Robert de La Salle

Robert de La Salle (1643-1687), French explorer in North America, who navigated the length of the Mississippi River and claimed the region Louisiana for France.

La Salle was born on November 22, 1643, in Rouen, and educated by the Jesuits. In 1666 he emigrated to Canada; he was granted land on the St Lawrence River, and he became a trader. In 1669-1670 he explored the region south of Lakes Ontario and Erie, and he later claimed to have discovered the Ohio River in 1671. In the course of his explorations in the wilderness La Salle became familiar with Native American languages and traditions. Because of his capabilities, the French colonial governor, Louis de Buade, comte de Palluau et de Frontenac, appointed him commander of Fort Frontenac, then being built as a trading station. In 1674 he was sent to France as Frontenac's representative to justify the building of the fort. La Salle's mission was successful, and he received a patent of nobility.

La Salle subsequently conceived a plan for exploring and trading farther west, and in 1677 he again visited France to secure royal approval of his scheme. He returned with the Italian explorer Henri de Tonty, who was to become his associate. In 1679 he set out on a preliminary expedition, and after establishing forts at the mouth of the St Joseph River and along the Illinois River, in February 1680, he sent a group to explore the upper Mississippi River. La Salle himself returned to Fort Frontenac to procure new supplies and funds. By spring he was able to travel west again, and he and Tonty proceeded with their party of French and Native Americans to the Mississippi, which they descended to the Gulf of Mexico in 1682, claiming all the land drained by the river for Louis XIV, king of France, and naming the region Louisiana. La Salle subsequently commenced construction of forts in the new territory; when Frontenac was recalled to France later in 1682, however, La Salle's rivals succeeded in turning the new governor against him.

Journeying to France in 1683, La Salle made a successful appeal to the king, who commended him for his discoveries and named him viceroy of North America. In 1684 he sailed from France with a fleet of four ships on an expedition to establish a colony at the mouth of the Mississippi. When he reached the Gulf of Mexico he was unable to find the Mississippi River and landed on the shore of the present Matagorda Bay, Texas, believing the bay to be the western outlet of the Mississippi. Several fruitless searches by land for the mouth of the river revealed his mistake. In January 1687 La Salle set out for Canada with a party of 17 men to procure help for the few members left of the original expedition. His men mutinied, however, and he was killed near the Trinity River, Texas.