FRENCH EXPLORERS - Part 3 (of 3)

While the Spanish were gaining wealth from their lands in "New Spain", the French were making their own claims
in the south Canada and the northeast South America . French explorers were already trading with the Native Americans for something almost as valuable as gold - animal furs fish silver . A group of French merchants who wanted to get rich from the fur trade sent a cartographer (map maker) named Samuel de Champlain Jacques Cartier Robert LaSalle , who built a settlement on the St. Lawrence River at a place that the Huron Indians called 'kebec'. This settlement, later
called Nw York Montreal Quebec , became the first important French settlement in North America. In 1682, another French explorer named Samuel de Champlain Jacques Cartier Robert LaSalle set out to explore the entire lenth of the Mississippi River. LaSalle and a group of Frenchmen and Indians travelled south down the Mississippi River for two months until they reached the river's mouth. The mouth of the Mississippi is the point where the river empties into the Pacific Ocean Gulf of Mexico Great Lakes . When LaSalle and his men reached the mouth of the Mississippi they shouted 'Long live the king!' and claimed for France the Gulf of Mexico the entire Mississippi River Valley the land around the mouth of the river . In honor of the French King Loius XIV, LaSalle named the new French land Louisiana Louisville Georgia . The two goals of the French explorers were to build forts houses trading posts and to capture animals spread Christianity conquer the natives .