Episode Details

It is time to get back to New France and the exploration of the middle of this beautiful country of ours. Our vehicle will René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, known to both his contemporaries and to history as “La Salle.” You’ve heard his name, especially if you live within driving distance of the Mississippi, but do you know what he actually did? This and the next few episodes tell La Salle’s remarkable story.

We are back in New France, along the St. Lawrence River, now in the 1660s. The episode begins with an introduction to the geopolitics of North America from the French perspective, then pivots to La Salle’s early life and first years in New France, where he had received a grant of land on roughly the site of Montreal’s international airport. Finally, we conclude with his first journey of discovery, an attempt – perhaps fulfilled – to discover the Ohio River, of which he had heard from Seneca Iroquois who wintered with him in 1668-69. This voyage mattered, because it might have established French claims to the Pittsburgh area, the ambiguity of which was, along with George Washington, the catalyst for the French and Indian War. Sadly, those claims were ambiguous because the French national archives had misplaced the relevant narratives, and they only resurfaced in the 19th century. Archivists matter!

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Primary references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website)

Anka Muhlstein, La Salle: Explorer of the North American Frontier

Robert S. Weddle, “Tarnished Hero: A La Salle Overview,” The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Oct. 2009.

Richard Gross, “La Salle’s Claim and the Ohio River Valley,” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies, Spring 2020.