La Salle was the first European to travel the Mississippi from the Illinois River
Who was the first European to descend the Mississippi River?
While Hernando de Soto was the first European to make official note of the Mississippi River by discovering its southern entrance in 1541, Jolliet and Marquette were the first to locate its upper reaches, and travel most of its length, about 130 years later.
Which European nation settled Mississippi first?
The first major European expedition into the territory that became Mississippi was Spanish , led by Hernando de Soto, which passed through in the early 1540s. The French claimed the territory that included Mississippi as part of their colony of New France and started settlement along the Gulf Coast.
Who discovered the Mississippi?
It shows Spanish conquistador and explorer Hernando De Soto (1500–1542), riding a white horse and dressed in Renaissance finery, arriving at the Mississippi River at a point below Natchez on May 8, 1541. De Soto was the first European documented to have seen the river.
Which European country claimed the Mississippi River watershed?
French explorer, Rene-Robert Cavelier de La Salle, sailed from the Great Lakes up the St. Lawrence River, through the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, to the mouth of the Mississippi River in 1682. There he raised a French flag and claimed all the lands drained by the Mississippi for France .
How did early settlers of MS earn a living?
The Great Migration had brought into the state an agricultural people seeking good land for growing cotton . They found that. In a remarkably short time, they made Mississippi one of the principal cotton-producing states of the Old South.
How did settlers cross the Mississippi?
In. the early movement of settlers to Iowa, the Mississippi River played a double role. ... Rivers proved to be an unfailing source of trouble. The small streams were crossed by fording the larger ones by swimming the teams, wagons and all .
Why did Louis Jolliet explore the Mississippi?
Louis Joliet pursued religious and musical studies until deciding in adulthood to become a fur trader. In 1673, he embarked on a trip with missionary Jacques Marquette along the Mississippi River, ascertaining with Native American guidance that it led to the Gulf of Mexico.
Where did Louis Jolliet really go?
Jolliet received a Jesuit education in New France (now in Canada) but left his seminary in 1667 and went to France. The following year he returned to New France to work in the fur trade.
What was Marquette’s goal?
In 1673, Father Jacques Marquette, a Jesuit missionary, and Louis Joliet, a fur trader, undertook an expedition to explore the unsettled territory in North America from the Great Lakes region to the Gulf of Mexico for the colonial power of France .
Who explored Mississippi River?
1673: Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet begin exploring Mississippi River. They reached Mississippi in July and explored as far south as the mouth of the Arkansas River near present-day Rosedale before turning back.
Who named the Mississippi river?
The word Mississippi comes from Messipi , the French rendering of the Anishinaabe (Ojibwe or Algonquin) name for the river, Misi-ziibi (Great River). The Mississippi River water source is fed by Lake Itasca in Northern Minnesota and flows all the way down into the Gulf of Mexico.
Why is Louisiana so French?
Louisiana’s history is closely tied to Canada’s. ... In the 17th century, Louisiana was colonized by French Canadians in the name of the King of France . In the years that followed, additional waves of settlers came from French Canada to Louisiana, notably the Acadians, after their deportation by British troops in 1755.
Why was the Mississippi river important in the 1800s?
The importance of the river for transportation and trade greatly increased in the early 1800s as paddle wheeled steamboats became popular. Cities along the Mississippi such as St. Louis boomed. During the Civil War, both the North and the South used the river for transportation.
Why did Spain give Louisiana to France?
The cession of Louisiana was kept secret for over a year. France feared that Louisiana would become British . As a result, France sought to preempt any actions that Britain would undertake if it became known that Louisiana no longer enjoyed French protection before the Spanish were able to occupy and defend it.
