CHAPTER 111 FRENCH EXPLORERS Why Spainards Did not Take and Hold the Country — Vague Ideas of the West — News OP THE Mississippi — Radisson and Groseilliers — Joliet and Marquette — Discovery op THE Mississippi — Extent op Their Voyage — The Return — Illness op Marquette — Why Joliet Was Not Given Credit for Expedition — Early Voyage of La Salle — French Ideas op the New World — Views of the English — La Salle's Purpose — Friendship With Frontenac — Visit to France — Start of the Expedition — Loss of THE Griffon — Creve Coeue — He Reaches the Mississippi — Passes to its Mouth — The Colony at Starved Rock — Goes to France — Colony on the Gulf — Death of Lasalle — Estimate of His Character. It was ill 1540 that De Soto and his band were in Southeast ilissouri. They came as we have seen from the south, having landed in Florida and penetrated the country in a vain search for gold. The next white men who came to Missouri were French explorers from the great lakes. These came from the north and entered the country to find the great river whose existence was made known to them by the Indians, to search out places for trade, and to secure the country for France. Some of them were priests who were moved by the desire to carry the Gospel to the sav- ages — by whatever motives moved they came, pushing their adventurous way into the wil- derness and blazing the trail over which civil- ization and settlement were destined to enter the bounds of the state. It is somewhat sur- prising that the Spanish did not take posses- sion of the valley of the Mississippi since De Soto had discovered the river and explored a part of its valley, and since the Spanish claimed the Gulf of Mexico as a sea belonging to them. They did little or nothing to make good their claims, however, as it was the great misfortune of the Spanish to be occupied in this country, at the first, with a .search for gold and for cities to conquer, rather than with attempts to settle the country and to develop those resources which were destined to produce wealth far greater than the mines and cities of which they dreamed. It was thus left to France to begin the set- tlement and development of the valley of the great river. One characteristic of all grants made in this country was their indefinite ex- tension toward the west. Little idea was had as to the extent of the continent in that di- rection, and, accordingly, kings and trading companies calmly made grants whose western limits were undefined and undetermined, and whose extent, if carried to the western .sea, was vast beyond the very conception of those making them. Thus the French in Canada, having little idea of the extent of the country to the west of them, came to regard it as 22
