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.
