Compare And Contrast Native American And French Explorers

Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette are French explorers best known for their joint discovery of the Mississippi River in 1673, an area which the Native Americans called the “Mesipe”. Being the first white men to see and explore this area, they brought various information about the character of the river, the animals, the Indians living on its shores, the forests, the soils, and the minerals that surrounded the river back to the French. They also told people about the magnificence of the vast country that lay outside their borders which encouraged people to move westward. These explorers are credited with the first exploration of the Mississippi River however, they are not the first. Hernando DeSoto was a Spanish Explorer who was the first

He explored this river in 1541 with a rough barge, his party reached a rough spot in this river and decided to go across this site to continue their quest for gold. Many died including DeSoto himself. The few that did survive reached the Gulf of Mexico and wrote accounts of the events proving its existence. Nobody else was ever successful at finding the river, it lay hidden for 132 years until Jolliet and marquette “rediscovered” it in 1673. The Spanish gave up their quest for gold in North America and the English cared about nothing more than their colonies, but the French had a growing curiosity about the “mysterious” river. The French heard many rumors about this river from the Native Americans that stopped at the French outposts. When Jesuit priests heard about this mysterious river they wondered about the Natives that lived along this river for their only mission was to bring salvation to savage souls. They said that the spread of civilization and the christianization of the Natives must go

Talon had already sent of numerous amounts of exploratory expeditions into the woodlands adjacent to the Great Lakes. His time as assistant governor was running out because he was going to be returning to his position in the French Court. He feared this exploration would be greatly delayed if he did not get it underway before his tenure in Canada was up, however he had no government fund to subsidize and expedition into the unknown country. He used all of his money financing a probe into the Lake Superior region by a party which never returned. Thus he solved his financial problem by offering to Louis Jolliet all trading rights for an expedition of discovery to be made in the service of the King, the catch however was that Jolliet had to fund the expedition. Jolliet knew that finding the Mississippi River would be a full time job and would not leave any time for trapping yet, he accepted the offer with enthusiasm. He and his brother, Adrien, had talked about leading an expedition in search of the great mysterious river for some time however his brother was the leader of the lost expedition into the Lake Superior region. In 1673 Marquette’s request to discover the mysterious river was granted by his superiors. He would be exploring with Louis Jolliet, due to his adept skill at map making and his ability to speak six