Jacques Marquette

In competition with the English and the Spanish in North America, the French in the mid to late seventeenth century began expanding south from their colonies in Canada.

Spreading a fur-trading empire into the Great Lakes region— an endeavor facilitated by alliances with many Indian tribes— the French then sent fur trader Louis Jolliet and Jesuit missionary Jacques Marquette on a mission to the Mississippi River. This territory was largely unexplored, and these two are widely credited as being the first Europeans to navigate this vital waterway.

Father Jacques Marquette, who has been credited with authorship of the journal from which the following extracts are taken, had been sent to the Canadian mission of the Jesuits in 1666. He learned many native languages and spent the next several years reaching out to Algonquin Indians in what is...