CHAPTER X
LA SALLE'S COLONY IN TEXAS, 1684-1689
While.! the frontiers of New Spain were gradually being pushed north and east from the outposts of Nueva Vizcaya, Nuevo Reyno de Leon, and Coahuila, and plans for the reconquest of New Mexico were being put into execution, a new and more formidable danger threatened the undis- puted title of Spain to the vast region along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. After the dismal failure of De Soto, a foothold had been estab- lished in Florida, but the long stretch of coast line extending from Florida to Tampico remained unoccupied and unvisited. In vain did the enthusiastic Father Benavides point out as early as 1630 the importance of taking possession of the Bay of Espiritu Santo, which he thought was the mouth of the Mississippi, as a means of more direct communi- cation with the interior provinces of New Spain. Not until the menace of French aggression loomed on the horizon of the stormy European political situation in 1678, did the king of Spain and the viceregal officials in Mexico suddenly awaken to the fact that immediate steps must be taken to prevent the impending catastrophe. Peiialosa and /,is relation to tlie French colony. Don Diego Dionisio de Penalosa, native of Lima, Peru, and former governor of New Mexico, was residing in Paris in the year 1678. This picturesque and extraordi- nary character, who called himself Count of Santa Fe, had been governor of New Mexico from 1661 to 1664. In May of the following year, he had been turned over to the Inquisition in Mexico, accused of many crimes. After being duly tried, he had been formally sentenced on February 3, 1668. "He was publicly humiliated, fined, deprived of his office, and exiled from New Spain and the Windward Islands forever." 1 He afterwards seems to have wandered in Europe for a while visiting England and finally settling in Paris. Here he married a French lady and having failed to interest England in his project, he now tried to engage the French government in an enterprise to conquer certain prov- inces called Quivira and Tagago (Teguayo) on the northern frontiers of 1 Hackett, "New Light on Don Diego de Penalosa," in MississipPi Valley Historical Review, IV, 313-335. For a detailed study of his proposals and his life, see Fernandez Duro, Diego de Pe,ialosa. [ 279]
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