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René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle
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<p>René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle , was a 17th-century French explorer and <a href="/facts/North_American_fur_trade/dV7wguIu">fur trader</a> in North America. He explored the <a href="/facts/Great_Lakes/Fd7pDkPX">Great Lakes</a> region of the <a href="/facts/United_States/P0sCdLe5">United States</a> and <a href="/facts/Canada/cWWFM8oc">Canada</a>, and the <a href="/facts/Mississippi_River/RduarPzj">Mississippi River</a>. He is best known for an early 1682 expedition in which he canoed the lower Mississippi River from the mouth of the <a href="/facts/Illinois_River/tDN7q9sx">Illinois River</a> to the <a href="/facts/Gulf_of_Mexico/bGE5s57G">Gulf of Mexico</a>; there, on April 9, 1682, he claimed the Mississippi River basin for France after giving it the name <a href="/facts/Louisiana_(New_France)/Q1cy1DI2"><i>La Louisiane</i></a>, in honor of <a href="/facts/Louis_IX_of_France/NLX8QjpN">Saint Louis</a> and <a href="/facts/Louis_XIV/2LseeIlj">Louis XIV</a>. One source states that "he acquired for France the most fertile half of the North American continent". A later, ill-fated expedition in 1687 to the Gulf coast of Mexico (today the U.S. state of Texas) gave the United States a putative claim to Texas in the purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803; La Salle was assassinated during that expedition. </p><p>Although <a href="/facts/Louis_Jolliet/Rd8KXV10">Jolliet</a> and <a href="/facts/Jacques_Marquette/GSSXqGLb">Marquette</a> 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, although the existing historical evidence does not indicate that La Salle ever reached the <a href="/facts/Allegheny_River/Ig5EMtqk">Ohio/Allegheny Valley</a>. </p>