|
French castaway reaches Natchitoches
On this day in 1721, the castaway François Simars de Bellisle reached
the French post at Natchitoches after a year and a half of wandering
across Texas. Bellisle was an officer on the Maréchal d'Estrée,
which ran aground near Galveston Bay in the autumn of 1719. He and four other
men were put ashore to ascertain their position and seek help, but were
left behind when the ship floated free and sailed away. That winter the
Frenchmen were unable to kill enough game to sustain themselves. One by
one, Bellisle's companions died of starvation or exposure. When he at
last encountered a band of Atakapa Indians on an island in the bay, they
stripped him of his clothing, robbed him of his possessions, and made
him a slave. But they fed him, and he remained with them throughout the
summer of 1720, traversing "the most beautiful country in the world."
When a group of Bidai Indians came to the Atakapa camp, Bellisle managed
to write a letter and give it to the visitors with instructions to
deliver it to "the first white man" they saw. The letter, passed from
tribe to tribe, at last reached Louis Juchereau de Saint-Denis at Fort
Saint-Jean-Baptiste (Natchitoches). Saint-Denis sent the Hasinais to
rescue the French castaway. Bellisle returned to the Texas coast with
Jean Baptiste Bénard de La Harpe in the summer of 1721 and served as an
interpreter among the natives, "who were quite surprised at seeing their
slave again." Bellisle remained in the Louisiana colony until 1762 and
died in Paris the following year.
- Links to Related Handbook of Texas Online Articles
- BELLISLE, FRANCOIS SIMARS DE
- NATCHITOCHES, LOUISIANA
- ATAKAPA INDIANS
- BIDAI INDIANS
- ST. DENIS, LOUIS JUCHEREAU DE
- HASINAI INDIANS
- LA HARPE, JEAN BAPTISTE BENARD DE
- FRENCH
- Other Texas Day by Day Articles for This Date
- Legislature confirms South Texas land grants (1852)
- "Madam Candelaria" dies at age 113 (1899)
|
