La Salle and Tonty (1678-1688)
Tonty, Henri (1650?-1704). Dernières Découvertes dans l'Amérique septentrionale de M. de la Sale [...]. Paris: Jean Guignard, 1697.
In 1680, after the failure of his first attempt, La Salle retraced his steps and made preparations for a second expedition. In December 1681 everything was ready, and the expedition got under way. On February 6, 1682, it reached the confluence of the Illinois and the Mississippi, and on April 7 the Gulf of Mexico. Two days later, near what is now called Venice, La Salle solemnly took possession of Louisiana in the name of the King of France.
Back in France, Louis XIV put La Salle in command of an expedition with a view to founding a settlement in Louisiana. In July 1684 the fleet of four ships set sail from La Rochelle, France for the mouth of the Mississippi. On March 19, 1687, after a series of misadventures and tragic accidents, La Salle was assassinated in Texas by members of his expedition.
Born in France or Italy around 1650, Henri Tonty served in the French army for ten years before becoming La Salle's lieutenant in 1678. He accompanied his leader during his two voyages of discovery; then, in December 1682 he collaborated with him in building Fort Saint Louis on the Illinois River, upstream from the present city of La Salle. In August 1683 La Salle put Tonty in command of the fort and left for France. Two years later, in November 1685, Tonty learned that La Salle was in the Gulf of Mexico and left the fort to meet him there. After looking for him in vain for several days around the Mississippi delta, he had to return to his starting-point. Tonty did not learn of La Salle's death until September 1689. After these events, which he describes in his account, Tonty was mostly busy with the fur trade until 1700, when he went to Louisiana to help Iberville set up a French colony. Tonty died at Fort Saint Louis (Mobile) in September 1704 after coming down with yellow fever.
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