René-Robert Cavelier, the Sieur de La Salle, heard the reports of Louis Joliet. He had migrated to Montréal from Rouen in 1666 and established himself as a fur trader. In 1680, he expanded his operations into Illinois country where he and Henri de Tonti built Fort Crèvceœur at the Peoria village Joliet had visited with Jacques Marquette. When Tonti left to build another fort near the Kaskaskia village, the men he left burned Crèvceœur after taking the food stores and ammunition. The Iroquois destroyed Starved Rock. The bands of the Illinois confederacy retreated west of the Mississippi.
The explorer returned in 1682 to rebuild Fort Crèvceœur at the head of navigation on the Illinois river. This time he brought guns and metal tools to trade for furs. Then he and Tonti left to complete the work of Joliet by following the Mississippi to its mouth. As they went, they built posts and made land grants to some of the Frenchmen who went with them, including Michael Accault.
La Salle left Tonti in Illinois while he returned to Paris to secure financing for a Mississippi colonization scheme. He and 300 settlers set sail for the Gulf in 1684. While they were floundering on the Texas coast, Tonti started down the Mississippi. When he failed to meet La Salle, he established a post with the Arkansas in 1686 and left Jean Couture in command.
By 1687, when La Salle was assassinated, many had died. Six straggled north to Tonti’s post and six took shelter with the Caddo-speaking Hasinai in what is now east Texas. Two of those, Jean l'Archevêque and Jacques Grollet, were ransomed by the Spanish in 1688. Two more, Pierre Meunier and Pierre Talon, were captured the next year.
L’Archevêque and Grollet were interrogated in Mexico City, then shipped to a Madrid jail in 1690. In 1692, during a lull in hostilities with France, l’Archevêque asked to be released. The Junta De Guerra de Indias took oaths of loyalty from him and Grollet, then dispatched them back to New Spain. Their enlistment with Diego de Vargas probably was not voluntary.
Meunier was used as an interpreter for Spanish missionaries to the Hasinai, before being sent north with de Vargas. He remained with the presidio at El Paso.
Jean Couture explored eastern tributaries of the Mississippi, went down to Florida, and visited in Charles Town where he made himself available to slave traders interested in adding furs to their export lists. In 1699, he took William Bond west, and the next year he led a group authorized by the governor, Joseph Blake. They made new alliances for slaves and deer skins with the Arkansas, renamed the Quapaw.
Tonti remained in Illinois country. In 1691 he built Fort Pimitéoui near Fort Crèvceœur and the Kaskaskia. Accault returned to the Pimitéoui area in 1693. He married the daughter of the Kaskaskia chief, Marie Rouensa the following year.
Notes: The gouverneur général of Nouvelle-France was Louis de Baude, Comte de Frontenac et de Palluau. Crèvecoeur means broken heart. The Frenchmen were known by Spanish names in Nuevo Mexico: Juan de Archibeque, Pedro Meusnier, and Santiago Grole. The last evolved into Gurulé.
Morrissey, Robert Michael. Empire by Collaboration, 2015.
Thomas, Hugh. The Slave Trade, 1997.
Weddle, Robert S. "Meunier, Pierre," Texas State Historical Association website, posted 15 June 2010, revised 25 November 2013.
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