Question: Where in Texas did French explorer René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle establish a short-lived colony?
Answer: Matagorda Bay. In 1682, La Salle claimed the entirety of the Mississippi River watershed for France. Two years later, he embarked on a voyage to establish a military outpost near the mouth of the Mississippi. However, navigation errors took him to Matagorda Bay, where he established Fort St. Louis. La Salle began the expedition with four ships and about 300 people. Within two years, the ships were lost, and only 180 colonists were left.
La Salle eventually realized he had sailed past the Mississippi, and he set out on foot to find it with several of his followers, one of whom murdered La Salle in 1687. The colony at Fort St. Louis survived until the following year, when a group of Karankawa destroyed the settlement and killed nearly all of the remaining inhabitants. La Salle’s Texas expedition provided France—and later the United States—a putative claim to the territory that was not resolved until the Adams-Onis treaty was signed in 1819.
