Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, January 26, 1999

Shipwrecks brought other people to Acadian shores

by Jim Bradshaw

La Superbe, commanded by Chevalier Grenier, sailed from Veracruz for New Orleans on April 19, 1745, carrying 472 sacks of flour. She was accompanied by the Saint-Jean-Baptiste.

The two ships parted ways on April 17 because La Superbe ran short of drinking water and Grenier believed he could make New Orleans if he sailed on ahead of the slower ship.

On the night of April 29, Grenier changed course, steering, he thought, for the mouth of the Mississippi River. Not finding it, he decided he was still to the west of the river, so continued to sail east. After three days, a crewman thought he recognized a sand bank he thought to be a day east of La Balise. Grenier decided he had passed the river's mouth and was now east of New Orleans. He turned around and sailed along the coast for another three days before the crew spotted smoke on land.

Grenier sent a boat ashore, but the first Indians the crew found were of little help. Two days later, six sailors came back from a trip ashore to report that the natives told them they were only three days from Pensacola.

Grenier set sail again, hopelessly confused over where he was. On the night of May 11, the wind began to increase and Grenier instructed his second officer, Sieur Yvon, to run to sea before the ship was driven into shallow water. But Yvon insisted that the water was deep enough all around them and there was nothing to fear. The ship ran aground an hour later.

Luckily, La Superbe struck a sand bank opposite a small island. Part of the cargo was jettisoned, the main mast was cut away and made into a raft, and 13 men used it to drift ashore. At daybreak, the rest of the crew reached land, except for a Spanish sailor who spent the night lashed to the stump of the mast that had been cut. He was drowned when a huge wave washed over the ship. The ship itself was battered to pieces the second night.

Sailors ransacked the chests and trunks that were washed ashore, 11 plundering the rest and throwing the rest into the sea," according to later accounts. But things weren't hopeless. There was fresh water on the reef and more than 200 sacks of flour had washed onto the beach.

Some men sent to explore the mainland brought back 11 Indians. Three of these crossed over to the reef. Grenier offered them some bread, "which they ate with apparent relish, for it required more than six pounds apiece to satisfy them." Grenier described the Indians as "six feet tall, strong and robust." He said they lived on fish and that part of their speech included clicking their tongues against their teeth, like one might do when calling a chicken..

The Indians guided a group of sailors to a "great lagoon" but refused to cross it because the natives on the other side were unfriendly.

Even though some of the stranded crewmen thought they were still east of New Orleans, Grenier thought the nearest civilization was to the west. He took 100 men along the shore and told Yvon and 14 others to follow in the ship's canoe. Grenier's men were armed with guns and pistols and they carried bread made from some of the flour salvaged from the wreck.

They set off on May 14, heading west. The men were attacked by Indians and some of his men were killed. Others were captured, stripped of their clothing and weapons, and then released. They continued to walk toward the west. After 44 days, Grenier and 27 of his men reached Tampico, naked and starving. At Tampico, they boarded a ship and sailed for New Orleans, reaching there on Sept. 26.

Meanwhile, the canoe sailed along the coast according to Grenier's instructions, but soon lost sight of the main party. After 15 days of sailing, they found one, of Grenier's men who had been left behind with an injured leg. He had kept himself alive by eating grass.

The canoe continued to sail west. After another four days, they ran into unfriendly Indians who tried to shoot them with arrows. They distracted the Indians by throwing bolts of cloth overboard, then bolted away themselves.

At this point, six of the men decided they would rather die on land than on sea and left the canoe to travel by foot. The nine who remained with the boat were running out of provisions and decided to go back to the wreck to look for more flour that may have washed ashore. When they got there, they found the Attakapas had built huts and taken all the flour left behind. The Indians swapped provisions for bolts of silk and for shirts.

Yvon decided that he had sailed enough. As recorded by one of the sailors, Yvon said he "would not embark with them on account of the risks they had run, saying that he preferred to remain with these savages whom he believed to be good people with whom he would get on as best he could rather than risk drowning." .

The remaining eight sailors, "trusting to the mercy of God," finally got to New Orleans on Aug. 14, 1745. They found that the Saint-Jean-Baptiste had reported them missing and that a search party had been organized to look for Grainier and La Superb. The searchers had gone as far as Matagorda Bay, but found nothing.

History does not record what ultimately happened to Yvon..