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Jean L’Archeveque
L'ARCHEVÊQUE, JEAN (1672–1720). Jean L'Archevêque, explorer, soldier, and trader, was born on September 30, 1672, at Bayonne, France, the son of Claude and Marie (d'Armagnac) L'Archevêque. In 1684, at the age of twelve, he joined the expedition of René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, and accompanied him on his expedition to reach the Mississippi. They landed instead at Matagorda Bay on the Texas coast on February 20, 1685. A member of the group that assassinated La Salle, L'Archevêque was one of six members of the expedition that stayed with the Hasinai Indians. In 1689 he and Jacques Grollet were the only two who agreed to meet and be rescued by Alonso De León. Taken first to Mexico City and then to Spain, they were imprisoned for thirty months and then allowed to return to America upon swearing to serve the Spanish King. On June 22, 1694, L'Archevêque arrived in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with a group of colonists from Mexico City. In 1697 he married a widow, Antonia Gutiérrez, and they had one son and a daughter, MarÃa. Antonia died, probably in 1701. In 1701 L'Archevêque purchased a landed estate in Santa Fe, but continued as a soldier. He was a scout with Juan de Ulibarri in 1704 and in 1714 a member of a junta.
“In the heart of the 18th century, New Mexico unveiled its secrets, a land where adobe whispers tales of ancient pueblo life, where the scent of sagebrush danced in the wind, and where the rugged landscapes bore witness to the enduring spirit of exploration.”
Captain Juan dede Archibeque
On August 16, 1719, the governor attended the wedding of "Captain Juan de Archibeque" to Doña Manuela Roybal, the daughter of alcalde Ignacio de Roybal. L'Archevêque had retired from the military and become a successful trader, with operations as far south as Sonora; his business required occasional trips to Mexico City. He was assisted by Miguel (his son with Antonia), and AgustÃn (an illegitimate son). A third son was born in 1719 to a servant girl before his marriage. On June 17, 1720, L'Archevêque joined the military force of Don Pedro de Villasur on an expedition against the Pawnees led by Don Antonio Valverde de Cosio. The Pawnees reportedly were led by a Frenchman, and L'Archevêque was to act as an envoy with the Pawnees by interpreting letters from the Frenchman. On August 20, 1720, the Pawnees suddenly attacked, catching the Spanish unprepared; most were killed, including L'Archevêque. He was left unburied on the banks of an unknown river. His estate was valued at 6,118 pesos.
LA SALLE EXPEDITION. René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, sailed from Rochefort, France, on August 1, 1684, to seek the mouth of the Mississippi River by sea. This new voyage of four ships and more than 300 people at the start was a follow-up to La Salle's 1682 exploration of the Mississippi from the mouth of the Illinois River to the Gulf of Mexico. Having first departed from La Rochelle on July 24, the fleet was forced to make port at Rochefort for repairs to the Royal Navy escort vessel Joly. With Spain and France at war, La Salle planned to establish a colony sixty leagues up the river as a base for striking Mexico, afflicting Spanish shipping, and blocking English expansion, while providing a warmwater port for the Mississippi valley fur trade. He planned to settle near the Taensa Indians, whose villages lined Lake St. Joseph in Tensas Parish, Louisiana. The war with Spain ended two weeks after La Salle sailed. The word did not overtake him during his pause at Petit Goâve (Haiti), and he proceeded into the Gulf—historically an exclusively Spanish sea—believing that the war was still on.
From the start the expedition was plagued by misfortune, including dissension among the leaders, loss of the ketch Saint François to Spanish privateers, defections, and, finally, La Salle's failure to find the Mississippi. After putting soldiers ashore to reconnoiter the Texas coast at Cedar Bayou, he landed the colonists at Matagorda Bay, which he deemed the "western mouth of the Colbert River," on February 20, 1685. After the storeship Aimable was lost in Pass Cavallo at the mouth of the bay, her crew and several disenchanted colonists, including the engineer Minet, returned to France with the naval vessel Joly. By the time a temporary fort was built on the eastern end of Matagorda Island, a series of other misfortunes had reduced the number of colonists to 180. As the work of building a more permanent settlement progressed, many succumbed to overwork, malnutrition, and Indians, or became lost in the wilderness. In late winter 1686 the bark Belle, the only remaining ship, was wrecked on Matagorda Peninsula during a squall.
The La Salle expedition, as the first real European penetration of the Texas-Louisiana Gulf shore since Narváez and De Soto, had far-reaching results. Primarily, it shifted the focus of Spanish interest from western Texas—where Juan DomÃnguez de Mendoza and Fray Nicolás López had urged missions for the Edwards Plateau region—to eastern. Underscoring the Spaniards' own geographical ignorance, it brought a rebirth of Spanish exploration of the northern Gulf shore, which had faltered for almost a century, and advanced the timetable for occupation. Additionally, it established in the minds of the French a claim to Texas that refused to die; thenceforth, until the French were eliminated from colonial rivalry, virtually every Spanish move in Texas and the borderlands came as a reaction to a French threat, real or imagined. La Salle's entry also gave the United States leverage, tenuous though it was, to claim Texas as part of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase and gave rise to a protracted border dispute between the United States and Spain that was settled only with the Adams-OnÃs treaty of 1819.
The LA SALLE EXPEDITION came and stayed
The La Salle expedition, as the first real European penetration of the Texas-Louisiana Gulf shore since Narváez and De Soto, had far-reaching results. Primarily, it shifted the focus of Spanish interest from western Texas—where Juan DomÃnguez de Mendoza and Fray Nicolás López had urged missions for the Edwards Plateau region—to eastern. Underscoring the Spaniards' own geographical ignorance, it brought a rebirth of Spanish exploration of the northern Gulf shore, which had faltered for almost a century, and advanced the timetable for occupation. Additionally, it established in the minds of the French a claim to Texas that refused to die; thenceforth, until the French were eliminated from colonial rivalry, virtually every Spanish move in Texas and the borderlands came as a reaction to a French threat, real or imagined. La Salle's entry also gave the United States leverage, tenuous though it was, to claim Texas as part of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase and gave rise to a protracted border dispute between the United States and Spain that was settled only with the Adams-OnÃs treaty of 1819.
