The Belle shipwreck is unique in North America. While many sunken ships have yielded silver and gold, no other shipwreck has more clearly revealed what it took to build a colony. Few if any in the United States have contained the quantity and variety of material found on La Belle. The galleries of artifacts and other remains presented in this section are, in essence, a 17th-century time capsule, poignantly representing the hopes, fears, and vision of the French explorer, La Salle, and his colonists. More than one million artifacts from the Belle shipwreck have been conserved and catalogued, and the ship's hull has been fully reassembled. Some of these objects are now on display in Texas museums.
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University of Texas at Austin
College of Liberal Arts
