USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle (/ləˈsæl/; 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.

Detailed explanation-2: -La Salle set up a fur-trading post and farmed his land. He soon learned the Iroquoian language and several other Indigenous dialects. From Indigenous people he heard that south of the Great Lakes a broad river ran southwest to “the Vermilion Sea.” La Salle thought that this sea might be the Gulf of California.

Detailed explanation-3: -In 1682, de La Salle managed to canoe down the Illinois River and the Mississippi River and reach the Gulf of Mexico. He claimed the discovered territory for the French crown and called it Louisiana.

Detailed explanation-4: -He returned to France late in 1683 and obtained royal support for a voyage to the Mississippi through the Gulf of Mexico, there to establish a colony “a secure distance” from the river. The voyage, which sailed from La Rochelle on July 24, 1684, was attended by numerous misfortunes (see LA SALLE EXPEDITION).

Detailed explanation-5: -La Salle secured a contract for the colonization of lower Louisiana from Louis XIV in 1683. The plan was to reach the Mississippi by sea and secure a permanent settlement upriver that would provide the French with a strategic advantage over Spanish interests throughout the Gulf of Mexico.