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La Salle and the Fickle Gulf Currents         
 

by Robin Montgomery

Over the last several months, the swirling currents of the Gulf of Mexico have brought unwanted oil and
devastation to southern shores. In the 17th century, a miscalculation of these same currents by an explorer from one European country led expeditions of a rival European country to pass through our area bent upon
occupying East Texas. 

In February of 1685 René Robert Cavelier Sieur de La Salle, thinking he was near the mouth of the Mississippi River, sailed into Matagorda Bay far to the west of his target. Bazaar circumstances leaving him with none of his four ships, there his expedition was stranded.  But why would a seasoned explorer make such a glaring mistake of direction, when just three years earlier he had led an expedition from Canada to the mouth of the Mississippi?  As a result of that mighty feat, he had staked a claim to all territory drained by the great river for his native France, naming the huge territory Louisiana.

Several reasons for the miscalculation have been advanced. One of these is that he sought to co-opt the silver mine industry of northern Mexico, or New Spain as it was then called. Evidence for this position is seen in La Salle’s first effort by land to find the Mississippi. Instead of marching east, the correct direction, he charted a
westerly course, indeed toward the area of the mines, but soon to return.

Finally convinced that the Mississippi was to his east, he engaged several trips, unsuccessfully, in that direction. But the question remains, why did he make the initial mistake of by-passing the Mississippi? Further speculation is that upon reaching the mouth of the Mississippi on his earlier voyage, his compass had malfunctioned distorting his calculations.

This leads us, finally, to the nature of the currents of the gulf as the cause of his misadventure. One of the leading authorities on La Salle, William Foster, states the following in his book, The La Salle Expedition in Texas:  “Unknown to the French at that time, the Gulf surface currents move westward, not eastward, during the winter moths in the area the small French fleet crossed and in the coastal area La Salle first reached.”

La Salle paid for the misreading of the water’s flow with his life. On 19 March, 1687, near the present city of
Navasota, La Salle met death at the hands of a disgruntled group of his own followers. But his landing in territory claimed by New Spain led that country three years later to address the French threat from Louisiana by occupying East Texas.

The impact of the gulf currents on Texas history is profound.

Thank you.


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