1687 – Explorer Robert Cavelier de La Salle, searching for the mouth of the Mississippi River, is murdered by his own men. René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle (November 22, 1643 – March 19, 1687), was a 17th-century French explorer and fur trader in North America. He explored the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada, and the Mississippi River. He is best known for an early 1682 expedition in which he canoed the lower Mississippi River from the mouth of the Illinois River to the Gulf of Mexico; there, on 9 April 1682, he claimed the Mississippi River basin for France. On July 24, 1684, he departed France and returned to America with a large expedition designed to establish a French colony on the Gulf of Mexico, at the mouth of the Mississippi River. They had four ships and 300 colonists. The expedition was plagued by pirates, Natives defending their land, and poor navigation. One ship was lost to pirates in the West Indies, a second sank in the inlets of Matagorda Bay. The La Belle made landfall in Feb. 1685. They founded a settlement, near the bay which they called the Bay of Saint Louis, on Garcitas Creek in the vicinity of present-day Victoria, Texas. La Salle led a group eastward on foot on three occasions to try to locate the mouth of the Mississippi. In the meantime, the flagship La Belle, the only remaining ship, ran aground and sank into the mud, stranding the colony on the Texas coast. Some of his men mutinied, near the site of present-day Navasota, Texas. On March 19, 1687, La Salle was slain by Pierre Duhaut during an ambush while talking to Duhaut's decoy, Jean L'Archevêque. They were "six leagues" from the westernmost village of the Hasinai (Tejas) Indians. One source states that Duhaut was a "disenchanted follower." Duhaut was shot and killed by James Hiems to avenge La Salle. Over the following week, others were killed; confusion followed as to who killed whom. The colony lasted only until 1688, when Karankawa-speaking Natives killed the 20 remaining adults and took five children as captives.