La Salle Expeditions - Later Expeditions - Third Expedition

Third Expedition

In the late 17th century, La Salle began the process of expanding and securing the fur trade by building series of forts and a line of communications from Montreal into the upper Great Lakes and into the Ohio Valley and Mississippi regions. In 1673 he built Fort Frontenac at Cataraqui (now Kingston) on Lake Ontario. In 1679 he built Fort Conti at the mouth of the Niagara River on Lake Ontario. Near the fort he constructed a sailing ship he named Le Griffon and used it to explore much of the Great Lakes. He voyaged as far as modern Green Bay, Wisconsin in the following summer where he set up a trading post. The region was still locked in the Beaver Wars and this new route over the lakes allowed the French to bypass the dangerous countryside and trade with the tribes beyond the front lines of the war. While he remained at the post, he sent two men with an Indian guide westward in search of the Mississippi River. Two men eventually located the Falls of St. Anthony before returning.

In September 1679 he began the return trip to Niagara but stopped at the mouth of the St. Joseph River on the east shore of Lake Michigan. They paddled upstream and there they built a small fort to serve as a base of operations for continued expeditions into the Illinois and Ohio Country. There they waited for supplies and men which were traveling overland to meet them. He sent the Griffon and crew back to Montreal, but they never arrived and were believed to have died on the return journey.

On December 3, 1679 a party of twenty-men started out for the Illinois Country. They set out to search for the Kankakee portage, an overland path that connected the St. Joseph River to the Kankakee River, but they missed the portage and La Salle became separated from the rest of his men. The group spent the night separated in a snow storm, but the next morning La Salle was able to relocate the river and rejoin his men. They continued searching and finally found the path and started overland to the Kankakee River. Once reaching the river they took to their canoes and traveled westward and then down the Mississippi. Their supplies began to run low, but they found a bison stranded in a mud pool which they were able to kill and eat, replenishing a large part of their supplies. They continued downstream and encountered a large Indian village where they stopped to build a fort he named Fort Crèvecoeur.

Using his new fort as the start of a trading post, La Salle invited the local tribes for negotiations. There he established a trading agreement with the tribes and also discovered that they were also locked in the war with the Iroquois who had been frequent raiders in the area. The area contained numerous tribes, including the Miami tribe to the east, the Wea and Piankeshaw to the south-east, the Illinois tribe in the immediate area, and the Peoria tribe to the farther west. There were even several groups of refugees from as far away as Maine who had fled into the region hoping to avoid the Iroquois who had invaded their own homelands. Most of the country east of the fort, which was the Ohio Country, was empty according the local tribes, most of the inhabitants had fled into the Illinois Country and beyond to escape the Iroquois.

The remainder of the winter was spent collecting furs from the surrounding area and after spring arrived a group of men was sent to deliver the furs to Montreal via the trade route that had just been established. The men returned and sold the furs, but deserted and did not return. La Salle then set out for Canada to discover what had become of his men. On the return trip he encountered the new governor of New France who was coming to take possession of the outposts La Salle had established for the crown and to put in garrisons. Upon his return to his outpost he discovered it had been destroyed by his own men who mutinied not long after his departure in the autumn of 1680. The local tribes were nowhere to be found and had fled to the west of the Mississippi River, likely because of continued Iroquois raids.