By Staff
NILES - In 1679 the famous French explorer Robert Cavelier de la Salle traversed the Great Lakes and may have been the first white man to discover the River of the Miami's (the St. Joseph River).
He would build Fort Miami at the river's mouth. Later he would travel down the St. Joseph, portage to the Kankakee River northwest of South Bend, on to the Illinois River, the Mississippi, the Gulf of Mexico and Texas.
On Thursday, Aug. 11, Nancy Watts will broaden the view of our own Colonial past with a slide presentation of The Spanish Pursuit of the French in Texas, a Tie to Our Colonial Past, Part II, a continuation of last year's program The Forgotten French in Texas.
The presentation will begin at 7 p.m. in the Niles Library Community Room.
Watts is currently expanding her research of the French in Texas during the French Colonial period. Artifacts from the La Salle Texas-La Belle archeology project have been explored.
The influence of the Spanish, their interactions with the French and the Catholic Missions is of special interest. During this Colonial period the French built Fort St. Joseph at Niles as part of an immense desire to control the territories both politically and economically.
Nancy lives in Texas and is with the Cross-Cultural Ministries based in Donna, Texas.
The Ministries specialize in cross-cultural training for people in the ministry traveling abroad.
She is presently involved in researching for spiritual mapping. This research includes the history of cultures, indigenous people and their religious beliefs in a given geographic location.
Watts was the Museum Education Coordinator for the Fort St. Joseph Museum during the 1980s and a member of the Niles District Library Board from 2000 through 2002.
Watts, along with former library staff member Jan Gorham, was instrumental in initiating the use of the Library Rotunda walls as gallery space. At that time they brought the state sponsored photography exhibit The Goodrich Brothers in for exhibition.