means of escape by sea, had been wrecked in
their absence.
Marooned and with only 45 settlers now
alive, La Salle had no choice but to make
another attempt to reach Canada. Leaving half
the weakened settlers behind, he marched
eastward in January 1687. Throughout his trav-
els, LaSalle’s aristocratic arrogance had fre-
quently alienated others. In the wilderness, this
proved fatal. Mutineers in a scouting party
murdered three of their fellows on March 18
near the Trinity River. When La Salle came look-
ing for the scouts the following day, he was shot
to death.
As they moved on, the mutineers killed
each other or joined Indian tribes. La Salle’s
aide Henri Joutel led survivors uninvolved in
the revolt to the Arkansas River, where they
unexpectedly came upon Frenchmen allied
with Henri de Tonti, who had been searching
the nearby Mississippi for La Salle for more
than a year. Joutel reached France and
appealed for help, but Louis XIV would not
send aid to Fort St. Louis. Joutel remained in
France, where his journal circulated among
future explorers, such as Pierre Le Moyne
d’Iberville, and remains an important source
of information about the period.New Mexico and the Gulf Coast B 141
The Pueblo Rebellion involved Native Americans in pueblos in present-day New
Mexico and Arizona, such as the Taos Pueblo, shown in an early 20th-century
photograph. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USF34-002901])