French in Texas?

In 1695 Robert Cavelier de LaSalle of France was to establish a new colony at the mouth of the Mississippi River, but he ended up in the Gulf of Mexico in Texas at Matagorda.  The outpost didn't last long against the native Indians and LaSalle was murdered by his own men.

Spain, however, was alarmed that LaSalle had landed at all.  When the French established a colony at Natchitoches on the Red River in 1714, Spaniards from Mexico dispatched an expedition into east Texas and established missions within the first year, one of them 15 miles from Natchitoches at Los Adaes. 

The name "Texas" comes from the name given the Indians in this region by the Spanish "Tejas" which meant "friendly."  By 1718 the Spanish had founded the pesidio or garrison, The Alamo at Bexard (Mission San Antonia de Valero) at the site of today's San Antonio. 

France remained a threat to the Spanish in the Southwest until 1761 when they teamed up with the Spanish to fight the British in the French and Indian War.  In 1762, France rewarded Spain for her assistance by gifting her the Louisiana Territory in order that the British would not gain control of the land.  The Louisiana Territory actually changed hands several times before becoming part of the United States. 

Next time...Comanche and Apache!
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On this Day in Pioneer History:  On June 6, 1833, President Andrew Jackson boards a Baltimore & Ohio Railroad train for a pleasure trip to Baltimore. Jackson, who had never been on a train before, was the first president to take a ride on the “Iron Horse,” as locomotives were known then.

Go West Young Man!

The fur traders moved westward.  In 1673, Father Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet had reached the
Mississippi River from the Great Lakes region.  They reported an all water route between the northern lakes and the Gulf of Mexico.

This idea inspired others, beginning with Robert Cavalier, Sieur de LaSalle,  who launched an enterprise in 1675 to establish trading posts in the interior to ship furs to Europe via the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi.  LaSalle lost his life trying to plant a colony at the mouth of the Mississippi.

In the 1680s trappers and traders operated out of a base at the head of Lake Michigan, Michillimackinac.  Their miserable work and brutal hardships built a network of Indians alliances that gave France supremacy in the Mississippi Valley and challenged the Spanish in Texas and New Mexico.

Ironically, the gold and furs that won the empires for Spain and France also doomed them to destruction in North America.  Both colonizing powers were bent on skimming the surface wealth from the New World, so much so that they disregarded the unoccupied central coastlands.  Regions between Canada and Florida, with the temperate climate and tillable soil, were necessary to sustain a permanent colony.

Next time...England's good fortune
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Today in Pioneer History:  On August 10, 1846, after a decade of debate about how best to spend a bequest left to America from an obscure English scientist, President James K. Polk signs the Smithsonian Institution Act into law.