page_title: Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville
section_title: Exploring Louisiana
hierarchical_section_title: Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville / Exploring Louisiana
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Estampe rappelant l'exploration du Mississippi et la fondation de la Louisiane par Cavelier de la Salle et d'Iberville. 1699.English: Print recalling the exploration of the Mississippi by Cavelier de La Salle and Iberville referring to his successor in the region. 1699. Approximate translation&#160;: Discovery of the Mississippi and Louisiana. 1699. Mr. Cavelier de la Salle had explored, despite his enemies, the Mississippi River up to the sea Wanting a few years later, recognizing the river mouth by the sea, he was assassinated. Mr. D'Iberville Canadian gentleman, even more lucky and he acknowledged, in 1699, the insignia of the post to France as Monsieur de la Salle was planted in 1683. We called this region Louisiana in honor of Louis XIV and because its inhabitants worship the sun under the name Louis Star.
context_page_description: Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville was a soldier, ship captain, explorer, colonial administrator, knight of the order of Saint-Louis, adventurer, privateer, trader, member of Compagnies Franches de la Marine and founder of the French colony of Louisiana in New France. He was born in Montreal of French colonist parents.
context_section_description: In 1682, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle was the first European to travel from the Great Lakes down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. The French began dreaming of building a great empire by linking the Saint Lawrence and Mississippi basins, thereby bottling up the English on the Atlantic coast. This presented diplomatic problems; because the Gulf coast was claimed, but not occupied, by Spain.
  Pontchartrain, the minister for naval affairs and colonies, gave Iberville the task of locating the mouth of the Mississippi River, which La Salle had failed to find on his last expedition, and building a fort which would block the river to other nations. Iberville left Brest with four ships in October 1698. He sailed along the Florida coast, past the new base the Spanish were building at Pensacola. In March 1699, he entered the Birdfoot Delta. It was only after meeting some Indians who remembered La Salle that he was sure that this was the Mississippi. Having achieved his first aim and finding no good sites in the delta, he built a temporary fort Fort Maurepas at Ocean Springs, Mississippi, left a garrison of 81 men, and returned to France.
  On his second voyage he reached Biloxi in January 1700. He built a second "Fort Maurepas" 40 miles up the Mississippi River. On his return journey, he is said to have stopped at New York City and sold 9,000 furs that coureurs des bois had given him, in preference to hauling them back to Montreal. (This story illustrates the benefits of the future New Orleans area as a port, the size of the French presence on the Mississippi at this early date, and Iberville's rather questionable business practices.) On his third voyage in February 1701, he built a fort at Mobile. Here, Henri de Tonti aided him in establishing good relations with the Indians. He left Louisiana for the last time in April 1702. His brother Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville founded New Orleans in 1718.
caption: Depiction of d'Iberville and Cavelier de La Salle exploring Louisiana.
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