La Salle, ROBERT CAVELIER, SIEUR DE,

La Salle, ROBERT CAVELIER, SIEUR DE, one of the greatest French explorers in North America, was born at Rouen in 1643. Settling in Canada at the age of twenty-three, he began his travels with an attempt to reach China by descending the Ohio River, which he supposed to empty into the Pacific. As soon as he found that the great southern streams drained into the Gulf of Mexico he formed the project of descending the Mississippi to the sea. After many and severe hardships this long voyage was concluded, and the arms of France set up at the mouth of the great river, on 9th April 1682. Two years later an expedition was fitted out to establish a permanent French settlement on the Gulf, which should secure France's claims to the Mississippi valley. But La Salle's bad fortune pursued him; he mistook Matagorda Bay for a mouth of the Mississippi, landed there, and then spent two years in unsuccessful journeys to discover the great river, while his colonists and soldiers gradually dwindled away. His harshness of manner, more than his want of success, embittered his followers, and he was assassinated by some of them in March 1687. See works by Francis Parkman (q.v.).