"Louis Henri" was sent on a visit to
Louis XIII in Paris in 1613, in
Claude d'Abbeville,
Histoire de la mission. The establishment of
France Équinoxiale commenced in 1612, when a French expedition departed from
Cancale, Brittany, France, under the command of Daniel de la Touche, Seigneur de la Ravardière, and Admiral
François de Razilly. Carrying 500 colonists, it arrived on the northern coast of what is today the
Brazilian
state of
Maranhão. De la Ravardière had discovered the region in 1604 but the death of the king,
Henry IV postponed his plans to start its colonization. The colonists soon founded a village, Saint-Louis, in honor of the French king
Louis IX. This later became
São Luís in
Portuguese, the only Brazilian state capital founded by France. On 8 September,
Capuchin friars prayed the first mass, and the soldiers started building a fortress. An important difference in relation to France Antarctique is that this new colony was not motivated by escape from religious persecutions by
Protestant Huguenots (see
French Wars of Religion). The colony did not last long. A Portuguese army assembled in the
Captaincy of Pernambuco, under the command of Alexandre de Moura, was able to mount a military expedition, which defeated and expelled the French colonists in 1615, less than four years after their arrival in the land. Thus, it repeated the disaster spelt for the colonists of France Antarctique, in 1567. A few years later, in 1620, Portuguese and Brazilian colonists arrived in number and São Luís started to develop, with an economy based mostly in
sugar cane and
slavery. French traders and colonists tried again to settle a France Équinoxiale further North, in what is today
French Guiana, in 1626, 1635 (when the capital,
Cayenne, was founded) and 1643. Twice a
Compagnie de la France Équinoxiale was founded, in 1643 and 1645, but both foundered as a result of misfortune and mismanagement. It was only after 1674, when the colony came under the direct control of the French crown and a competent Governor took office, that France Équinoxiale became a reality. To this day, French Guiana is a
department of France. ==See also==