Robert de La Salle
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50 free Robert De La Salle trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Robert de La Salle paddled down the Mississippi in 1682, planted a cross near its mouth and claimed the heart of North America for France. Five years later he was dead in Texas, hundreds of miles from where he meant to be. In between came vanished ships, abandoned forts, a one-handed lieutenant and some of the worst luck in the history of exploration. These fun facts about Robert de La Salle come as quiz questions, each with its answer and a short explanation. They cover his boyhood in Normandy and his years in a religious order, the fur-trade forts and the first big sailing ship on the upper Great Lakes, the journey to the Gulf of Mexico, the lost colony on the Texas coast, and the shipwreck that archaeologists raised three centuries later. A few follow his name into the present, from city streets to car showrooms and college sports. The quiz suits students working on an explorer project, teachers who want a ready-made classroom round, and kids who like true adventure stories. The opening questions are the friendliest; the later ones reward people who know their New France history.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Robert de La Salle's Texas colony put France in the slogan that named which theme park chain?
Six Flags
Six Flags takes its name from the six nations said to have ruled Texas. France's turn, dated 1685 to 1690, rests entirely on La Salle's small and short-lived settlement.
Q 02LaSalle cars, named for Robert de La Salle, launched in 1927 as a cheaper companion to which luxury make?
Cadillac
Cadillac built the LaSalle until 1940 as its lower-priced line. Cadillac is itself named for a French colonial officer, so General Motors sold two cars honouring men of New France.
Q 03How did Robert de La Salle die in Texas in 1687 while trekking overland to fetch help?
Shot by one of his men
Shot by one of his men, La Salle fell in an ambush on 19 March 1687. The gunman, Pierre Duhaut, blamed him for a brother's disappearance and was himself shot dead not long after.
Q 04A 1931 sportswriter's mix-up with Robert de La Salle gave La Salle University's teams which nickname?
Explorers
Explorers stuck after students voted for it in 1932. The Philadelphia school is really named for Saint Jean-Baptiste de La Salle, a priest who founded a teaching order.
Q 05Louisiana is named for which French king, reigning when Robert de La Salle claimed the Mississippi basin in 1682?
Louis XIV
Louis XIV, the Sun King, was honoured when La Salle named the whole river basin La Louisiane on 9 April 1682. The name lives on in a single American state.
Q 06Le Griffon, the ship Robert de La Salle launched in 1679, was built just upstream of which famous waterfall?
Niagara Falls
Niagara Falls barred the way upriver, so the anchors, chain and cordage for Le Griffon were carried past it on foot, single file through the snow.
Q 07Which French ruler sold America the Louisiana territory that Robert de La Salle had first claimed?
Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon Bonaparte sold it in 1803, three years after Spain handed the territory back to France. American officials then argued the sale took in Texas, because of La Salle's colony.
Q 08LaSalle Street, named for Robert de La Salle, runs through the financial district of which American city?
Chicago
Chicago's LaSalle Street ends at the Board of Trade Building. It is nicknamed The Canyon for the tall, steep buildings that wall it in on both sides.
Q 09Henri de Tonti, Robert de La Salle's lieutenant, was called Iron Hand after losing his hand to what?
A grenade
A grenade blew off his hand while he fought in Sicily in the 1670s. He wore a hook under a glove, and some Native nations believed it gave him special powers.
Q 10Robert de La Salle's Montreal estate is said to owe its mocking nickname to his dream of reaching which country?
China
China, la Chine in French, is said to be the joke behind Lachine, now a Montreal borough. La Salle's men were teased as the Chinese when they came home without finding a passage.
Q 11When the crew of La Salle's ship La Belle ran out of drinking water in 1686, what did they drink instead?
Wine
Wine only dried the sailors out further, and some of them died. The weakened crew then lost control of La Belle in a cold front and ran her aground for good.
Q 12Before sailing to Canada, Robert de La Salle spent nine years as a member of which Catholic religious order?
Jesuits
Jesuits trained him from his teens and he taught in their schools, but his superiors found him restless. He was released from his vows in 1667 after pleading his own moral frailties.
Q 13Robert de La Salle was born in 1643 in which Normandy city, where Joan of Arc had been burned at the stake?
Rouen
Q 21What was the family surname of Robert de La Salle, whose famous title came from an estate his parents owned?
Cavelier
Cavelier was his surname and René-Robert his given names. Sieur de La Salle means roughly lord of the manor of La Salle, a title that came with land and not with any feat of arms.
Q 22Robert de La Salle's 1684 fleet overshot the Mississippi by 400 miles and landed at which bay on the Texas coast?
Matagorda Bay
Matagorda Bay was a mistake born of poor charts and a latitude La Salle had misjudged in 1682. For months he tried to believe it was an outlet of his river.
Q 23Which object, raised by divers in 1995, proved that a wreck off Texas was Robert de La Salle's ship La Belle?
A bronze cannon
Rouen was a rich river port with strong ties to Canada. La Salle's father was a wealthy wholesale merchant there, and an uncle belonged to the company that ran New France.
Q 14Thick mud preserved which unlikely part of a sailor whose skeleton was found aboard La Salle's ship La Belle?
Brain tissue
Brain tissue lasted three centuries because the mud sealed out oxygen. The sailor, a middle-aged man with signs of arthritis, was later buried in the Texas State Cemetery.
Q 15Which Spanish conquistador reached the Mississippi about 140 years before Robert de La Salle claimed its valley?
Hernando de Soto
Hernando de Soto reached the river in May 1541 and died on its banks the following year, long before any French canoe came down from the north.
Q 16Which pair explored the upper Mississippi in 1673, nine years before Robert de La Salle followed it to the sea?
Jolliet and Marquette
Jolliet and Marquette turned back far short of the sea, worried about running into the Spanish. La Salle's party finished the journey to the Gulf in April 1682.
Q 17The hull of La Belle, Robert de La Salle's wrecked ship, is displayed at a state history museum in which Texas city?
Austin
Austin's Bullock Museum opened its La Belle exhibit in 2014. Conservators had first spent more than ten years soaking and freeze-drying the waterlogged timbers.
Q 18What does Crèvecoeur, the name Robert de La Salle gave his 1680 Illinois fort after many setbacks, mean in French?
Broken heart
Broken heart summed up a winter of desertions and a lost ship. Weeks after La Salle left to fetch supplies, the men he had left behind wrecked the fort and walked away.
Q 19A companion wrote that some blamed Robert de La Salle's sudden fever in 1669 on the sight of three of which animals?
Rattlesnakes
Rattlesnakes in his path got the blame in the sly account of the priest Galinée. La Salle gave the fever as his reason to leave the party, and where he went next is still argued over.
Q 20In a 1683 letter, how did the King of France describe Robert de La Salle's discovery of the Mississippi's mouth?
Completely useless
Completely useless was the royal verdict, with an order that such ventures be stopped in future. Within a year La Salle had talked the court into paying for a colony.
A bronze cannon carried the crests of the French king and of an admiral who died in 1683. Its serial number was later matched to a French list of guns loaded aboard La Belle.
Q 24Which powerful confederacy's raids into the Illinois country kept threatening Robert de La Salle's forts and allies?
Iroquois
Iroquois war parties were pushing west in search of beaver hunting grounds. La Salle spent years urging the Miami and Illinois nations to unite against them and settle near his forts.
Q 25Which river was Robert de La Salle long credited with discovering in 1669, though he never made that claim himself?
Ohio
The Ohio story rests on two accounts written by his backers in France. Historians find no evidence he reached it, and his own journal of the trip was lost in 1756.
Q 26Henri de Tonti's 1686 trading post, founded while seeking Robert de La Salle, made him the 'Father' of which state?
Arkansas
Arkansas Post began with a few Frenchmen left to trade with the Quapaw. Tonti had come downriver hoping to meet La Salle on his way upriver, unaware that he was stranded in Texas.
Q 27Robert de La Salle's ship Le Griffon vanished in 1679 after leaving which Great Lakes bay with a load of furs?
Green Bay
Green Bay was the last place Le Griffon was seen, sailing off with a crew of six. Wreck hunters have announced her discovery many times, but none of the finds has been confirmed.
Q 28Hundreds of thousands of which small trade items were found in the wreck of Robert de La Salle's ship La Belle?
Glass beads
Glass beads in blue, white and black lay in the hold beside brass rings, hawk bells and axe heads. La Belle carried whatever was thought necessary to start a colony from nothing.
Q 29Men on Robert de La Salle's 1685 expedition along the Texas coast died after eating which wild food?
Prickly pear
Prickly pear killed a number of the party, among them the captain of La Belle. His replacement died in a raid soon after, and the ship was left to a mate who later ran her aground.
Q 30What colour was the gold-trimmed coat Robert de La Salle wore to claim Louisiana for France in April 1682?
Scarlet
Scarlet trimmed with gold set the tone for a ceremony of hymns, musket volleys and a buried copper plate. The cloak outlasted every shipwreck and was still with him when he died.