Compare And Contrast And Louis Joliet
In 1673, Father Jacques Marquette, a Jesuit missionary, and Louis Joliet, a fur trader, undertook an expedition to explore the unsettled territory in North America from the Great Lakes region to the Gulf of Mexico for the colonial power of France. Leaving with several men in two bark canoes, Marquette and Joliet entered the Mississippi River and arrived in present-day Arkansas in June 1673. They were considered the first Europeans to come into contact with the Indians of east Arkansas since Hernando de Soto’s expedition in the 1540s. The goal given Marquette, Joliet, and their men was to document, for French and Canadian officials, an area that had been largely unknown until the late seventeenth century.
Both explorers were from very different …show more content…
Arriving in Arkansas, they stopped at Kappa, a Quapaw village about twenty miles from the mouth of the Arkansas River. The Quapaw greeted the travelers with reluctance but finally warmed up to them, the first Europeans seen in the area in over 100 years. As a gesture of friendship upon greeting the travelers, the Quapaw offered Marquette a ceremonial pipe, the calumet, which he smoked with tribal leaders. Marquette remarked the Quapaw men were “strong, well made” andbeaux homes (handsome men). After three days and nights of feasting, both Marquette and Joliet were able to comment that the Quapaw were likeable and could become possible French allies in the settlement of the lower Mississippi River Valley.
Marquette and Joliet’s journey was curtailed when the Quapaw warned the explorers that Spanish colonials were located further south. Not wishing to lose the observations they had noted about the region to the Spanish if they came into contact with them, Marquette and Joliet returned to the Great Lakes region at the head of Green Bay, secure in the knowledge that the Mississippi River did indeed empty into the Gulf of Mexico. This was based on reports from Arkansas’s Quapaw Indians. However, before they left, Marquette and his Frenchmen erected a cross in the village of
Both explorers were from very different …show more content…
Arriving in Arkansas, they stopped at Kappa, a Quapaw village about twenty miles from the mouth of the Arkansas River. The Quapaw greeted the travelers with reluctance but finally warmed up to them, the first Europeans seen in the area in over 100 years. As a gesture of friendship upon greeting the travelers, the Quapaw offered Marquette a ceremonial pipe, the calumet, which he smoked with tribal leaders. Marquette remarked the Quapaw men were “strong, well made” andbeaux homes (handsome men). After three days and nights of feasting, both Marquette and Joliet were able to comment that the Quapaw were likeable and could become possible French allies in the settlement of the lower Mississippi River Valley.
Marquette and Joliet’s journey was curtailed when the Quapaw warned the explorers that Spanish colonials were located further south. Not wishing to lose the observations they had noted about the region to the Spanish if they came into contact with them, Marquette and Joliet returned to the Great Lakes region at the head of Green Bay, secure in the knowledge that the Mississippi River did indeed empty into the Gulf of Mexico. This was based on reports from Arkansas’s Quapaw Indians. However, before they left, Marquette and his Frenchmen erected a cross in the village of