: A Part of the Map Published in Paris by Thevenot as
"Marquette's Map." It shows the route taken by Joliet across Wisconsin
from the Baie des Puans (now Green Bay) to the Mississippi River, also
part of the return journey, that is, from the present site of Chicago,
northward along lake Michigan.]

[1685-1690]

[Illustration: Louis XIV.]

La Salle had the ambition to get to the South Sea from the Mississippi.
Governor De la Barre, who followed Frontenac, opposing him, he repaired
to France, where he succeeded in winning Louis XIV. to his plan. At the
head of a well-equipped fleet he sailed for the mouth of the
Mississippi, reaching land near Matagorda Bay on the first day of the
year 1685. Not finding the Mississippi, La Salle's officers mutinied.
The expedition broke up into parties, wandering here and there,
distressed by Indian attacks and by treachery among themselves. La Salle
was shot by his own men. Nearly all his followers perished, but a small
party at last discovered the river and ascended it to Fort St. Louis on
the Illinois, reaching France via Quebec. In this expedition France
took possession of Texas, nor did she ever relinquish the claim till, in
1763, the whole of Louisiana west of the Mississippi was ceded to Spain,
La Salle's ill-starred attempt led later to the planting of French
colonies by D'Iberville at Biloxi Island, in Mobile Bay, soon abandoned,
and at Poverty Point, on the Mississippi; and still later to the
settlement of New Orleans and vicinity. Growth in these parts was slow,
however. So late as 1713 there were not over three hundred whites in the
entire Mississippi Valley.

[Illustration: Coins Struck In France for the Colonies.]

[Illustration: Assassination of La Salle.]

[Illustration: New Orleans in 1719.]

By this time French traders had set foot on every shore of the great
lakes and explored nearly every stream tributary thereto. The English,
pushing westward more and more, were trying to divide with them the
lucrative business of fur-trading, and each nation sought to win to
itself all the Indians it could. The Mohawks and their confederates of
the Five Nations, now equipped and acquainted with fire-arms, spite of
alternate overtures and threats from the French, remained firm friends
to the English, who more and more invaded those vast and fertile western
ranges. It grew to be the great question of the age this side the
Atlantic, whether England or France should control the