New TBH Exhibit: Firepots on the La Belle Shipwreck

Nine firepots were discovered on La Belle shipwreck, a 17th century French ship supporting a calamitous expedition led by Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle. La Belle wrecked in 1686 during a storm within the bay near Matagorda Peninsula. The wreck of La Belle was rediscovered in 1995 by the Texas Historical Commission and excavated by the agency from 1996–1997.

Archeologists recovered the firepots from the wreck, the only known archeological examples of this technology found in the world. Firepots, or pots-à-feu, were built with an iron grenade nested inside a larger ceramic grenade. The firepots tell us that the La Salle expedition was not merely a voyage of pure discovery or exploration, or even of peaceful settlement; the leaders of the La Salle expedition were clearly prepared for a secondary military objective—a planned mission to seize silver mines from Spain. In preparation, La Salle’s fleet carried 100 soldiers and an assemblage of weapons. The firepots not only symbolize the unrealized military engagement, but they also paint a picture of the exact technological moment La Belle occupied, a transition point between ceramic and iron grenades. 

To understand their effectiveness in battle, researchers built and detonated experimental firepots. Read more about La Belle firepots and the fascinating experiments they spawned in the new contribution to the TBH Gallery by Penelope Ray.