René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle (; November 22, 1643 – March 19, 1687), was a 17th-century French explorer and fur trader in North America. He explored the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada, and the Mississippi River. He is best known for an early 1682 expedition in which he canoed the lower Mississippi River from the mouth of the Illinois River to the Gulf of Mexico; there, on 9 April 1682, he claimed the Mississippi River basin for France after giving it the name La Louisiane. One source states that "he acquired for France the most fertile half of the North American continent". A later ill-fated expedition to the Gulf coast of Mexico (today the U.S. state of Texas) gave the United States a claim to Texas in the purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803. La Salle was assassinated in 1687 during that expedition.
La Salle is sometimes credited with being the first European to traverse the Ohio River, and sometimes the Mississippi as well. Although Joliet and Marquette preceded him on the upper Mississippi in their journey of 1673–74, La Salle extended exploration, and France's claims, all the way to the river's mouth, while the existing historical evidence does not indicate that La Salle ever reached the Ohio/Allegheny Valley.
Early life
Robert Cavelier was born on November 22, 1643, into a comfortably well-off family in Rouen, France, in the parish Saint-Herbland. His parents were Jean Cavelier and Catherine Geest. His older brother, Jean Cavelier, became a Sulpician priest. When Robert was young, he enjoyed science and nature. In his teens, he studied with the Jesuit religious order and became a member after taking initial vows in 1660.
Required to reject his father's legacy when he joined the Jesuits, La Salle was nearly destitute when he traveled as a prospective colonist to North America. He sailed for New France in the spring of 1666. His brother Jean, had moved there the year before. At La Salle's request on March 27, 1667, after he was in Canada, he was released from the Society of Jesus after citing "moral weaknesses".
La Salle was granted a seigneurie on land at the western end of the Island of Montreal, which became known as Lachine. La Salle immediately began to issue land grants, set up a village and learn the languages of the Native people, several tribes of Iroquois in this area.
Sieur de La Salle
Sieur de La Salle is a French title roughly translating to "Lord of the manor". Sieur is a French title of nobility, similar to the English "Sir," but under the French seigneurial system, the title is purchased rather than earned, and does not imply military duty. Robert Cavelier took the title with his seigneurial purchase of Lachine from the Sulpician order at Ville Marie around 1667. It refers to the name of a family estate near Rouen. However, the phrase La Salle has become iconic, and associated with the person as if it were his name; he is therefore often called Robert La Salle, or simply "La Salle".
Expeditions
"Ohio" expedition
The Seneca told La Salle of a great river, called the Ohio, which flowed into the sea, the "Vermilion Sea". He began to plan for expeditions to find a western passage to China. He sought and received permission from Governor Daniel Courcelle and Intendant Jean Talon to embark on the enterprise. He sold his interests in Lachine to finance the venture.
La Salle left Lachine by the St. Lawrence on July 6, 1669, with a flotilla of nine canoes and 24 men, an unknown number of Seneca guides: himself and 14 hired men in four canoes, the two Sulpicians Dollier de Casson and Abbé René de Bréhan de Galinée with seven new recruits in three canoes, and two canoes of Natives. Having travelled up the St. Lawrence and across Lake Ontario for 35 days, they arrived at what is called today Irondequoit Bay on the southern shore of Lake Ontario at the mouth of Irondequoit Creek, a place now commemorated as La Salle's Landing.