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coast. There his supply ship, L’Aimable,ran
aground on a sandbar, and a year later his
own ship, La Belle,sank in a fierce storm. To
avoid detection bythe Spanish, he ordered
construction of a fort concealed inside
Matagorda Bay, along Garcitas Creek. From
this base, called Fort St. Louis, La Salle sent
exploring parties into the countryside. He
followed the Río Grande in search of the Mis-
sissippi, possibly as far west as the Pecos
River.
Already reduced by shipwrecks and deser-
tion, Fort St. Louis was devastated by illness.
Rattlesnakes and alligators claimed lives. So
did raids by the Karankawa, who were infuri-
ated by La Salle’s theft of their canoes for his
expeditions. As things worsened, La Salle con-
ceived a plan to find the Mississippi, travel
upriver to Illinois, and return to France via
Canada to get help. He wandered the forests of
east Texas, unable to find the Mississippi.
“This pleasant land seemed to us an abode of
weariness and a perpetual prison,” the priest
Abbé Jean Cavalier, La Salle’s brother, wrote in
his diary. When they returned to Fort St. Louis,
only eight of the 20 men in the search party
remained alive. They were greeted by the news
that the frigate La Belle,their only remaining(^140) B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
The Pueblo Revolts =
Oñate’s venture left Spain with a frail hold on New Mexico. A new capital was
established at Santa Fe in 1610. Settlement along the Río Grande northward
from El Paso to Taos increased. For the next 70 years, forced labor policies
and Franciscan suppression of Native American religions increasingly alien-
ated the pueblo tribes. When a drought further threatened tribal survival in
the 1670s, tensions reached a breaking point.
On August 10, 1680, well-organized surprise attacks on Spanish settle-
ments began throughout New Mexico. The revolt, known as the Pueblo Rebel-
lion, killed hundreds of Spaniards and quickly drove survivors southward to
El Paso. As the Spanish retreated, Santa Fe and other settlements were
sacked. Leaders of the revolt tried to erase every sign of Spanish culture and
Christianity in the region.
The revolt succeeded in keeping the Spanish out of New Mexico until 1692,
when a new governor, Diego de Vargas Zapata Luján Ponce de León, led a
small force along the Río Grande to appraise the chances of retaking the
region. To Vargas’s relief, he was unopposed. When he returned with settlers,
missionaries, and soldiers in late 1693, however, many pueblos decided to
challenge the recolonization effort. Vargas and his force retook Santa Fe in
December after a bloody battle, followed by mass executions and enslave-
ment of Indian survivors. Fitful resistance exploded in the summer of 1696,
when a second Pueblo revolt threw the region into open warfare. As hostili-
ties gradually ended, Pueblo tribes acceded to Spanish control and forged
new alliances with arriving colonists to organize a common defense against
Apache, Comanche, Navajo (Dineh), and Ute attacks.
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