Background
Robert Cavelier was born on November 22, 1643, into a comfortably well-off family in Rouen, France, in the parish Saint-Herbland.
Robert Cavelier was born on November 22, 1643, into a comfortably well-off family in Rouen, France, in the parish Saint-Herbland.
René-Robert Cavelier taught for a time in a school (probably Jesuit) in France.
René-Robert Cavelier passed up the St Lawrence and through Lake Ontario to a Seneca village on the Genesee river; thence with an Iroquois guide he crossed the mouth of the Niagara (where he heard the noise of the distant falls) to Ganastogue, an Iroquois colony at the head of Lake Ontario, where he met Louis Joliet and received from him a map of parts of the Great Lakes.
La Salle discovered the Ohio river, descended it at least as far as the site of Louisville, Kentucky, and possibly, though not probably, to its junction with the Mississippi, and in 1669-1670, abandoned by his few followers, made his way back to Lake Erie.
Apparently he passed through Lake Erie, Lake Huron and Lake Michigan, and some way down the Illinois river.
Before 1673 La Salle had returned to Montreal.
Becoming convinced, after the explorations of Marquette and Joliet in 1673, that the Mississippi flowed into the Gulf of Mexico, he conceived a vast project for exploring that river to its mouth and extending the French power to the lower Mississippi Valley.
He secured the support of Count Frontenac, then governor of Canada, and in 1674 and 1677 visited France, obtaining from Louis XIV on his first visit a patent of nobility and a grant of lands about Fort Frontenac, on the site of the present Kingston, Ontario, and on his second visit a patent empowering him to explore the West at his own expense, and giving him the buffalo- hide monopoly.
He established a post above Niagara Falls, where he spent the winter, and where, his vessel having been wrecked, he built a larger ship, the ' Griffon, " in which he sailed up the Great Lakes to Green Bay (Lake Michigan), where he arrived in September 1679.
Sending back the " Griffon " freighted with furs, by which he hoped to satisfy the claims of his creditors, he proceeded to the Illinois river, and near what is now Peoria, Illinois, built a fort, which he called Fort Crevecceur.
-1650 - е.
1702), 3 with about fifteen men, at Fort Crevecceur, he returned by land, afoot, to Canada to obtain needed supplies, discovering the fate of the " Griffon " (which proved to have been lost), thwarting the intrigues of his enemies and appeasing his creditors.
In July 1680 news reached him at Fort Frontenac that nearly all Tonty's men had deserted, after destroying or appropriating most of the supplies; and that twelve of them were on their way to kill him as the surest means of escaping punishment.
The name La Chine was sarcastically applied to La Salle's settlement on the St Lawrence.
He accompanied La Salle to the mouth of the Mississippi, and was in command of Fort St Louis from the time of its erection until 1702, except during his journeys down the Mississippi in search of his chief.
This is the last authentic trace of him. These he met and captured or killed.
He formed a league of the Western Indians to fight the Iroquois, then went to Michilimackinac, where he found Tonty, proceeded again to Fort Frontenac to obtain supplies and organize his expedition anew, and returned in December 1681 to the Illinois.
Passing down the Illinois to the Mississippi, which he reached in February 1682, he floated down that stream to its mouth, which he reached on the 9th of April, and, erecting there a monument and a cross, took formal possession in the name of Louis XIV, in whose honour he gave the name " Louisiana " to the region.
The expedition had met with various misfortunes; one vessel had been captured by the Spaniards and another had been wrecked; and throughout La Salle and Beaujeu had failed to work in harmony.
Soon finding that he was not at the mouth of the Mississippi, La Salle established a settlement and built a fort, Fort St Louis, on the Lavaca (he called it La Vache) river, and leaving there the greater part of his force, from October 1685 to March 1686 he vainly sought for the Mississippi.
Besides discovering the Ohio and probably the Illinois, he was the first to follow the Mississippi from its upper course to its mouth and thus to establish the connexion between the discoveries of Radisson, Joliet and Marquette in the north with those of De Soto in the south.
He was stern, indomitable and full of resource. The best accounts of La Salle's explorations may be found in Francis Parkman's La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West (Boston, 1870; later revised editions), in Justin Winsor's Cartier loFrontenac (Boston, 1894), and in J. G. Shea's Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley (New York, 1852); see also P. Chesnel, Histoire de Cavelier de La Salle, explorations et conquete du bassin du Mississippi (Paris, 1901).
Of the early narratives see Louis Hennepin, Description de la Louisiane (1683); Joutel, Journal historique du dernier voyage que feu M. de la Salle fit dans le Golfe de Mexique, &c. (Paris, 1713); and Henri de Tonty, Derniers De- couvertes dans I'Amerique septentrionale de M. de La Salle (Paris, 1697).
Original narratives may be found, translated into English, in The Journeys of Rene Robert Cavelier, Stem de La Salle, as related by his Faithful Lieutenant, Henri de Tonty, &c. (2 vols. , New York, 1905), edited by I. J. Cox; in Benjamin F. French's Historical Collections of Louisiana (6 series, New York, 1846-1853), and in Shea's Early Voyages Up and Down the Mississippi (Albany, 1861); and an immense collection of documents relating to La Salle may be found in Pierre Margry's Dicouvertes et etablissements des Franqais dans I'ouest et dans le sud de VAmerique septentrionale, 1614-1754; Memoires et documents originaux recueillis et publies (6 vols. , Paris, 1875 - 1886).
During the first hundred years of its existence its activities were mainly confined to France; during the 19th century it spread to most of the countries of western Europe, and has been markedly successful in the United States.
When La Salle was canonized in 1900, the total number of brothers was estimated at 15, 000.
La Salle never married, but has been linked to Madeleine de Roybon d'Allonne, an early settler of New France.
