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Report an IssueThe Prince of the French Explorers
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Wickliffe Mounds Research Center
Commissioned by Louis XIV of France, the Sieur Robert de LaSalle, sweeping down the Mississippi with his flotilla of canoes, stopped in 1682 at this place, in his quest for the mouth of the Mississippi and an outlet for the French fur trade. This river, called Ohio by the Iroquois and Quabache (Wabash) by the Algonquins, was proclaimed by LaSalle, April 9, 1682, to be the northern watershed of the New Province of Louisiana of the French Colonial Empire.
French Explorers at the Confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers: Accompanied by Pere Jacques Marquette, the Sieur Louis Joliet, commissioned by the French Government at Quebec to explore the Mississippi River, stopped on this bank in 1673, according to the "Jesuit Relations" by Thevenot. They were feasted by the Indians on buffalo meat, bear's grease and white plums.