas,
that a word of explanation may not be amiss in presenting an
additional article on the subject. Although the main facts of
La Salle's last enterprise have been made familiar by Parkman
and more recent writers, practically nothing has hitherto been
written of the Spanish attitude toward his settlement in the light
of the original sources in the archives of Spain.1 The writer feels
justified, therefore, after an investigation of some nine months
in the General Archive of the Indies, at Seville, in contributing
an article based upon the new material which he has discovered.
No attempt will be made at this time to review even in brief
fashion the well-known facts of La Salle's settlement in Texas,
although additional light is shed thereon by the new material now
1In the September (1915) number of the Mississippi Valley Historical
Review, Professor H. E. Bolton discusses the location of La Salle's colony
in Texas, identifying the site of Fort Saint Louis beyond all further
doubt. Although based upon material from Spanish archives, his con-
tribution is chiefly of a geographical nature, and does not treat of the
period covered by the present paper. Bancroft, in his Nor.th lMexican
States and Texas, Volume I, devotes less than a page to the Spanish
search for La Salle (exclusive of Leon's expedition of 1689), and his
brief account is almost wholly incorrect. Clark's Beginnings of Texas,
the most exhaustive study hitherto published in this field, adds little to
Bancroft's account, and repeats some of the latter's errors.