The Man with the Iron Hand

by John Carl Parish

Never had the unconquerable spirit of La Salle met such stubborn blows as now. In the first place the arrangements of the voyage were well-nigh fatal to success, for the company had two heads, each one a man accustomed to command alone and impatient of any other authority. Beaujeu, an old naval officer who was the captain of the fleet, saw little of greatness in La Salle, and looked upon him as a dreamer if not a fanatic. La Salle, leader of the colony, with authority to determine the route to be taken, looked with distrust upon Beaujeu, held his own counsel about his plans, and regarded the captain as his enemy and the chief obstacle to the successful outcome of his mission. Before ever the ships set sail these two men had their quarrels, and on the open seas it was no better.

Years of bitter experiences, of wilderness hardships, of daily and nightly perils, of disappointments and losses, had hardened the temper of La Salle’s will; and these years had not softened a certain coldness and harshness of manner that lost him many friends. Suspicion and doubt of his fellows deepened in his heart with every turn of his wheel of fortune. With all his remarkable power over the Indians, he constantly failed to understand and make himself loved by the men of his own race over whom he was in command. Naturally with his mongrel company of voyagers things went sadly wrong. No one appreciated better than Tonty, as he listened to the tale of the Abbé and Joutel, how adventures and trials such as the party were bound to meet would try each man and show him for a true man, a knave, or a weakling.

At the island of Santo Domingo the Joly made port and lay to, waiting for the balance of the fleet which had fallen behind. There were fifty sick in the company, among them La Salle. But there was much to be done on shore. While walking one day with Joutel in the streets of the little town of Petit Gouave, La Salle was overcome by a sudden weakness and sank to the ground. Joutel took him as soon as possible to a house which had been temporarily rented by the Duhaut brothers, two members of La Salle’s company. Before he was himself again one of the Duhauts rashly told him that Spanish buccaneers had captured one of the four ships, and straightway his sickness returned. Joutel and the Abbé said little to Tonty of the elder of these Duhauts, but in their own minds they thought of him with a hate that had no basis in the tale they were telling.

For many weeks La Salle and his voyagers were delayed at Santo Domingo, gathering supplies for the rest of the voyage. More of the company fell ill; and some, fearful of coming dangers, deserted. At last they got away late in November and sailed west along the southern coast of Cuba. Soon they had passed the long island and turned the prows of their ships toward the shores of the Gulf of Mexico.

Two or three days before the end of the year 1684, they sighted land. Thinking that they were near the Bay of Appalache, they sailed westward, in cold wind and rain and fog, hoping each day to find the mouth of the Great River. Sometimes they landed men to explore a river mouth or lagoon. Once, on the 6th of January, they came to what appeared to be the mouth of a bay with an island in the midst of it, but La Salle, still convinced that the Mississippi was far to the west, pushed on along the coast. As January drew to a close they found the shore line trending more and more to the south, and even La Salle began to think they had gone beyond the river they were seeking.

At length they landed on the shore of a bay where a river ran down to the Gulf, and the perplexed leader of the wandering colony made up his mind that they had found the western mouth of the Mississippi. One of the ships, coming into the bay under the ill-management of the pilot, ran aground and broke apart. In despair La Salle put his men to saving the cargo. Under great difficulties provisions and ammunition were rescued from the fated ship and piled on the lonely shore. Through the long night that followed unfriendly Indians prowled about eager for plunder, and sentinels walked up and down upon the sand keeping watch among the precious boxes and barrels, while the miserable band of colonists tried to get sleep.

Discouraging as was this beginning, greater misfortunes were not slow in coming to the colony. La Salle’s nephew, Moranget, hotheaded and unwise, visited an Indian village with some of the men to trade and to look for stolen property; and when they took leave they made off with Indian blankets and canoes. Upon their return they camped at night, their sentinel slept, and the Indians crept upon them. War-whoops rose in the air and into the group of sleeping white men by the smouldering fire came a volley of arrows, killing two of the company. Moranget finally succeeded in reaching the camp by the shore with the ill news upon his lips and an arrow in his shoulder.

No man knew better than La Salle the evil results that would surely follow such relations with the Indians; but there was no mending matters now. Ill luck blew in every wind; what with keeping constant watch upon prowling Indians, fighting prairie fires that threatened to reach the provisions and gunpowder, and burying along the sandy shore those of the company who fell sick and died, the colony of La Salle was making wretched progress.

Leaving a hundred and thirty of the company in charge of Joutel, La Salle with a handful of men went off to explore. He came back with his own stubborn mind convinced that he was not so near the Mississippi as he had supposed. Beyond a doubt he and all of his men were lost.

Beaujeu and a part of the company had already sailed away; they were returning to France to tell their friends that La Salle was landed on the shore of the Gulf amid hostile Indians and with no certain knowledge of where he was. As a matter of fact La Salle had passed the mouth of the Mississippi by nearly four hundred miles and was camped on the shores of what is now Matagorda Bay in Texas.