Jacques Marquette
Father
Jacques Marquette (
French:
Père Jacques Marquette) (
June 10,
1637–
May 18,
1675) and
Louis Jolliet were the first
Europeans to see and map the
Mississippi River.
Father Marquette was born in
Laon,
France, and joined the
Society of Jesus at age seventeen. After working and teaching in France for several years, he was dispatched to
Quebec in 1666 to preach to the
Native Americans, where he showed great proficiency in the local languages, especially
Huron.
In 1668, Father Marquette was redeployed by his superiors to missions farther up the
St. Lawrence River in the western
Great Lakes. He worked at
Sault Ste. Marie and at the Mission of the Holy Spirit in
La Pointe, on
Lake Superior, near the present-day town of
Ashland, Wisconsin. Here, he came into contact with members of the
Illinois tribes, who told him of the existence of the
Mississippi River and invited him to come teach further south. Due to wars between the
Hurons at La Pointe and the neighboring
Dakota people, however, Father Marquette had to relocate to the
Straits of Mackinac, where he informed his superiors about the rumored river, and requested permission to explore it.
Leave was granted, and in 1673, Marquette was joined by
Louis Joliet, a French Canadian explorer. They departed from
St. Ignace on
May 17, with two canoes and five other
voyageurs of French-Indian ancestry. They followed
Lake Michigan to the
Bay of Green Bay and up the
Fox River. From here, they portaged to the
Wisconsin River, which they were told led to the river they sought. On
June 17, they entered the Mississippi near
Prairie du Chien, becoming the first Europeans to enter the river.
The Joliet-Marquette expedition travelled to within 435
miles (700 km) of the
Gulf of Mexico, but turned back at the mouth of the
Arkansas River. By this point they had encountered a number of natives carrying European trinkets, and they feared an encounter with explorers or colonists from
Spain. They followed the Mississippi back to the mouth of the
Illinois River, which they learned from local natives was a shorter route back to the Great Lakes. They returned to Lake Michigan at the point of modern-day
Chicago, Illinois. Marquette stopped at the mission of St. Francis Xavier in
Green Bay in September, while Joliet returned to Quebec to relate the good news of their discoveries.
Marquette and his party returned to the Illinois Territory in late 1674, becoming the first Europeans to winter in what would become the city of
Chicago. In the spring of 1675, the missionary again paddled westward, and celebrated a public Mass at the
Grand Village of the Illinois near
Starved Rock. A bout of dysentery picked up during the Mississippi expedition, however, had sapped his health. On the return trip to St. Ignace he died near the modern town of
Ludington, Michigan, although the precise date and location are unknown.
Father Marquette is memorialized in several towns and rivers that bear his name (such as
Marquette, Michigan), as well as the
Father Marquette National Memorial near
St. Ignace, Michigan.
*
Marquette University,
Milwaukee, Wisconsin*
Marquette University High School,
Milwaukee, Wisconsin*Pere Marquette Park in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin*
Pere Marquette State Park in
Grafton, Illinois *Pere Marquette Hotel in
New Orleans*
Pere Marquette Beach in
Muskegon, Michigan*
Pere Marquette Hotel,
Peoria, Illinois*
Marquette High School in
Chesterfield, Missouri*
Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online*
The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents 1610 to 1791, including Marquette's journal*
French Explorers
