Jacques Marquette

Jacques Marquette (1637–1675) was a French Jesuit missionary and explorer who, alongside fur trader Louis Jolliet, led the first European expedition to explore and map the northern portion of the Mississippi River in 1673. Earlier, Marquette had founded missions among Native American peoples in the Great Lakes region, including Sault Ste. Marie and St. Ignace in present-day Michigan.

His detailed journals from the Mississippi expedition provided Europeans with their first reliable information about the river's course, native peoples, and resources, though Marquette himself died of dysentery near present-day Ludington, Michigan, before the official maps from the journey were published.