La Salle, René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de
La Salle, René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de (1643–87),French explorer and trader, whose expeditions in Canada were aided by Frontenac. He made exploring trips south of the Great Lakes during the 1670s, and returned to France to secure a trade monopoly in the valley of the Mississippi. In 1682 he descended the Mississippi and took possession of the region for France, naming it Louisiana. Given four ships and 200 colonists, he was made viceroy of North America to rule from Illinois to the Spanish borders. His fleet landed (1684) in Texas instead of at the mouth of the Mississippi, and, while La Salle was trying to find the river, his men mutinied and killed him. Narratives of his enterprise appear in I.J. Cox, The Journeys of …La Salle (2 vols., 1905). He is the subject of both colorful history by Parkman and popular fiction, including Mary Hartwell Catherwood's The Story of Tonty.
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