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Explorers of Canada, Part XV: Sieur de la Salle

© David Newman

René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, is not so much a Canadian explorer as an American explorer as most of his exploration was done on the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico, but since that is territory he extended for France and Canada belonged to France we'll just count him anyway. René Robert Cavelier was born in the St. Herbland parish of Rouen inFrance, November 22, 1643. Cavelier assumed the name Sieur de La Salle from his family estate near Rouen. After being educated in a Jesuit College, La Salle joined the Société de Jésus (the Jesuits) but didn't remain in the priesthood because he was granted land at LaChine (near Montreal) by the Sulpicians who were Seigneurs of Montreal.

So in 1666, or perhaps it was 1667, he arrived in Canada as an adventurer and trader. After years of English explorers looking for a Northwest Passage, the French were looking for a Southwest Passage, which La Salle was meditating on as he learned Indian languages on his little estate. He set out to find a Southwest Passage in 1669 but it was soon abandoned. Nobody really knows exactly how far he went although many agree that he probably didn't reach the Mississippi on this occasion, as he followed the Ohio River but it is known he sailed around the Great Lakes returning to Montreal in 1670.

The French believed that when you sailed a great river you could claim the lands of its tributaries and so thought that if the Mississippi was sailed completely the French would have monopoly on its entire bassin. This would become a barrier to the English territory expansion and to its fur trade industry (unfortunately for the French, while they were superior in territory, they failed to populate the areas the conquered). Between 1671 and 1673, La Salle is thought to have made many trips on the Great Lakes.

In 1679 after returning from an expedition, he discovered that the fort he had erected in the Niagara, Fort Crevecoeur, had mutinied and a bunch of the mutineers were looking around the Great Lakes to try and murder him. So La Salle, who had returned on foot, went out to get the mutineers and captured them.

In 1681, he again began to think of the Mississippi and it is that year that plans were made to reach the great river and follow it down to the Gulf of Mexico. On February 6, 1682, the expedition of La Salle and 40 other men reached the Mississippi. They canoed south founded a fort, Fort Prud'homme, at present-day Memphis. On April 9, 1682, after the expedition had reached the mouth of the Mississippi, La Salle erected a cross and the colours of France, a white flag with three gold fleur-de-lys, to claim the land for France and named the territory, extending from Lake Michigan to present-day New Orleans, Louisiana in honour of his king, Louis XIV. He then returned to France in 1682.

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