Champ d'Asile ("Field of Asylum") was a short-lived settlement founded in

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

in January 1818 by 20 French

Bonapartist Bonapartism () is the political ideology supervening from Napoleon Bonaparte and his followers and successors. The term was used in the narrow sense to refer to people who hoped to restore the House of Bonaparte and its style of government. In ...

veterans of the

Napoleonic Wars {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Napoleonic Wars , partof = the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars , image = Napoleonic Wars (revision).jpg , caption = Left to right, top to bottom:Battl ...

from the

Vine and Olive Colony The Vine and Olive Colony was an effort by a group of French Bonapartists who, fearing for their lives after the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Bourbon Restoration, attempted to establish an agricultural settlement growing wine grapes and oli ...

. The party was led by General

Charles Lallemand Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was ...

. Land was offered to French settlers on March 3, 1817, after a vote by the

United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature, legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is a Bicameralism, bicameral legislature, including a Lower house, lower body, the United States House of Representatives, ...

. Champ d'Asile was situated along the Trinity River and was abandoned in July of the same year. Lallemand, a Bonapartist General, was accompanied by his brother, Baron Charles François Antoine Lallemand. The colony was to bring some military men for protection, and concentrate on agricultural work, cultivating

grape A grape is a fruit, botanically a berry, of the deciduous woody vines of the flowering plant genus ''Vitis''. Grapes are a non- climacteric type of fruit, generally occurring in clusters. The cultivation of grapes began approximately 8,0 ...

s and

olive The olive, botanical name ''Olea europaea'' ("European olive"), is a species of Subtropics, subtropical evergreen tree in the Family (biology), family Oleaceae. Originating in Anatolia, Asia Minor, it is abundant throughout the Mediterranean ...

s. 100 officers joined Lallemand, and around a quarter to a third of these were foreigners of the

Grande Armée The (; ) was the primary field army of the French Imperial Army (1804–1815), French Imperial Army during the Napoleonic Wars. Commanded by Napoleon, from 1804 to 1808 it won a series of military victories that allowed the First French Empi ...

; the rest were French. Lallemand financed the project through land

speculation In finance, speculation is the purchase of an asset (a commodity, good (economics), goods, or real estate) with the hope that it will become more valuable in a brief amount of time. It can also refer to short sales in which the speculator hope ...

. On December 17, 1817 150 of the would-be-settlers sailed from

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

for

Galveston, Texas Galveston ( ) is a Gulf Coast of the United States, coastal resort town, resort city and port off the Southeast Texas coast on Galveston Island and Pelican Island (Texas), Pelican Island in the U.S. state of Texas. The community of , with a pop ...

, where they arrived on January 14. Lallemand and the other colonists convened in

New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

, and on March 10 left for Galveston with 120 volunteers. They sailed up the Trinity River to Atascosito where they built two small forts. Mexican governor

Antonio María Martínez Antonio María Martínez (died 1823) was a colonel in the infantry regiment of Zamora and the last governor of Spanish Texas. History He was born in Andújar, province of Jaén, Spain. He entered military service on July 7, 1785, and had a di ...

, having heard about this expedition, sent his own troops to San Marcos, wary of an attack. The colony was abandoned shortly afterwards. Some of the colonists, including pirate

Jean Laffite Jean Lafitte ( – ) was a French pirate, privateer, and slave trader who operated in the Gulf of Mexico in the early 19th century. He and his older brother Pierre spelled their last name Laffite, but English language documents of the time use ...

and other mercenaries, had caused concern to settlers of

New Spain New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( ; Nahuatl: ''Yankwik Kaxtillan Birreiyotl''), originally the Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain. It was one of several ...

. The ''Champ d'Asile'' was founded at a time when disputes over territory were increasing, and the

Adams–Onís Treaty The Adams–Onís Treaty () of 1819, also known as the Transcontinental Treaty, the Spanish Cession, the Florida Purchase Treaty, or the Florida Treaty,Weeks, p. 168. was a treaty between the United States and Spain in 1819 that ceded Florida to ...

, which settled a border dispute between the United States and Spain, was signed in 1819. Furthermore, the

Bourbon Restoration Bourbon Restoration may refer to: France under the House of Bourbon: * Bourbon Restoration in France (1814, after the French revolution and Napoleonic era, until 1830; interrupted by the Hundred Days in 1815) Spain under the Spanish Bourbons: * Ab ...

in France made the existence of a Bonapartist colony doubtful, as the

Spanish Bourbons The House of Bourbon (, also ; ) is a dynasty that originated in the Kingdom of France as a branch of the Capetian dynasty, the royal House of France. Bourbon kings first ruled France and Navarre in the 16th century. A branch descended from ...

held the Spanish crown. Despite Lallemand's assurances, rumours had circulated about his motives, and there was little evidence of agricultural work on the site, while construction of a fortress and manufacturing munitions had begun.(5 August 1818)
From the N.Y. Daily Advertiser
''Delaware Gazette and Peninsula Advertister'', p. 2, col. 4-5 (reprinted from July 29 issue of New York paper)

References

External links

{{Authority control Liberty County, Texas