La Salle Proclaims Possession of Louisiana

Timeline

1. 1682Confluence of the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers · IllinoisLa Salle, Tonti, about twenty-three Frenchmen, and eighteen Indigenous guides entered the Mississippi by canoe. The party traveled down the right bank, passing the mouths of the Missouri and Ohio, and called the great river the Colbert River in honor of the French finance minister.
2. 1682Fort Prudhomme · TennesseeA lost gunsmith forced the party to halt. La Salle ordered a small wooden fort built, named Fort Prudhomme after the gunsmith's surname, as a resupply point heading south, then continued to the mouth of the Arkansas River with the help of local guides.
3. 1682Mississippi River mouth · Mississippi DeltaLa Salle, in ceremonial dress, erected a cross and a wooden column painted with the French arms, buried an inscribed copper plate, and read a document assigning to Louis XIV all lands, towns, mines, and harbors watered by the Mississippi and all its tributaries, countersigned by twelve witnesses. The party set out north the next day. The king did not learn of this until about a year later.