SAINT-DENIS, LOUIS JUCHEREAU DE

born Sept. 17, 1676, Beauport, Quebec died June 11, 1744, Natchitoches, Louisiana Territory [now in U.S.] Saint-Denis also spelled Saint-denys French-Canadian explorer and soldier, leader of a 1714 expedition from French-held Natchitoches, in the Louisiana Territory, to the Spanish town of San Juan Bautista (modern Villahermosa) on the Rio Grande. Saint-Denis sought to establish trade relations with the Spanish. He helped the Spaniards found four missions and establish a garrison in what is now Texas. Distrusted by his countrymen, who regarded him as too pro-Spanish, and by the Spaniards, who saw him as a threat, he was imprisoned in Mexico City for several months in 1715. He made a second journey to the Rio Grande in 1717, but his goods were seized. On arriving in Mexico City to protest the confiscation of his goods, he was imprisoned again for several more months. He returned to Natchitoches in 1719, fought in the defense of Mobile and at Pensacola, and took command of the Natchitoches area until France and Spain ended hostilities in 1721. Saint-Denis is known in history as one of the French explorers who sought to make friends with local Indian tribes as well as with the Spanish in Mexico and Texas, but his work was short-lived. Many of the Spanish settlements he founded in Texas could not be maintained, and Spain and France continued to compete on the North American continent.