In the discovery and exploration of North America the sterile, frigid Northeast fell to the lot of France. Verrazano and hardy fishermen dared early the northern seas, but authentic title was won for France by Jacques Cartier, who, in 1534-35, breasted the currents of the St. Lawrence as far as Mont Royale (Montreal) where his progress to China was checked by the Lachine rapids. Nothing successful in the way of exploration and colonization of the country was achieved, however, until the time of Henry IV, when throughout his reign, and next during that of Louis XIV, trader, soldier, and priest carried French influence slowly southward and westward along the Great Lakes, adding the vast possession of Louisiana and, finally, planting a colony upon the coast of Texas.
The connecting link between Canada and the establishment in Texas was the Mississippi river. The rumors of this great river that had been borne to the French by the Indians had worked greatly upon their imagination and multiplied speculation. There were conjectures that it might empty into the Vermilion sea, or that it might flow east and find its outlet in Virginia; 37 but such were set at rest when Joliet and Marquette, in 1673, reached the river and voyaged down it as far as the Arkansas. For fear of capture by the Spaniards these two explorers did not go farther down the river, but they reasonably conjectured that it emptied into the Gulf of Mexico. Their work was crowned by La Salle, who, in 1682, reached the mouth and proclaimed the lands drained by the great river and its tributaries to be Louisiana and the possession of the King of France.
As it had been, previous to his determination of the course and outlet, so afterward more than ever was the Mississippi the chief subject of La Salle's speculations and the inspiration of his movements. His activities in the western part of New France, the consummation of which had been the descent of the Mississippi, had been pursuant to letters patent granted him by the king, May 12, 1678. 38 The discoveries made under this grant were reported by La Salle in a memoir presented shortly after his arrival in France, December 23, 1683. 39
In this memoir there is to be found much in explanation of his return and also the key to his next enterprise. He announced in the beginning of it the happy fulfillment of the wish expressed by Colbert of discovering a port for the king's vessels in the Gulf of Mexico; and for rendering this service he asked to be continued in the title and government of Fort St. Louis—an apparently simple request. This fort was the sole representative of all his efforts and expenditures of the preceding five years. It had been established in this wise. Fort Frontenac on the northern shore of Lake Ontario had begun to prove a disadvantageous situation for the fur trade, since the French traders there could no longer compete for the Iroquois service with the English at Albany; a vast individual trade carried on by the Frenchmen had also disorganized the trade of the company, and both these causes, with the promise of an undeveloped interior, had been instrumental in turning La Salle westward. As a part of this movement he had established, in 1682, Fort St. Louis on the Illinois, and had gathered around it the Illinois and other Indian tribes that sought protection against the hostile Iroquois. These allied savages, more than eighteen thousand in number, formed, he conceived, the beginning of a colony in which they were to be the factors in a great and lucrative trade.
Before leaving this last time for France, however, La Salle had experienced much misfortune in his efforts and faced the prospect of failure in his plans. He had seen his friend Frontenac replaced as governor; the Iriquois threatening an outbreak, thus imperiling trade; his emenies active; his creditors pressing; and to crown all his ill-luck the new governor take possession of both Fort Frontenac and Fort St. Louis, upon the ground that his trading privilege had expired. There was thus a deep significance in the simply stated request for the restitution of his fort.
La Salle proposed in this first memoir to return to the country of his discovery by way of the Gulf of Mexico, to ascend the Mississippi, and to establish a fort on it lower down than Fort St. Louis. He urged this establishment on the grounds, first, that it would be a means to extend to the heathen the services of God; second, that it would serve as a base for the subsequent conquest of New Biscay; third, that it would prove a port for the king's vessels, as well as a key to a vast region highly favored in climate, soil, and every kind of natural wealth. For the execution of this enterprise he asked for one vessel, arms and munitions, and the transport, maintenance, and pay of two hundred men during one year.
La Salle saw in this new country the possibilities for a New France far greater and richer than that of the north. His appreciation of its commercial importance was shown in the detailed account he gave of its products and latent wealth. Everything that had enriched New England and Virginia, such as hemp, salted meat, tallow, corn, cotton, sugar, tobacco, honey, wax, resin, and other gums could be obtained, he said. Cattle could be raised in large numbers. Buffaloes, bear, otters, stags, hinds, roes, lynxes abounded, and the hides and furs of these animals were easily and cheaply procurable from the Indians, who did not know their true value. Forests of mulberry trees foretold the silk industry, and from the cochineal, nuts, vines, and apples there could be made dye, oil, wine, and cider. Horses, oxen, swine, and fowls were to be found in different parts of the country, and their great number would obviate the necessity for any importation. Settlers would be induced to come into this country, he said, because of the ease with which they would be able to maintain themselves by the cultivation of the soil and by the production of articles of commerce. He contrasted, too, the ease of gaining a livelihood in this land of navigable streams with the fatiguing journeys over vagrant courses which the inhabitants of New France were compelled to make in hunting peltries.
These were the considerations uppermost in La Salle's mind on his return. He had left France and had gone to the New World to seek his fortune, and now, after disappointments and difficulties that would have dismayed a less dauntless man, the land of promise lay spread before him.
The exploration of this new and inviting field was a scheme too vast for individual initiative, and to La Salle, whose financial condition was hopeless through his losses, it was particularly impossible. He saw that he must depend upon royal assistance, which it would require very strong inducements to enlist under any circumstances, and especially at this time, as war with Spain was threatened. It is, therefore, probable that La Salle took advantage of the strained relations, and incorporated the designs against New Biscay with its rich silver mines as a politic appeal to the cupidity of Louis XIV, to whom, trusting as he did the fortune of war to the last louis d'or, the prospect of wealth would offer no slight inducement.
La Salle made the feature of the design against New Biscay the subject of a separate memoir. 40 Herein he proposed to fortify a point sixty leagues above the mouth of the river Colbert (Mississippi). In the event war should be declared with Spain he agreed to proceed from this base with two hundred and fifty Frenchmen, fifty buccaneers, and four thousand savages from Fort St. Louis; to attack the province of New Biscay with three different divisions of his army; and, seconded by the subject classes which groaned under the slavery of the Spaniards, to win from the enervated soldiery an easy victory. But should the peace of Europe postpone the execution of this design, still, he maintained, the establishment would be an advantageous commercial post and necessary to prevent anticipation in the new country by other nations.
At about the same time that La Salle presented these memoirs, proposals of a similar nature were made to the court by the Count of Peñalosa, a Spanish renegade in Paris. 41
His first memoir, 42 dated January 18, 1862, proposed the establishment of a colony at the mouth of the Rio Bravo. Besides the advantages such a colony would possess in establishing trade with the neighboring tribes, in raising cattle and producing goods for shipment to France, and in exploiting the mineral wealth the country contained, Peñalosa represented that it would serve as a base for an expedition for the conquest of New Biscay, whenever the king should desire it. The mines of this province, because of the weakness of the armed forces and of the distance from the City of Mexico whence help would be available, could be easily captured, he said, by the filibusters composing his army, assisted by the Indians, mestizoes, mulattoes, and creoles, who were all bitterly opposed to the yoke of Spain.
In January, 1684, shortly after La Salle's arrival in France, Peñalosa submitted another memoir, which contained some modification and amplification of his previous one. Instead of settling at the mouth of Rio Bravo he offered to go straight to Pánuco, and with one thousand or twelve hundred filibusters from San Domingo to seize the Spanish settlement there, and to proceed thence to the capture of the entire province. The facility of the conquest and the ease of maintaining it were plausibly set forth in much the same terms as those in his first memoir. For the success of this enterprise he asked for two vessels, one of thirty-six, the other of thirty, guns, equipped with everything necessary for maintenance and security. He further asked for two commissions, one for himself as governor of all the land he should conquer, the other for the chief of the filibusters as king's lieutenant.
The correspondence in the two plans of La Salle and Peñalosa, the adaptability with which they would lend themselves to co-operation, and stray references forcedly misinterpreted or unduly magnified in importance, have furnished foundation for the theory that the two proposals were combined by the government, that La Salle was dispatched first to execute his part of the scheme, and that the failure of Peñalosa to co-operate was due to the peace of Ratisbon concluded between France and Spain, August 15, 1685. 43 Shea in behalf of this theory goes so far as to contend that La Salle went designedly past the mouth of the Mississippi and landed in the region now known as Texas in order to establish there a base of operations. 44 Such a theory explains away some of the difficulties connected with the subject of the expedition, and apparently its advantage in this respect alone has commended it to some historians; 45 but more difficulties are raised by such a theory than are settled by it, the mass of evidence undoubtedly being against it.
Without here going into the question of the relation that may have existed between La Salle and Peñalosa, it is plain that their proposals so far indicated were separately and individually submitted to the king for the accomplishment of a like design. They seemed each to be bidding in separate and complete propositions for the work of pillaging New Biscay. But in the two memoirs presented later there is an expressed recognition by each of the other's proposal. La Salle in his first memoir had disparaged the plan of attacking Pánuco, 46 thus directly antagonizing Peñalosa, but in what is known as the second proposition there is an incorporation of this part of Peñalosa's plan. “These two different ways of conquering New Biscay,” 47 he says, “could be put into effect without much expense. One of the vessels could be chosen or both together in order to attack the Spaniards of this same province by two different routes. In this case the two vessels demanded for the first proposition 48 would suffice for both, because going across the Gulf together the one would go to Pánuco and the other to the mouth of this new river which is only sixty leagues from it.” 49
This second proposition is concerned almost exclusively with the design against New Biscay. At about the same time—in February, 1684—Peñalosa presented a third memoir 50 in which he devoted himself entirely to the designs against the province, amplifying the details of his plan as before submitted and investing all with an alluring plausibility. He proposed to capture Pánuco, march to the capital city, Durango, then proceed to the seizure of Culiacan on the Pacific. When the mines had been captured and the country fortified he planned that he would apply himself at Culiacan to building ships with which to wage war on the Spaniards. All this, however, was but one of his designs. The other, which was the chief one and which, he said, he had guarded carefully as a secret up to this time, was to get control of the entire country of New Biscay without the firing of a single shot, but by means of letters to the creoles and to his relatives and friends. As indispensable to the success of his plan, he asked to be allowed to start at once for San Domingo that he might arrive there before September. At this time the freebooters would be returning from their voyages, and he could employ the winter in selecting from among them the force which should constitute his army. The two vessels he had asked for meanwhile could winter safely, he said, at Petit Goave, and in April the expedition would be ready to start.
As evidence of Peñalosa knowledge of La Salle's proposal there is contained in this third memoir the following in advocacy of co-operation: “It is very much to be wished that it will please his majesty to send promptly the Sieur de la Salle with the necessary aid, in order that he may go by the way of the Gulf of Mexico to ascend his river and assemble the savages in an army corps with which, from the month of September next, he intends to enter New Biscay. *** The enterprise of the Count of Peñalosa and that of La Salle will serve to support each other. The latter will begin from the approaching winter to spread terror in that part of New Biscay which is along the river he has discovered; and the Count of Peñalosa coming afterward to Pánuco with the little army of filibusters will find it more easy, following his plan, to penetrate to the South Sea; and these two chiefs can accordingly give each other aid to assure their mutual safety, and following the orders of his majesty divide their conquests into two beautiful rich governments, which will bring each year into France considerable riches, and to his majesty a new glory in having extended his victories and conquests into the new world.” 51
A comparison of the preceding memoirs, three from each petitioner if the one of La Salle reporting his discoveries be included, reveals the development of the plan of the enterprise. The first memoir of each, although accentuating the design against the mines of New Biscay, is careful to balance it with the advantages that would arise from a commercial colony. In the second set this latter phase is minimized. Of the two last, Peñalosa's deals exclusively with the plan of conquest and with the wealth to be seized, while La Salle's presents the other feature as well. This divergent way of estimating the value of the expedition can well be ascribed to the difference in nationality and past activity of the two proposers.
The memoirs show in many respects very noticeable agreements. These have reference mainly to the location of New Biscay, to the climate, to the fertility of the soil and the products of the country bordering on it, to the advantages of the conquest, to the ease with which it could be effected, to the number of soldiers in the province and their enervated condition, to the maintenance of the conquest, to the unavailableness of succor from Mexico, and to the revolt of the subject classes. Similarities in respect to these details are taken as internal evidence that there were personal relations between La Salle and Peñalosa. Their presence together at a dining, 52 the recognition of each other's plans as expressed in their last memoirs, and the perfectly natural belief that circumstances would throw two such men together, leave little ground to doubt that there was consultation as to the projects they had in hand. Peñalosa's residence in New Mexico had furnished him above most others with a knowledge of the country such as was indeed pertinent at this time, and unless it is accepted that he is the source of La Salle's information it is difficult to explain the striking correspondence between the memoirs of the two.
In definite support of the theory that coöperation in the plans existed, the last memoir of Peñalosa, in which it was stated that they would support one another, has been advanced. The bold suggestion herein is undeniable, but it is ipso facto a suggestion only. Besides there being no official documentary evidence that it was accepted by the government, there is no corresponding specification of such a thing in any of La Salle's memoirs to afford foundation for the claim. The suggestion is purely from one side and is made with an eagerness suspicious of desperation. Peñalosa probably saw the meagre chance of recognition that such an adventurer as he had against La Salle, and as a last hope resorted to the proposal of linking the plans of the two. La Salle, however, included the plan of attacking Pánuco, and thus striking at the Spaniards by two different routes, as a part of his own single enterprise; and it was offered only as a secondary scheme to his other propositions. He conceived its execution without reference to any coöperative expedition, 53 and failed utterly to accord his fellow petitioner the charity of a recommendation, which oversight was in strong contrast to what was done unto him.
By the assimilation of Peñalosa's plan La Salle disposed of competition, and he must have believed too that his proposition thus complete in itself would appeal by reason of its simpler and more economical way of accomplishment more strongly to the king than would a double and vastly more expensive expedition. The result of the proposal justifies this theory. La Salle was granted a commission by which he was authorized to found colonies in and to govern the vast territory he had explored, from Fort St. Louis on the Illinois river to New Biscay on the south. The number of vessels granted to him was greater than he had asked for to execute the design. Instead of one vessel of war and a bark to be used as a transport, there were appointed two vessels of war, one carrying thirty-six, the other six, guns, a flyboat and a small ketch. This liberal grant on the part of the government, unsought so far as is known, was unusual, and it would have been still more unusual if another expedition was to have followed, requiring likewise a large expenditure.
The correspondence of Beaujeu has been adduced in support of the theory of coöperation. 54 In a letter to Cabaret de Villermont, Beaujeu, referring to La Salle, says: “He told me that we were only the forerunners of the man whom we went to see the morning that we dined at M. Morel's, and that he would surely follow us next year with considerable forces; that the Marquis de Seignelay wished it to be this year, and this had been intended, but that it had been deferred till next year on his asking the rest of this and an experienced man to reconnoiter the parts well.” 55 Those who believe in the theory of coöperation point exultingly to this extract as irrefragable proof of their contention. Accepted just as found, it is as damaging as if it were manufactured for the purpose; but there are considerations which when taken into account give a different aspect to its unqualified reception. So important a declaration as is here found would naturally warrant the inference that Beaujeu was well acquainted with the plan of the expedition and that its purpose had been confided to him, but difficulty in ascribing any such knowledge is found in the very letter from which the above extract is taken. It appears that even so late as that time, June 5, 1684, Beaujeu had no definite idea of what was to be done, but was under the impression that the expedition was to go first to Canada and thence to the Gulf of Mexico.
His wife was a Jesuit and for this reason La Salle distrusted him, fearing that this order should become acquainted with the purpose of the enterprise. Beaujeu in a previous letter to Villermont had remarked upon the suspicion with which La Salle regarded him and the uncertainty in which he was kept as to the object of the expedition. This is voiced more than once in the correspondence, 56 and there can be hardly any other conclusion from it than that La Salle did not tell him the secret of the expedition until the success of the enterprise demanded it. It is thus difficult to reconcile this extract and its implications with La Salle's confessed attitude.
The correspondence between Beaujeu and Villermont was itself a source of suspicion and irritation to La Salle. 57 It was after he had been reproached by La Salle on account of it that Beaujeu confessed in a letter to Villermont that La Salle had not told him the secret of the expedition, and that all he knew about it he had learned from the Holland Gazette. 58 In this confession there is to be had the explanation of much of the matter that Beaujeu palmed off as authoritative disclosures of La Salle, and it is indicative of the conjectural value which may be placed upon that part cited in support of the claim of coöperation.
The essential part of the plan of coöperation as reported by Peñalosa was that he should proceed at once to San Domingo to collect the army of filibusters necessary to the execution of his part of the plan and to put himself in readiness to descend on Pánuco in April 59 of the following year. But the absence of any evidence that he went on any such mission is as noteworthy as the absence of any other evidence to indicate that his proposal received official recognition. 60
The explanation of the failure of coöperation as due to the conclusion of the peace of Ratisbon 61 supposes a delay in the part Peñalosa was to perform that does not at all accord with the urgency he suggested, and which could not well have been disregarded by the government had coöperation been planned. Nor can the stoppage of La Salle at the island of Petit Goave and the report that he transacted “affairs of the utmost consequence” with M. de Cussy 62 be construed to concern the work Peñalosa proposed to accomplish, for it was a part of La Salle's plan to engage filibusters here, and the engagement of these and the affairs generally of the expedition might very well have occasioned this stoppage and the consultation with the governor. 63
There does not occur in any of the journals of the expedition any thought of the Southwest, whence help would naturally be expected from Peñalosa; but, on the other hand, La Salle's efforts were ceaselessly turned in just the opposite direction. Even as late as the beginning of the year 1687, he, consistently with his former movements, turned for aid to far distant Canada, though by this time, surely, if coöperation had been planned and he had had any confidence in his own and Peñalosa's estimation of the weakness of New Biscay—which each had proposed to conquer alone—he might in reliance on Peñalosa's formidable army have sought assistance in that region which according to his confused geographical ideas was very near. 64 It is, indeed, quite impossible to reconcile his movements in Texas with the plan of coöperation; for, even if it were admitted that he had left France in the belief that Peñalosa would follow, there could have been no way by which he had been later apprised of any revocation made by the government in consequence of the peace that had been concluded with Spain.
The extract from the journal of Abbe Cavelier which runs: “We turned all our hopes to the succor that the king might be able to send us from France, and we awaited it in patience till the end of the year 1686,” is cited also in support of the theory that there was to have been coöperation. 65 But it requires a forced interpretation to do this, since the succor might more plausibly refer to that which could well be expected to follow upon Beaujeu's return to France and his report of the misfortunes attending the landing of the expedition on the coast of Texas.
Shea believes that as a part of the plan of coöperation La Salle went designedly past the mouth of the Mississippi to Texas in order “to pave the way for Peñalosa.” 66 The basis for this belief he finds in the journal of d'Esmanville, wherein the latter asserts that in response to the request he made of La Salle for his last resolution, La Salle told him that he was resolved to take some soldiers against the Spaniards in New Biscay, since he was in the country where the king had sent him, but that this should be kept a secret except from the Abbe Cavelier. 67
D'Esmanville was a Sulpitian priest whose timorousness caused him to return to France with Beaujeu, not quite two months after the landing in Texas. It is rather strange that one of his stripe should have been the man of all those composing the expedition to whom La Salle confided his secret, especially when there were others much closer to himself. Then, too, the suggestion that La Salle would under such circumstances embark a handful of soldiers to operate against New Biscay is preposterous. There can be but little doubt that d'Esmanville was seeking to magnify unduly his relation with La Salle, or that he was offering an explanation for his forsaking the expedition.
From Joutel, the reliable historian of the expedition, it is learned that the proposed landing which occasioned the supposed divulgence of confidence on the part of La Salle was due to the need of fresh water and to La Salle's desire to learn something of the country. 68 And not only does Joutel show that La Salle was engaged in seeking the outlet of the Mississippi in the Gulf, 69 but that after entering St. Louis bay (Matagorda) he believed he had reached one of the mouths of the river. 70 La Salle's letters to Beaujeu were dated “a l'embouchere du fleuve Colbert” 71 and only a few days before Beaujeu's departure he wrote to Seignelay that he had reached the western mouth and would soon begin the ascent. 72 Both he and Beaujeu believed that the main mouth of the river was farther east, at the place where they had observed the shoals on January 6th, 73 and where La Salle was prevented from going ashore by the pilots. 74
Minet, the engineer of the expedition, who returned to France with Beaujeu, in a map of 1685, conforms the course and outlet of the river Colbert (Mississippi) to Matagorda bay, 75 thereby indicating that he believed La Salle had reached the river. his doubts about its being an arm of the Mississippi. 76 This expedition to explore the river on which he was situated in order to clear his doubts about its being an arm of the Mississippi.¹ This expedition resulted in the finding of a more desirable location for a settlement, and Fort St. Louis was later established there. 77 From this fort two expeditions were undertaken, one in October, 1685, 78 the other of April 1686, 79 with no other purpose in view but to find the “fatal river”; and it was failure in both of these and need of succor on the part of the colony that led to the third expedition, in January, 1687, which set out for France by way of Canada, 80 and in the early part of which La Salle met his death.
Further proof that the Mississippi was the object of La Salle's efforts is found in the memoir of Sieur de Tonty, commander at Fort St. Louis on the Illinois. Herein he tells that de Denonville, Governor of Canada, had informed him by letter, during the autumn of 1685, that La Salle was engaged in seeking the mouth of the Mississippi, and that this information led to his journey down the river and search up and down the coast for the expedition. 81
The planning in plain and unmistakable terms to go to the Mississippi and the desperate efforts made to reach it not only refute the charge that the landing in Texas was intentional, but connect us with the real purpose of the expedition. The absence of any movements towards New Biscay, which, if coöperation had been planned, could have been as easily made from Fort St. Louis with the assistance of the Cenis savages as from a fort on the Mississippi, is evidence that the design against this province was not as seriouly entertained by La Salle as the memoirs he addressed to the king apparently indicate. Parkman believes that the design was the lure with which he invited the assistance of the king in reaching the Mississippi and establishing there a commercial colony which would command the rich and extensive countries bordering on that river, and that he trusted to the conclusion of peace to prevent its execution. 82 And this conclusion as to the purpose of the expedition seems the most satisfactory one. For the success of this purpose no coöperation was needed, and the claims that such existed are besides, I believe, unsupported by the evidence.
The work referred to above as Shea's Peñalosa's Quivira Expedition appeared in 1882. The full title is The Expedition of Don Diego Dionisio de Peñalosa, Governor of New Mexico from Santa Fe to the River Mischipi and Quivira in 1662, as described by Father Nicholas de Freytas, O. S. F. With an account of Peñalosa's projects to aid the French to conquer the Mining Country in Northern Mexico; and his connection with Cavelier de La Salle. Mr. Shea's introduction to this relation remains the most radical formulation of the theory that La Salle was to have been seconded by the Count of Peñalosa in the proposed conquest of New Biscay. The reputation which Mr. Shea had as a scholar insured its serious reception as a contribution to historical criticism, and the judgment he expressed in it has had more or less acceptance as final among historians. This acceptance is difficult to understand, except on the ground that they, out of confidence in the author, have admitted his theory without investigation; for, the most that has been said in opposition to it has been the mere expression of doubt as to its correctness. There has been no systematic attempt at refutation. Mr. Shea has clearly used this work as a means of making a very sharp attack upon La Salle. Some of his accusations are so slightly founded and so dogmatically presented, that it would seem he had lost his judicial balance and was actuated by a somewhat questionable zeal. The Freytas Relation of the discovery of the country and city of Quivira and other matters relative to Quivira takes up the larger portion of the work. It is this that affords Mr. Shea occasion for the promulgation of his theory. In the Relation, he claimed, was to be found “the real secret of La Salle's last expedition,” but just where and how, he fails to show. It is true he endeavors to identify this Relation with one that La Salle had extracted from the library of M. de Seignelay, which gave a description of the Mississippi river and its mouth, but there is error in susch an identification, as the Freytas Relation contains no descripton of the mouth of the Mississippi. Mr. Shea seems likewise to have gone astray in crediting Peñalosa with having really made the expedition which is described by Freytas. Bancroft has shown well-nigh conclusively that it was an invention which was based on the account of the previous Oñate expedition, supplemented by Indian tales and an active imagination.
The Margry Collection, the title of which is Découvertes et établissements des Français dans l'ouest et dans le sud d'Amérique septentrionale consists of six volumes, the first three of which relate to La Salle. The edition I have used is dated 1879-88. Volumes II and III bear directly upon the Gulf expedition and furnish the most valuable and generally accessible sources that we have relative to the explorer and his enterprise.
In Part I (1846) of French's Historical Collections of Louisiana are to be found the memoir of La Salle (1678) relative to the necessity of fitting out an expedition to take possession of Louisiana, that (1682) reporting the discoveries that were made under the letters patent of 1678, the memoir of Tonty, and Joutel's Historical Journal. In Part IV are Le Clercq's Account of La Salle's attempt to reach the Mississippi by sea, and Douay's Narrative of La Salle's attempt to ascend the Mississippi in 1687.
Joutel's Journal is by far the most reliable and otherwise valuable account of the Gulf expedition, and the different versions of it make a few words of explanation necessary. Joutel, who was the historian of the expedition, and one of the few surviviors, carried this Journal with him on his return to France October 9, 1688. There was no early publication of it, but in 1713 there appeared in Paris a work entitled A Journal of the Last Voyage Performed by Monsr. de la Sale to the Gulph of Mexico, etc., and in etc., and in the following year, 1714, an English translation of the same in Paris and London. This work was in fact nothing but an edited account of what Joutel had written, as it is stated in the preface that his manuscript had been submitted to M. de Michel, who “was a proper Person to judge of it and put it into a Dress fit to appear in publick.” The Journal in its completeness was published for the first time in 1879 in the Margry collection, and when compared with it the previous version is found to be greatly abridged, differently arranged in part, and to contain some additions. The abridgement and difference in arrangement are easily explainable, but there is difficulty in accounting for Michel's source of information for the additions that were made. Mr. French, in his Collections, follows the abridged English edition of 1714, which is, it is unnecessary to say, inadequate to a full and satisfactory knowledge of the expedition so far as it is to be gained from Joutel.
38. French, Historical Collections of Louisiana, I 35.
39. Ibid., I 37.
40. French, Historical Collections of Louisiana, I 25.
41. Peñalosa had been governor and captain-general of New Mexico from 1660 to 1664. He had incurred the hatred of the Inquisition, and had suffered at its hands the loss of his rank and fortune. After futile attempts to reach Spain to demand justice, he put himself under the protection of Louis XIV.
42. Shea, Peñalosa's Quivira Expedition, Introd., p. 12.
43. Winsor, Cartier to Frontenac, 309.
44. Shea, Peñalosa's Quivira Expedition, Introd., p. 22.
45. Winsor, Cartier to Frontenac, 309.
46. French, Historical Collections of Louisiana, I 29.
47. The first of these two different ways is to go to the Mississippi, and in the event of war with Spain, to attack the province from the fort he would establish on the river. The second is the alternate of this one. It provides that La Salle return by way of the gulf to Fort St. Louis, and there put things in readiness to execute his designs when it should please the king to order him.
48. This cannot be construed to refer to Peñalosa's proposition. La Salle's first proposition (see note above) asked for two vessels for its execution, one a regular war ship, the other a bark to transport the men.
49. Margry, Découvertes et établissements des Français, III 58.
50. Ibid., III 63.
51. Margry, III 69.
52. Margry, II 428.
53. Margry, III 58.
54. Shea, Peñalosa's Quivira Expedition, Introd., p. 22.
55. Margry, II 428.
56. Margry, III 434, 438, 450.
57. Ibid., III 438.
58. Ibid., III 441.
59. This corresponds to the season when La Salle thought he would be ready to complete his conquest.
60. Bancroft, North Mexican States and Texas, I 393.
61. Winsor, Cartier to Frontenac, 309.
62. French, Historical Collections of Louisiana, I 89-90.
63. Ibid., IV 189.
64. Ibid., I 28.
65. Shea, Peñalosa's Quivira Expedition, Introd., p. 22; Winsor, Cartier to Frontenac, 313.
66. Shea, Peñalosa's Quivira Expedition, Introd., p. 22.
67. Margry, II 515. This request was made by d'Esmanville in view of the contemplated landing on the Texas coast, January 20, 1685.
68. Margry, III 132.
69. Ibid., II 559; III 123-124, 126, 135, 139, 153.
70. Ibid., III 147; French, Historical Collections of Louisiana, IV 191.
71. Ibid., II 540, 546. See also letter to Seignelay, Ibid., II 559.
72. Ibid., II 559-560.
73. Ibid., III 135.
74. Ibid., III 123.
75. In Winsor's Cartier to Frontenac, 316, this map is shown.
76. Margry, III 164.
77. Ibid., III 163, et seq.
78. Margry, III 189.
79. Ibid., III 122.
80. Ibid., III 260.
81. French, Historical Collections of Louisiana, I 67.
82. Parkman, La Salle, 328.
How to cite:
Miller, E. T., "THE CONNECTION OF PEÑALOSA WITH THE LA SALLE EXPEDITION ", Volume 005, Number 2, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, Page 97 - 112. http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v005/n2/article_2.html
[Accessed Mon Nov 23 13:53:40 CST 2009]
