Volume 13
Number 029
La Salle and Mississippi River Part I
Lead: By the mid 1600s the French,
along with the English and the
Spanish, had high hopes of a vast
empire in the New World.
Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan
Roberts.
Content: The French founded
Quebec in New France (present day
northeastern Canada near the St.
Lawrence River) in 1608, one year
after the founding of Jamestown.
French commerce was founded on the
fur trade, which they expanded by
moving deeper into the interior of
North America. The French formed
alliances with Native American tribes
and eventually controlled the Great
Lakes region, the Mississippi River
Valley region including the two great
tributaries – the Missouri and Ohio
Rivers.
From the earliest days of French
occupation in the New World, they had
heard stories from the Native
Americans about a great river to the
west called the “Messipi” from the
Algonquin language. Grasping the
importance of such a river, French
explorers ventured out to find it.
Hoping this great river would prove to
be the illusive “northwest passage” – a
shortcut to the East Indies via the
Pacific Ocean - in 1673 explorer Louis
Joliet and Father Jacques Marquette
journeyed hundreds of miles in canoes
down the Mississippi to the mouth of
the Arkansas River. They learned
from Native Americans that the river
did not cut to the west but would lead
them south to the Gulf of Mexico.
Hearing reports of hostile Spanish
downstream, they returned upriver.
Their journey though inspired a
restless and highly ambitious fur
trader and explorer who dreamed of
expanding the French empire as well
as his own personal glory and wealth his name? Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur
de La Salle.
Next Time: La Salle claims the
Mississippi River valley for France
and names it Louisiana after his King
– Louis XIV.
At the University of Richmond,
this is Dan Roberts.
Resources
Devine, Robert A., et al. America Past and Present. New
York: Longman, Inc., 1998.
Keating, Bern. The Mighty Mississippi. Washington, D.C.:
National Geographic, 1971.
Podell, Janet and Steven Anzovin, eds. Old Worlds to New.
New York: H. W. Wilson Co., 1993.
“Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle.” Texas State Library
& Archives Commission. 20 February 2007
<http://tsl.state.tx.us/treasures/giants/lasalle01.html>.
Roberts, David. “Sieur de La Salle’s Fateful Landfall.
(explorer Rene-Robert Cavalier, Sieur de La Salle).”
Smithsonian April 1997: 40-6+.
Copyright by Dan Roberts Enterprises, Inc.