Jacques Marquette - Louis Joliet, Discoveries & Death

French missionary and explorer Jacques Marquette is best known as the first European to see and map the northern portion of the Mississippi River.

Who Was Jacques Marquette?

Frenchman Jacques Marquette became an explorer in the mid-1600s, not only because of his interest in travel and discovery of new lands but also because of his religion. He joined the Society of Jesus at age 17 and became a Jesuit missionary. He founded missions in present-day Michigan and later joined explorer Louis Joliet on an expedition to discover and map the Mississippi River.

Early Life

Marquette was born in Laon, France, on June 1, 1637. At 17, joined the Society of Jesus and became a Jesuit missionary.

Marquette studied and taught in the Jesuit colleges of France for about 12 years before his superiors assigned him in 1666 to be a missionary to the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. He traveled to Quebec, Canada, where he demonstrated his penchant for learning Indigenous languages: Marquette learned to converse fluently in six different Native American dialects and became an expert in the Huron language.

In 1668, Marquette sent to establish more missions farther up the St. Lawrence River in the western Great Lakes region. He helped establish missions at Sault Ste. Marie in what is now Michigan—the state's first European settlement — in 1668 and at St. Ignace, also in Michigan, in 1671.

Explorations and Discoveries

On May 17, 1673, Marquette and his friend Louis Joliet (also spelled "Jolliet"), a French-Canadian fur trader and explorer, were chosen to lead an expedition that included five men and two canoes to find the direction and mouth of the Mississippi River, which natives had called Messipi, "the Great Water."

Despite sharing a goal to find the river, the two leaders' ambitions were different: Joliet, an experienced mapmaker and geographer, was focused on the finding itself, while Marquette wanted to spread the word of God among the people he encountered on the way there.

Marquette's group traveled westward to Green Bay in present-day Wisconsin, ascended the Fox River to a portage that crossed to the Wisconsin River and entered the Mississippi near Prairie du Chien on June 17, 1673. Following the river to the mouth of the Arkansas River — within 435 miles of the Gulf of Mexico — Marquette and Joliet learned that it flowed through hostile Spanish domains. Fearing an encounter with Spanish colonists and explorers, they decided to return homeward by way of the Illinois River in mid-July.

Death

While Joliet continued on to Canada to relay news of the expedition and its discoveries, Marquette stayed behind in Green Bay. In 1674, he set out to found a mission among the Illinois Native Americans. As a result of the cold winter weather, he and two companions camped near the site of what is now Chicago, becoming the first Europeans to live there. In the spring, Marquette reached the Native Americans he sought, but illness — dysentery he contracted while on his mission—forced him to return home. He died on May 18, 1675, en route to St. Ignace at the mouth of a river later named Père Marquette in his honor.

Legacy

Marquette has been recognized and memorialized for his accomplishments, particularly in the names of many towns, parks and geographical locations. Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was named for him. Several statues have also been erected in his honor, including one at the Prairie du Chien post office, at Quebec's parliament building and in his birthplace of Laon, France.

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