Marquette & Jolliet: Did They Seek the Northwest Passage?

Historical evidence indicates that Father Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet did not believe the Mississippi River was the Northwest Passage—a hoped-for water route across North America to the Pacific.

The 1673 Expedition's True Goal

Commissioned by New France's governor, Louis de Buade de Frontenac, their mission was to:

1. Explore the "Great River" (Mississippi) reported by Native peoples.
2. Determine its course and mouth—specifically, whether it emptied into the Gulf of Mexico (Spanish territory) or the Pacific.
3. Assess Native nations, resources, and mission potential along the way.

What They Discovered

Traveling from Green Bay (via Fox & Wisconsin Rivers) down the Mississippi to the Arkansas River (near present-day Arkansas City, AR), they confirmed:

• The Mississippi flowed south, not west.
• It almost certainly emptied into the Gulf of Mexico—Spanish-controlled waters.
• It was not a shortcut to the Pacific/China.

Recognizing this, and wary of Spanish hostilities, they turned back at the Quapaw villages. They had mapped a massive new corridor for French trade and empire—but not the elusive Northwest Passage. That dream would persist for another century, ultimately fulfilled (in a sense) by the Lewis & Clark expedition and later the Panama Canal.