We children read Texas history in a book of comic strips, the “Texas History Movies.” That’s where we learned of the Frenchman Robert, Sieur de La Salle, and his wish to establish a city at the mouth of the Mississippi. He’d sailed all the way down the river and claimed everything he saw for France. He brought back a shipload of colonists, but he missed the mouth of the river. The Mississippi wasn’t all that obvious from the Gulf. La Salle landed on the Texas Coast. Fehrenbach the historian describes in great detail La Salle’s troubles and ultimate failure. The little fort he built, at a location unknown until the last century, did indeed fly the Lily Banner, one of the so-called Six Flags Over Texas.
Don Alonso de Leon, Governor of Coahuila, got wind of LaSalle’s colony. Mexico didn’t want any truck with Texas – the Apaches were too vicious – but he didn’t want the French to have Texas either. So Don Alonso too a hundred men and set out along the Texas coast.
He found La Salle’s fort – St Louis, he’d named it. All the colonists and soldiers were dead or captured by the Karankawa Indians who lived nearby. Some soldiers had gone native; some women found new husbands. Don Alonso thought it might be a good idea to create a Mission or two – keep the French out.
The new Texas history volume by Stephen Harrigan tells the story in reverse. Harrigan opens with his personal visit to the site of LaSalle’s fort. He describes his trip down Garcitas creek to the site, now on private property, overgrown and overrun with mosquitoes. Harrigan then quotes Don Alonso’s report; the corpses he found at the fort and details about the colonists.
Thus the writer of fiction manages to bring life to the ancient tale. Good for him!
Dac Crossley
January 23, 2020
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.” – Thomas Pynchon.
Like Athens, we are experiencing cold weather here. Iguanas are frozen and falling out of trees! This is a good day to put on your wool socks and read an interesting blog like this one and follow up with a good murder mystery.
Posted by: Lesley A. Diehl | January 23, 2020 at 05:28 PM