Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index Robert Cavelier de La Salle (November 22, 1643 - March 19, 1687) was a French explorer. A settler in New France, he sailed down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers in 1682, naming the Mississippi basin Louisiana in honour of Louis XIV; in 1684 he led an expedition to establish a French colony on the Gulf of Mexico, and after an unsuccessful search for the Mississippi delta his followers mutinied and he was murdered. See French colonization of the Americas. You might be looking for: Jean-Baptiste de la Salle (1651-1719), Catholic saint, teacher and educational reformer. This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.