The Wreck of the Belle, the Ruin of La Salle PDF Download

Author: Robert S. Weddle
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
The acclaimed historian Robert Weddle reveals the true story of the explorer La Salle and his ship the Belle. An in depth history of the exploration of La Salle and the archaeological dig of the vessel La Belle.

Author: James E. Bruseth
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 1623493625
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 916

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Book Description
In 1995, Texas Historical Commission underwater archaeologists discovered the wreck of La Salle’s La Belle, remnant of an ill-fated French attempt to establish a colony at the mouth of the Mississippi River that landed instead along today’s Matagorda Bay in Texas. During 1996–1997, the Commission uncovered the ship’s remains under the direction of archaeologist James E. Bruseth and employing a team of archaeologists and volunteers. Amid the shallow waters of Matagorda Bay, a steel cofferdam was constructed around the site, creating one of the most complex nautical archaeological excavations ever attempted in North America and allowing the archaeologists to excavate the sunken wreck much as if it were located on dry land. The ship’s hold was discovered full of everything the would-be colonists would need to establish themselves in the New World; more than 1.8 million artifacts were recovered from the site. More than two decades in the making, due to the immensity of the find and the complexity of cataloging and conserving the artifacts, this book thoroughly documents one of the most significant North American archaeological discoveries of the twentieth century.

Author: Robert S. Weddle
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 029277396X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 149

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Book Description
When Robert Cavelier, sieur de La Salle, landed on the Texas coast in 1685, bent on founding a French colony, his enterprise was doomed to failure. Not only was he hundreds of miles from his intended landfall—the mouth of the Mississippi—but his supply ship, Aimable, was wrecked at the mouth of Matagorda Bay, leaving the colonists with scant provisions and little protection against local Indian tribes. In anger and disgust, he struck out at the ship's captain, Claude Aigron, accusing him of wrecking the vessel purposely and maliciously. Captain Aigron and his crew escaped the doomed colony by returning to France on the warship that had escorted the expedition on its ocean crossing. Soon after reaching France, Aigron found himself defendant in a civil suit filed by two of his officers seeking recompense for lost salary and personal effects, and then imprisoned on order of King Louis XIV while La Salle's more serious accusations were being investigated. In this book, Robert Weddle meticulously recounts, through court documents, the known history of Aigron and the Aimable, and finds that despite La Salle's fervent accusations, the facts of the case offer no clear indictment. The court documents, deftly translated by François Lagarde, reveal Captain Aigron's successful defense and illuminate the circumstances of the wreck with Aigron's testimony. Much is also revealed about the French legal system and how the sea laws of the period were applied through the French government's L'Ordonnance de la Marine.

Author: James E. Bruseth
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 9781585443475
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Book Description
An account of the discovery and excavation of the French ship La Belle, shipwrecked in 1686 in Matagorda Bay, Texas.

Author: Miles Arceneaux
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 1622880277
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
Drifting silently on the water about forty nautical miles off the Texas coast, Charlie Sweetwater sits aboard his boat, alone with his thoughts, when from the darkness he hears a man swimming toward him. But not just any man. His name is Julien Dufay, the wealthy French scion of a family-owned petrochemical dynasty headquartered in Houston. Charlie plucks the exhausted Frenchman from the Gulf of Mexico and delivers him back to his rarified world. But of course, no good deed ever goes unpunished. As Charlie is drawn deeper into Julien’s erratic orbit, he discovers a man possessed. Dufay is consumed by his vision of discovering the site of Fort Saint Louis: the famed—and doomed—17th century settlement of French explorer, Robert Cavelier de La Salle. Thanks to Julien, and his own restless curiosity, Charlie is pulled into a web of obsession, murder and greed. Julien wants to find La Salle’s long-lost colony (and the treasure of artifacts buried with it) as a legacy for himself, his family and the greater glory of France. But the project’s ambitious sponsor, Jean-Marc Dufay, is hell-bent on getting at the rich natural gas resources hidden beneath the site, even if it means using his own brother as a pawn to feed his ambitions. Standing in the way is the stubborn old man on whose South Texas ranch Julien and Jean-Marc are converging, along with his trio of scurrilous sons, who have their own covert agenda—an agenda that can be lethal to outsiders. Charlie struggles to make sense of it all, with the help of the beautiful marine archeologist who is excavating La Salle’s shipwreck La Belle in nearby Matagorda Bay. But as he digs deeper into Julien Dufay’s danger-fraught quest, he discovers that history has a way of repeating itself, and that some ghosts just won't stay buried.

Author: James E. Bruseth
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 9781585444311
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
On a frigid, stormy day in February of 1686, a small French sailing ship lost control and ran aground in Matagorda Bay. More than 300 years later, Texas Historical Commission archeologists discovered La Belle's resting place. This title tells a tale of nautical adventure in the seventeenth century.

Author: Robert S. Weddle
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
The acclaimed historian Robert Weddle reveals the true story of the explorer La Salle and his ship the Belle. An in depth history of the exploration of La Salle and the archaeological dig of the vessel La Belle.

Author: Pam Wheat-Stranahan
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 1585446092
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 150

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Book Description
The excavation of the shipwreck La Belle grabbed public attention in Texas, across the nation, and overseas. Especially enthralled with the discoveries from the ship were schoolchildren. Pam Wheat-Stranahan, named by the Texas Historical Commission to head the educational efforts associated with the excavation’s traveling exhibit, continued her work on this project after leaving the THC. Now, her teacher’s guide, which includes a DVD of acclaimed documentary director Alan Govenar’s films The Shipwreck of La Belle and Dreams of Conquest (about Fort St. Louis and Presidio La Bahia), is available for use in an exploration and discovery unit. Ideal for grades 4–8, the teacher’s guide and films are designed for use with the book From a Watery Grave. Wheat-Stranahan has incorporated the standards for national social studies and the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills. The resulting guide is user-friendly for teachers and provides interactive learning opportunities for students not just about Texas history but also concerning the age of discovery and the precursors to the American nation.

Author: Samuel Willard Crompton
Publisher: Infobase Learning
ISBN: 1438148631
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 123

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Book Description
La Salle is one of the best-known but least-understood explorers of human history. Celebrated for following the Mississippi to its mouth in present-day Louisiana, he was also berated for failing to locate that same area again w.

Author: Jean-François-Benjamin Dumont de Montigny
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469608650
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 478

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Book Description
In 1719, Jean-Francois-Benjamin Dumont de Montigny, son of a Paris lawyer, set sail for Louisiana with a commission as a lieutenant after a year in Quebec. During his peregrinations over the next eighteen years, Dumont came to challenge corrupt officials, found himself in jail, eked out a living as a colonial subsistence farmer, survived life-threatening storms and epidemics, encountered pirates, witnessed the 1719 battle for Pensacola, described the 1729 Natchez Uprising, and gave account of the 1739-1740 French expedition against the Chickasaws. Dumont's adventures, as recorded in his 1747 memoir conserved at the Newberry Library, underscore the complexity of the expanding French Atlantic world, offering a singular perspective on early colonialism in Louisiana. His life story also provides detailed descriptions and illustrations of the peoples and environment of the lower Mississippi valley. This English translation of the unabridged memoir features a new introduction, maps, and a biographical dictionary to enhance the text. Dumont emerges here as an important colonial voice and brings to vivid life the French Atlantic.