La Salle, René‐Robert Cavelier, Sieur de

La Salle, René‐Robert Cavelier, Sieur de (1643–1687), French explorer.In 1666, La Salle left France for New France to seek his fortune. He quickly established himself as a landowner and fur trader at Lachine on the St. Lawrence River, near Montreal. With the patronage of Governor Frontenac, La Salle began exploring the western reaches of the colony, endeavoring to extend French control over the land, its peoples, and the fur trade. Named commandant of Fort Frontenac (at present‐day Kingston, Ontario) in 1673, he was granted noble rank by the crown on a return trip to France. After receiving permission to establish a trade monopoly along the Mississippi River (reached in 1673 by the French trader Louis Jolliet and Jesuit priest Jacques Marquette), La Salle and his lieutenant Henri de Tonti set off in 1679 with a crew of French men and Indian men, women, and children. Three years later, having built several forts along the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers, La Salle reached the Gulf of Mexico and claimed all the lands drained by the river for France, naming them Louisiana.

Back in France, La Salle gained the crown's support to colonize the newly claimed region and set off again for the Mississippi River with several hundred colonists, but he failed to find the river's mouth from the Gulf, landing about five hundred miles west. On the last of several overland attempts to find the Mississippi, La Salle was murdered by some of his own dissatisfied colonists. In much the same way that the crosses La Salle planted along the Mississippi River symbolized French possession of the territory, La Salle himself stands as a symbol for French colonialism in North America, its grand expansionist schemes, and its eventual demise.
See also Exploration, Conquest, and Settlement, Era of European; French Settlements in North America; Indian History and Culture: From 1500 to 1800.]

Bibliography

John Upton Terrell , La Salle: The Life and Times of an Explorer, 1968.
Anka Muhlstein , La Salle: Explorer of the North American Frontier, trans. Willard Wood, 1994.

Jennifer M. Spear