La Salle, René Robert Cavelier, sieur de

(1643-1687)

   explorer

   Born in Rouen, René-Robert Cavelier, sieur de La Salle, immigrated to canada, where he was granted a trading concession on the upper waters of the St. Lawrence, beyond Montreal. He also learned several American Indian languages. Beginning in 1669, accompanied by the italian explorer Enrico Tonti and a party of French and Native Americans, he followed and explored the course of the Ohio River, the Great Lakes (Ontario, Erie, Huron, Michigan) and their surrounding territory, then followed the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico (1681-82). He had already been appointed commander of Fort Frontenac, where he built a trading post. La Salle, as he is also known, returned to France in 1683 and was made viceroy of North America. In 1684, he sailed to the Gulf of Mexico with the plan to establish a colony at the mouth of the Mississippi. unable to locate that site, he landed on the coast of Texas at Matagorda Bay and set out with a small expedition to find the mouth of the Mississippi. But his men mutinied and he was killed near the Trinity River.