Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle

Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, was born in 1643 in Rouen. The name "La Salle" was derived from a property acquired by the family. La Salle received a Jesuit education and was set to stay in the religious order. He gave up this path after his father's death. At that point, he chose to travel to New France (modern-day Canada), where his brother, a Sulpician priest, was a missionary.

La Salle arrived in New France in 1666. He received a small grant of land near Montreal, which he turned into a farm. When he found farming and communicating with nearby native groups difficult, he sold the farm to fund his expeditions. In July 1669, he began canoeing around Lake Ontario as a member of Dollier de Casson's mission group. He returned to Montreal due to an illness.

While he was in Montreal, he befriended Louis de Buade, comte de Frontenac – the governor of New France. He then traveled to France to petition the king and apply for a patent of nobility. He received permission to control the buffalo hide trade. Returning to New France in 1678 with Henri de Tonti and thirty men, La Salle and his men traveled to the Great Lakes. They built a barque, called the Griffon, which they had loaded with furs by the time they reached Green Bay, Wisconsin. La Salle sent it back to New France and continued by canoe.

The expedition set out onto the Mississippi River, reaching the Gulf of Mexico in April 1682. La Salle claimed the Missisippi basin – calling it "Louisiana" for King Louis XIV – for France. His men built Fort St. Louis (located in modern-day Illinois) in 1683. La Salle returned to France in 1684, where he received orders to colonize Louisiana and conquer Mexico from the Spanish. His return voyage proved much less successful than the previous expeditions. Unable to find the mouth of the Mississippi River, he ended up near Matagorda Bay, Texas (roughly 500 miles northeast of the Texas-Mexico border). His expedition attempted to reach the Mississippi via land, but were unsuccessful due to conflicts with natives and in-fighting among the French. La Salle was assassinated during a mutiny on March 19, 1687.

Read more about the individual explorers:

Jacques Cartier | Samuel de Champlain | Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle

Find out about their watercraft:

How They Got There | Once They Arrived

Return to:

French Exploration