 Barroto and Romero had orders to survey the entire northern Gulf coast from San Marcos de Apalache (near Tallahassee) westward, looking for the new French "lost colony" of Fort St. Louis, which René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle had established at Matagorda Bay in 1685.The area was largely devoid of indigenous Native American inhabitants.Given the area's advantages, it was frequently a destination for hunting and fishing by Creek people from present-day southern Alabama and Georgia.