TEXAS — So much of the food, language, music and culture that surrounds us in Texas clearly points to the Spanish and Mexican influences that shaped the Lone Star State. Surprisingly, a lot of that is thanks to a different country: France.
In 1685, Texas had been under Spanish rule for over 100 years, but the area was mostly untouched. Until the lost French explorer La Salle piqued Spain’s interest.
“France and Spain are at war with one another, and a base at the mouth of the Mississippi would give France the ability to menace Spanish trade, Spanish colonies,” said Glenn Dives, collections manager at the Museum of Coastal Bend in Victoria.
“And La Salle explicitly in his petitions to the French government, highlights attacking the silver mines of Northern Mexico,” he said.
A French city at the mouth of the Mississippi River would eventually come to life in New Orleans, Louisiana, but not before La Salle accidentally landed in Victoria, Texas. Dives describes the settlement attempts as a “successful failure,” with the failures starting early.
“Six months into the attempt to found the colony, the La Belle also sinks, which is what then isolates the French completely,” Dives said.
La Belle was the last remaining ship that carried nearly 200 settlers from France. Without it, they were stuck with little food, water or resources. Many of the colonists died of starvation and disease at Fort St. Louis.
When the Spaniards found the remains of the fort, they buried what was left and started establishing their own missions north of the Rio Grande. This is the part Dives says could be viewed as the “success.”
“[If] the French don’t attempt to colonize here, there is probably no Alamo, no San Antonio, none of the Spanish and Hispanic history of Texas begins,” Dives said. “His ambitions, his dreams, his schemes, were as big as the Mississippi. They didn’t necessarily work out for him in his lifetime, but certainly for modern U.S. history, it stems directly from his success and his failures.”