USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -He was sent by King Louis XIV to travel south from Canada and sail down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. In 1682, he was the first European explorer to travel the entire length of the Mississippi River. He established fur trading routes along the river.

Detailed explanation-2: -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.

Detailed explanation-3: -In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, European explorers ventured into the area we now know as Mississippi. It was this week in 1581, in the far northwestern corner of our state, that Spanish soldiers under Hernando de Soto became the first Europeans to see the Mississippi River.

Detailed explanation-4: -With Spain and France at war, La Salle planned to establish a colony sixty leagues up the river as a base for striking Mexico, afflicting Spanish shipping, and blocking English expansion, while providing a warmwater port for the Mississippi valley fur trade.

Detailed explanation-5: -He sailed into the Gulf, which was now Spanish seas. From the beginning the trip had problems. The leaders did not get along, they lost a ship to Spanish privateers, and La Salle failed to find the Mississippi. He instead landed at Matagorda Bay.