Exploration.

The French presence in the American interior was initially launched from their settlements in Canada. In 1672 Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac et Palluau, governor of New France, wrote to his superiors in France that he was sending Louis Jolliet to discover the "South Sea" through Indian country "and the great river they call Mississippi, which is believed to discharge into the sea of California." The next year the expedition, joined by Father Jacques Marquette and various Indians who served as their guides, left Saint Ignace on the Straits of Mackinac (now in Michigan's upper peninsula) in birchbark canoes and paddled and portaged their way down various rivers and streams until they reached the upper Mississippi. They then made their way down the Mississippi, meeting with various Indians, some of whom had already had contact with Europeans. Marquette and Jolliet, fearing...