While these things were taking place in an obscure corner of the New
World, there was commotion in the court of Spain. Word had come over
from the “Golden West” that France had laid an unlawful hand upon some
of the Spanish possessions there. Letters flew thick and fast between
the Spanish viceroy in Mexico and the Spanish king’s[5] ministers. The
Viceroy was ordered to punish the offenders as soon as ever they could
be found; the dark-browed king of Spain was very angry.
All this stir was caused by the capture of the _St. Francis_, La Salle’s
little store-ship in 1684. She was plainly on her way to some new
colony. But where had that colony been planted? The wary captain of the
_St. Francis_ said that he did not know. Perhaps he told the truth. At
any rate, it was not until 1686 and after a world of trouble that the
Viceroy in Mexico located the spot of La Salle’s settlement. Spain
considered herself at that time the legitimate owner of all that region
which we now call Texas; she pretended, indeed, to own everything
bordering on the Gulf of Mexico. A military council was therefore held
at the new post of Monclova, and Captain Alonzo de Leon, the newly
appointed governor of Coaquila (afterwards called Coahuila)
(Co-ah-wee′-la), was dispatched to find and destroy La Salle and his
colony. La Salle, with a bullet in his brain, had been lying for two
years in his shallow grave near the Neches River; but the Viceroy did
not know this.
Captain De Leon and his hundred soldiers marched gaily and confidently
from Monclova in a northeasterly direction, across wild prairie and
savage woodland. They were used to the ways of the Comanches, through
whose hunting grounds they marched, and, at need, could take scalp for
scalp; they were well fed and comfortably clad; the King’s pay jingled
in their pockets,—a brave contrast truly to the starved, ragged,
disheartened colonists at Fort St. Louis!
But when Captain De Leon and his men at length found the fort, the
unfortunate French colonists, like their chief, had perished. Their
bleaching bones lay scattered about the door of the blockhouse, where
they had made their last desperate stand against the bloodthirsty
Carankawaes. De Leon’s heart stirred with pity as he looked about him,
thinking less, perhaps, of the men—for it is a soldier’s business to
die—than of the delicate women who had shared their fate.
With the Cenis, into whose friendly wigwams they had escaped at the time
of the massacre, De Leon found several of the colonists. These were
afterwards sent back to their homes in France. But among them there is
no mention of the Sieur Barbier and his young bride.
[Illustration: The Flag of Spain.]
De Leon, it is said,—though this is a much disputed fact,—called the
country about Fort St. Louis Texas, because of his kindly treatment by
the Cenis Indians, the word _Texas_ in their tongue meaning friends.[6]
On his return to Monclova, he pictured this Texas as a paradise so
fertile and so beautiful that the viceroy determined to establish there
a mission and presidio,—that is to say, a church and stronghold,—for the
double purpose of reducing and converting the Indians.
In 1690 Captain De Leon, with several priests added to his company of
soldiers, marched again to Fort St. Louis. The broken walls were
restored, and once more the air rang with the cheerful sounds of axe and
hammer. The Mission of San Francisco was begun and dedicated; the
Spanish flag fluttered in the breeze; a hymn of praise and thanksgiving
arose from the chapel; and De Leon took formal possession of the country
in the name of the King of Spain.
The Spaniards, harried by the Indians and too far from Monclova to
receive regular supplies, were soon forced to abandon Fort St. Louis.
Great was the rejoicing among the Lipans and the Carankawaes when the
pale faces disappeared from among them, leaving the bay once more free
to their own canoes, the prairies open to their moccasined feet.
Neither France nor Spain for a time seemed inclined to trouble herself
further about this disputed property.
But in 1719 a French ship bound for the Mississippi drifted, like La
Salle’s fleet, westward to the bay of San Bernard. Among those who went
ashore for recreation, while the sailors were taking on fresh water,
were Monsieur Belleisle, a French officer, and four of his friends. They
did not reappear at the appointed signal, and the captain, after waiting
for them for some hours, sailed away without them.
Belleisle and his companions were in despair at finding themselves thus
abandoned; they wandered for weeks along the strange and lonely coast,
living, as best they could, upon roots, berries, and insects. Finally
four of the men died of starvation, leaving Belleisle alone. Weak and
despairing, he made his way to the interior, where he soon fell into the
hands of some Indians, whom he took at first to be cannibals. They
stripped him and divided his clothing among themselves; but instead of
eating him, as he expected they would do, they gave him to an old woman
of the tribe, who made him her slave but who otherwise treated him with
rude kindness. In time he learned the language of his captors and became
a warrior, sometimes even leading their savage forays.
One day an embassy from another tribe came to the camp. Belleisle,
listening to their talk, heard the name of St. Denis. Now St. Denis was
one of his own former comrades-in-arms. Belleisle’s heart leaped. He
wrote, with ink made of soot, a few lines on his officer’s
commission,—which he had somehow kept,—and secretly bribed one of the
strange Indians to carry this message to St. Denis. St. Denis happened
at the time to be at Natchitoches (Nack-ee-tosh) beyond the Sabine
River; when he read the note he was much affected. He immediately sent
horses, arms, and clothing to the captive; Belleisle, by means of a
strategy, escaped with the Indian guides and joined his friend.
This adventure of Monsieur Belleisle caused him later to become a part
of the history of Fort St. Louis.