Irrelevant Moments in History

Throughout history stories of great courage, enterprise, sacrifice and dedication have inspired people to go further, reach higher and achieve more.  Looking back on the achievements of their ancestors has motivated people to even greater efforts.  Truly we stand on the shoulders of giants. Nobody seems to have asked the giants if they're ok with that.

Then there are the others, those whose great courage, enterprise etc etc was totally misplaced.  The hapless would be achievers who would have set a better example for the human race if they had simply stayed home in bed.  Some people split the difference by trawling wikipedia for tales of inadequate woe and then posting them on their blog as an alternative to coming up with a bright idea themselves.  Welcome gentle reader to Irrelevant Moments in History!

Today marks the 334th anniversary of the day Texas might have become French, but didn't.  I can almost hear my French and Texan readers both giving a sigh of relief and muttering about a bullet dodged.

The French claim to Texas was established on this date by accident.  Some French guy (according to wikipedia it was a failed Jesuit, Rene-Robert Cavelier) led a four ship convoy with the intention of establishing a colony at the mouth of the Mississippi River.  Since the mouth of the Mississippi was even more of a low rent destination then than it is now it would appear his principal motivation was to piss off the Spanish with whom the French were at war.  Unfortunately for him the war ended shortly after he set out on the expedition and the whole business went from a clandestine operation against Spanish colonies to a dreadful embarrassment that the king of France hoped nobody would ever find out about.  One suspects he wouldn't have been too upset to learn that the entire expedition sank en route.  It might as well have.

After a tedious journey across the Atlantic which Cavelier enlivened by arguing with the naval officer who was commanding the ships the would be colonists pitched up in the Caribbean.  Here the aforementioned naval officer got his revenge by inciting pirates to attack and plunder one of the ships.  Now desperately short of supplies and funds the remaining wallowed haplessly into the Gulf of Mexico despite the fact that nobody on board had ever been there before and no one had any maps.  A combination of currents, winds and the fact that Cavelier made a minor navigation error resulted in the colonists being dumped on a piece of unwelcoming shore some four hundred miles away from their intended destination.  The French had arrived in Texas.  One of the first things they did on arrival was accidentally run one of their remaining ships aground on a sandbar.

The naval commander having decided that he had fulfilled his contractual obligations by beaching the colonists on a random piece of North America took one of the ships and went home.  This left the colonists with one ship, no real idea of where they were and a bunch of distinctly hostile Native Americans staring at them with a combination of disbelief and disapproval.  It soon became obvious that their locality was a lousy place for a colony but that was ok because they were lousy colonists. In between bouts of illness, fights with the natives, and desperate attempts to find the Mississippi (towards the end they were just desperate attempts to find anyone who wouldn't kill them on sight) the colonists relocated to a slightly more acceptable place some fifty odd miles away. 

In their new location the colonists built a settlement with wood dragged in from elsewhere.  There were actually trees in the new location but apparently they managed to find an area where the trees were not suitable for lumber.  It's also possible they forgot to bring an axe.  With the new settlement up and stumbling the colonists celebrated by running their last ship aground as well.  Expeditions were sent out to find the Spanish, the French or indeed even a vague conception of where they actually were but none were successful.  Strangely morale seemed to take a bit of a dive.

With people dying from native attacks, illness, incompetent exploring, internal bickering and eating prickly pears Cavelier decided that the remaining able bodied people should strike out for the already French part of North America to get help.  The women, the children and those he just didn't like were left behind.  With the exception of a couple of the kids they were all killed by the natives.  The natives would probably have killed the people with Cavelier as well if they hadn't preempted the matter by doing it themselves.  There was a mutiny and Cavelier was killed, for good measure the survivors then managed to kill each other until there were only a handful left (I use the term "survivor" in a relative sense). 

At some point the king of France had been informed of the dire state of his newest colony, his response was to do precisely nothing.  In fact the only people to do anything were the Spanish.  Having been informed by a deserter that the French were up to naughty things in a part of the world given to them by the pope the Spanish sent out several expeditions to find this colony and remove it.  By the time they stumbled on to the ruins of the colony the Native Americans had already effectively removed it leaving the Spanish with nothing to do but bury the dead and chuckle under their breath.

Possibly the only lasting effect of Cavelier's misbegotten attempt at colonisation occurred during the Louisiana Purchase when the Americans tried to persuade the Spanish that the former colony meant that Texas was included in the French territory they had just acquired.  The Spanish suggested they take Florida instead.  For some reason the Americans agreed.