User:Bootboy41/sandbox/Joliet and Marquette expedition of 1673

User:Bootboy41/sandbox/Joliet and Marquette expedition of 1673

In 1673 Louis Jolliet and Father Jacques Marquette undertook an expedition to find a passage to the South Sea.

Organization of the expedition
In 1672 King Louis XIV of France authorized Jean Talon, Intendant of New France to seek a passage to the "South Sea". When Talon's failing health forced him to return to France in the autumn of 1672, he recommended to the newly-arrived Governor General of New France, Louis de Buade de Frontenac, that Louis Jolliet be selected to lead the proposed expedition of discovery. In November, 1672, Frontenac reported to Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Controller-General of Finances of France, "I have deemed it expedient ... to send the Sieur Joliet to discover the south sea by the Maskoutens country, and the great river Mississippi, which is believed to empty into the California sea." Claude Dablon, superior of the Jesuits in New France, designated Jacques Marquette to accompany Jolliet. Jolliet set out for Marquette's St. Ignace Mission, arriving there on December 8, 1672.