The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 54, July 1950 - April, 1951 Page: 350
544 p. : ill., ports., maps. (some col.) ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
new colonists, apparently hoping to find the Spanish rule prefer-
able to the English, were following the great river to a new
champ-d'asile in a Latin community. From the educational point
of view it is significant that an unpublicized custom obtained in
the Louisiana of over a century ago-the patent for a system of
short cuts in language teaching that preceded by a considerable
margin existing systems like the Berlitz Method, the Ollendorf
Method, the Hugo Simplified Self-Instructor, and the Lingua-
phone Process.
[Translation]
NOTE ON THE FRENCH EXPEDITION TO TEXAS AND TO
THE LAND OF THE ATTACAPAS, WHICH IS STILL
LITTLE KNOWN AND WHICH IS INHABITED
BY A COLONY OF FRENCH CANADIANS
(Extract from the letter of a young French refugee from the
Champ-d'Asile)
We embarked at Livorno May 12, 1817, and after sixty-eight days
of sailing arrived in Philadelphia, where we met Generals Lallemand
and Rigaud and were enrolled for an expedition against the Flor-
idas,8 in accordance with a very secret agreement with the Govern-
ment of the United States.
The American Government had allowed the French emigrants
goo,ooo acres of land situated on the banks of the Tombigbee, on the
frontier of the Floridas, in the Mobile Territory; it was to be divided
into sections of 64o acres and subdivided into half-sections and quar-
ter-sections. But since we had no way of putting the land into culti-
vation, we sold it at a niggardly price to help defray the expenses of
the expedition.o
After a five-month stay in Philadelphia, where we consumed our
little capital, we finally embarked on December 17 on a ship which
was supposed to transport us to our destination, which was a secret
to all but two or three leaders.10 There were ninety of us; and instead
sStrange that this young man did not know the destination. The protagonist of
L'Hdroine du Texas, Edmond, p. 72, knew the destination was Texas and the Trinity
River in particular early in 1817, soon after his arrival in Philadelphia. Perhaps,
as indicated later, only the officers knew the destination.
9This account of the Tombigbee real estate transaction has all the earmarks of
hearsay. It agrees generally with the account in Reeves' The Napoleonic Exiles in
America. The statement is doubtless a repetition of unofficial information because
nothing indicates that the young man was ever ashore in Alabama, Georgia, or
Florida.
o0This is evidently the same ship as the one on which both Girard and Hart-
mann sailed -The Huntress.350
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 54, July 1950 - April, 1951, periodical, 1951; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101133/m1/462/: accessed May 1, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.