Background
He was born at Rouen, France in November 1643.
He was born at Rouen, France in November 1643.
He was educated by the Jesuits and had taken minor orders.
He served as a professor of mathematics and science in more than one college when, having an eagerness for adventure, he sailed for New France (Canada) in 1666 to join his brother who was a Sulpician in Montreal.
On his arrival he was granted the seigneury of Lachine, where he laid out a fortified village, but hearing from the Indians of a great river to the southwest, the Ohio, which was then thought to empty into the Gulf of California, he made up his mind to explore it. He prepared a plan of his proposed exploration and put it before Governor Courcelles, who persuaded him to join forces with two Sulpicians, Dollier de Casson and Galinée, who were about to set out on a journey to the west. In 1668 they accordingly traveled up the St. Lawrence and along the south shore of Lake Ontario to Burlington Bay. Here they separated, La Salle determined to follow his own route to the Ohio, while Dollier de Casson and GalinéeGalinee had other plans. On this trip La Salle probably did not penetrate as far south as the Ohio before turning back in 1671.
In 1672 the Comte de Frontenac became governor of New France and turned to La Salle to discuss plans for the expansion of the colony. As a first step Fort Frontenac was built as a strong post on Lake Ontario to serve as a base for discovery, and in 1677 La Salle went to France, where he obtained a charter from Louis XIV granting wide powers for exploration. Returning to New France, La Salle, with his lieutenant Henry de Tonti, set out for the west in 1679. Raising a fort at the mouth of the Niagara River, he followed the river past the great waterfalls to a place not far from Buffalo, where he built the Griffon, the first sailing vessel to appear on the Great Lakes. After visiting Father Marquette at Michelimackinac, the party sailed into Lake Michigan and across it to an island at the mouth of Green Bay which was inhabited by a tribe of friendly Potawatomis. Here La Salle decided to send the Griffon back to Niagara with a quantity of furs, while he and the rest of the party proceeded to the foot of Lake Michigan in canoes, continuing around the foot of the lake to the mouth of the St. Joseph River, where he built a temporary fort. La Salle then resolved to continue his explorations southward and, after raising additional funds in New France, in 1681-1682 he became the first white man to descend the Mississippi River to its mouth at the Gulf of Mexico, which he reached on Apr. 9, 1682, claiming the whole region for Louis XIV and naming it Louisiana.
Returning to New France, he found himself out of favor with the new governor; to restore his position he consequently sailed for France again and, after appealing to the King, was named viceroy of the Mississippi region. In 1684 he set out with four ships to establish a colony at the mouth of the Mississippi, but from the start the expedition was a failure. La Salle was unable to exert effective command, the expedition became disorganized, and finally the party missed the Mississippi, landing by mistake at what is now Matagorda Bay in Texas. His forces reduced by wrecks and the departure of his last ship for France, La Salle then attempted to reach the Mississippi by land, and, failing in this, resolved in January 1687 to return to New France. On the way a mutiny occurred and La Salle was murdered by one of his own men.
La Salle's major achivement was establishing the network of forts from Fort Frontenac to outposts along the Great Lakes, Ohio, Illinois and Mississippi rivers that came to define French territorial, diplomatic and commercial policy for almost a century between his first expedition and the 1763 cession of New France to Great Britain.
La Salle never married.
