=La Salle and Louisiana, 1682.= Among those who heard of the journey of Marquette and Joliet was a young Frenchman, La Salle. He planned to explore the whole Mississippi basin and to take possession of it in the name of the King of France. In 1682, with a few companions, he floated down the Mississippi to its mouth. Here, with much ceremony, they planted a cross, buried a leaden plate inscribed with the arms of France, and declared that all the land drained by the Mississippi River and its tributaries should belong to France, and should be named Louisiana in honor of the French King, Louis XIV. Thus in 1682, nearly two centuries after the discovery of America, Kansas came into the possession of the French. =The End of Spanish and French Explorations.= The French soon planted a few colonies and forts along the Mississippi River and sent out explorers, some of whom may have entered the present bounds of Kansas. This roused the Spaniards in Mexico, who wished to hold the territory for Spain, and they also sent expeditions. The armies of both nations suffered severely at the hands of the Indians and the exploration of the Kansas country was given up by both Spain and France, and for nearly a century more it lay almost forgotten. The next exploration of this territory was by people of another nation. =The English.= While the Spaniards were busy in the South and the French in the North, another people, the English, began to make explorations in the new continent. They did not come to hunt for gold, nor to trade with the Indians, but to found homes. They settled along the Atlantic coast between the French in Canada and the Spaniards in Florida, and claimed the country westward to the Pacific Ocean. =Conflict of French and English Claims.= As time went on and the settlements increased in number, the claims of the French and the English conflicted and caused much strife between the colonies of the two countries. The question of the ownership of the land was not settled until the close of the French and Indian War in 1763. As a result of this war France gave up all her claims in America, practically everything east of the Mississippi to England, and that west of it to Spain. In 1800 Spain ceded her portion of America back to France. =The Louisiana Purchase, 1803.= In the meantime the English colonies had fought the Revolutionary War and become an independent nation. In 1803, when Thomas Jefferson was President, the United States bought from France her tract of country lying west of the Mississippi River. This was known as the Louisiana Purchase, and the date is one to be remembered, for it marks the end of French claims in America, and it marks the time when what is now Kansas became a part of the United States.[2]