René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle

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Image:Cavelier de la salle.jpg René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, or Robert de LaSalle (November 22, 1643 – March 19, 1687) was a French explorer. He explored the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada, the Mississippi River, and the Gulf of Mexico, and claimed the entire Mississippi basin for France.

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Life and career

La Salle was born in Rouen and was briefly a member of the Jesuit religious order, taking his vows in 1660. On 27 March, 1667, he was released from the Society of Jesus after citing "moral weaknesses" in his request. (Even though he left the order and later became hostile to it, he is occasionally but wrongly described as a priest or a cleric.)

Having lost a legacy from his father, which he had been required to reject when still in the Jesuit order, La Salle was close to destitute when he travelled to North America, arriving in 1667 in New France, where his brother Jean, a Sulpician priest, had moved the year before. He received land on the western end on the Island of Montreal which became known as "Lachine" (apparently from French la Chine (China), a name that is often said to be an ironic reference

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Louisiana expeditions and death

La Salle then reassembled his party for the expedition for which he is most remembered. Leaving Fort Crevecoeur with twenty-three Frenchmen and eighteen Native Americans, he canoed down the Mississippi River in 1682, naming the Mississippi basin Louisiana in honour of Louis XIV. At what is now the site of Memphis, Tennessee he built a small fort, Fort Prudhomme. On April 9, at the mouth of the Mississippi River, near modern Venice, Louisiana, La Salle buried an engraved plate and a cross, claiming the territory for France. In 1683, on his return voyage, he established Fort Saint Louis of Illinois, at Starved Rock on the Illinois River, to replace Fort Crevecoeur. Tonti was to command the fort while La Salle travelled again to France for supplies.

La Salle returned with a large expedition designed to establish a French colony on the Gulf of Mexico, at the mouth of the Mississippi River. They left France in 1684 with 4 ships and 300 colonists. The expedition was plagued by pirates, hostile Indians, and poor navigation. One ship was lost to pirates in the West Indies, a second sank in the inlets of Matagorda Bay, where a third ran aground. They set up Fort Saint Louis of Texas, near Victoria, Texas. La Salle led a group eastward on foot on three occasions to try to locate the Mississippi. During the last such search his remaining 36 followers mutinied, and he was murdered by four of them near the site of modern Navasota, Texas. (The colony lasted only until 1688, when Karankawa-speaking Indians massacred the 20 remaining adults and took five children as captives. Tonti sent out search missions in 1689 when he learned of the expedition's fate, but failed to reach their fort and found no survivors.)

The encroachment of La Salle and other representatives of French interests into the Spanish claimed territory of Texas, led Spain to establish a fort, Presidio La Bahia, in 1721, at the site of the remains of Fort Saint Louis.

La Salle's primary ship, La Belle, was discovered in the muck of Matagorda Bay in 1995 and has been the site of archeological digs. [1] [2]

The La Salle automobile brand and many places have been named in his honor (see La Salle for a list of places, most of which were named after him).

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See also

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External links

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