La Salle's Claim of Louisiana
- When
- 1682
- Where
- Mouth of the Mississippi River
- Episodes
- 1
In April 1682, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, reached the Gulf of Mexico at the mouth of the Mississippi River. He claimed the entire river basin for France, naming it La Louisiane in honor of Louis XIV, thereby extending French territorial claims to the river's mouth.
Episodes
Background and detail
The 1682 Expedition. La Salle's expedition traveled down the lower Mississippi River from the mouth of the Illinois River. In February 1682, the group arrived at the Mississippi and built canoes. By April 1682, they reached the Gulf of Mexico, completing the descent to the river's mouth.
People involved
- René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle · French explorer and leader of the expedition
Sources
- René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-22
- Louisiana Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-24
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.