20 Our Catholic Heritage iti Texas of good grade, particularly blue, and hatchets, all of which the Indians obtained from the French in exchange for cattle and horses. so From the very establishment of the French in Louisiana their main interest and concern had been the extension of trade with the Indians and the discovery of mines. If no mines could be found in the new ter- ritory, it seems it was their intention to open up communications with the Spaniards and to reach the rich mines of Chihuahua and Parral. No sooner were the French settled than an expedition was sent out to explore the country to the west and win the friendship and trade of the natives. Led by M. Bienville and Louis de St. Denis, twenty-two Canadians and seven Indians set out in March, 1700, to explore the Red River country. They ascended the river until they came to a village of Indians which they called Yactaches. The natives told them they were but two days journey from the land of the Caddos. There were a few members of this tribe in the village who invited the French to visit them. They told the French that five days journey from their village, to the west, there was a Spanish settlement where men, women, and children lived. For some reason not stated, Bienville and St. Denis did not go in search of the reported settlement but started back to Mobile on May 18. 51 No sooner did the expedition return than St. Denis was again commis- sioned, before the end of the month, to proceed westward with twenty-five men in search of the Spaniards. He traveled up the river for a distance -of seventy leagues until he reached the village of the Natchitoche Indians, where he spent a short time and then proceeded to the village of the -Caddos about a hundred leagues further west. Upon inquiring from these lndians if they had seen any Spaniards in the neighborhood, he was informed that it had been two years since they had seen any. It seems that St. Denis returned to Mobile without making any further efforts to reach the Spanish settlements at this time. 52 But according to his own statement, he undertook a new expedition in 1704 or 1705, at which time he must have visited among the Tejas Indians for a period of between four and six months, before proceeding on his way to the Rio Grande which he reached by following the same route taken ten years later. 53 50 Acuerdos de la Junta de Guerra y Hacienda .• . in San Francisco el Grande .,frclti.Je, VIII, I 70. · 51 Journal de Bienville, Margry, op. cit., IV, 432. SZCJark, op. cit., VI, 5-6. UDeclaracion de St. Denis, June 22, I 7 I 5, 27-32; also statements of Ramon, Father Olivares, and dispatch carrier of Diego Ramon, San Francisco el Grande Archive, Volume VIII.
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