Louis Jolliet was a French Canadian explorer. Jacques Marquette was a Jesuit father and missionary. Together they were the first non-natives to map most of the Mississippi River. They had been ordered by the governor of New France to search for a path to the Pacific Ocean. Rumor had it that there was a large river that could take them there.

In 1673 the two men set out by canoe on an expedition to map out the unexplored territories in North America. Their travels took them all the way from the Great Lakes in the north to the Arkansas River in the south. The Mississippi, they learned, ran north and south, not east and west.

These expeditions were important to France because it proved there was a water route from the north to the south. They also converted many native Americans to Christianity. Because of their interactions with the natives, France became allies with many tribes in the Mississippi Valley.