In 1720, Spanish colonists sent the Villasur expedition try to turn the Pawnees away from their French connections (which had been greatly magnified in Spanish imagination). Guided mainly by Apaches and led by an officer lacking experience with Indians, the expedition approached the Skidi Pawnee villages along the outflow of the Loup River into the Platte River in modern Nebraska. The expedition sent their only Pawnee slave to make contact; he did not obtain any welcome for the Spanish party and he failed to return to the Spanish camp. The Pawnees attacked at dawn, shooting heavy musketry fire and flights of arrows, then charging into combat clad only in paint, headband, moccasins and short leggings. Villasur, 45 other Spaniards, and 11 Pueblos were killed, and the survivors fled. In 1721, pressure on the Pawnees was increased by the establishment of a colony in Arkansas by John Law's Mississippi Company; this settlement too formed a market for Indian (mostly Caddoan) slaves and a convenient source of weapons for the Osages and their relations.