USA > Missouri > A history of Missouri from the earliest explorations and settlements until the admission of the state into the union, Volume II > Part 30
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33 Words of Piernas in report, dated Oct. 3, 1769.
34 "They quickly waste whatever they gain in revelling and scandalous chambering as is notorious." - Report of Piernas, Oct. 30, 1769.
35 " And although they have not at times the means for their subsistence and vices, as they find men to back them, who will supply them on account of the future trade, they come out on top and always live in idleness, although it is known that they corrupt the native youth by their evil example."-Report of Piernas, Oct. 30, 1769.
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HISTORY OF MISSOURI
war of 1812, the Saukee and Renard Indians made a drive hunt in northern Missouri, the squaws as well as warriors turning out en masse, all starting at a given point and separating about an equal dis- tance apart, marched forward, thus concentrating the game within this line and on that day alone killed seven hundred deer.36 Thus all devouring commercial greed soon made the woods tenantless so far as the most valuable and precious fur-bearing animals were concerned, although at times the over-stocked French fur com- panies made an effort to check the supply of beaver skins.37 But the fear of competition of the English traders always defeated such schemes. For in case the French did not buy from the Indians, the English not being subject to tax of one fourth in kind, were ever ready to buy and pay a better price.
The profits of the traders were usually large. An average profit of one hundred percent on goods sent out, by no means represented the whole gain, because the merchandise going out was valued at its selling price at the post from which it was sent, while the furs were valued at the price current at the post where they were purchased. For instance, red cloth might sell at Ste. Genevieve or St. Louis or New Madrid at four shillings, or one dollar, per yard, including freight although actually it cost the merchant at the post not more than one half that sum, yet this cloth when sold to the Indian would bring two dollars or even more. On the other hand, the beaver skins or furs with which the Indian paid for such cloth, would be valued at perhaps two dollars at the post, but they would fetch in London, five or ten times as much. Stoddard estimated the value of the fur trade of upper Louisiana for fifteen successive years before the cession, amounted to about $200,000 per annum, and that this trade annually yielded the traders a profit of over $55,000, which he justly observes to be a large sum considering the scanty population.38
The French as well as the Spaniards jealously aimed to protect this trade. Under the dominion of the former, the fur trade was a monop- oly granted to individuals or to traders, a certain percentage of the profit to be paid by the grantees to the government as a tax; but under the Spanish dominion all subjects, theoretically, were allowed to trade with the Indians without discrimination. In the beginning of the 18th century, the fur trade was a source of constant friction between the
36 Draper's Notes, vol. 23, p. 65 et seq.
37 16 Wisconsin Historical Collection, p. 209.
38 Stoddard's Louisiana, p. 297.
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TRADE JEALOUSIES
French and English colonies. The invasion of the French territory by English traders, led to the French-English colonial war, and caus- ed finally, the destruction of the French-American colonial empire. Under the Spanish dominion all foreigners were rigorously excluded from participating in the benefits of the Indian trade. The Canadian traders, after the English acquired Canada, grievously lamented that they were excluded from the fur trade in the Spanish territory west of the river. Lieutenant Frazier, stationed at Fort de Chartres in 1768, says that the English traders can undersell the French at least 25 per cent; he says that the Spanish commandants always shared in the profits of the traders and that there can be no real peace while the French are rivals in the trade; that the Spanish officers make "eter- nal professions of friendship and good offices with every English- man with whom they have the least intercourse, but their double manner of acting should put us on guard."39 He complains also that the traders from New Orleans trade in the English Illinois and that they "are in general, most unconscientious rascals" and who make it "their interest to debauch from us the Indians and to foment trou- ble;" but after his arrival, the New Orleans Company, he says, "con- fined their commerce in the Missouri river." Private traders " are permitted" he says "to go everywhere" and come to the English side and particularly trade on the Illinois river. The temptation, on the other hand, of the English-French Canadians to poach, as it were, in the Spanish territory stretching to the Rocky mountains, for furs, was almost irresistible. The country was a wilderness of vast extent, and the savages being friendly, the chances of capture, were doubtful and remote. Occasionally however, a French-Canadian trader like Ducharme was entrapped in the Spanish territory, losing his goods, and barely escaping with his life.40
The first French grant of a trading privilege on the Missouri was made, as we have seen, in 1744 by Governor de Vaudreuil to Joseph Lefebvre des Bruisseau, and it is likely that of the fort he erected
39 2 Indiana Historical Publications, p. 413.
40 This Ducharme's invasion into the Spanish territory is also mentioned in Rivington's "New York Gazette," September 9, 1770, where it is said that Duchar- me "was hardy enough to proceed up that river (Missouri) in direct opposition to the orders of the Spanish Commandant on the Illinois; that his trading and supply- ing the Indians occasioned the Spanish no little trouble, and which caused them to waylay him and take his peltry, besides wounding him in the thigh, but he escaped to the English shore." -26 Draper's Collection (Clark MSS.). No. 15. Ducharme's Island located according to Cerré about 20 miles above Jeffer- son city. Also supposed to be Loutre Island.
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HISTORY OF MISSOURI
Baron de Portneuf was commandant in 1752.41 Under the Spanish regulations no monopoly of the Indian trade was authorized. But the Spanish officials granted to certain traders the exclusive license to trade in certain districts and with a certain tribe - the license being usually given to the trader who would pay the com- mandant or Lieutenant-Governor the largest price. "These exclu- sive permissions to individuals varied as to the extent of country, or nations it embraced, and the period for which granted; but in all cases the exclusive licenses were offered to the highest bidder and consequently the sums paid by the individual purchasing, were quite as much as the trade would bear, and in many instances, from a spirit of opposition between contending applicants, much more was given than ever the profits of the traffic would justify."42 In such cases, of course, the individual became bankrupt.
In the districts thus purchased these traders enjoyed the protec- tion of the government officials and the exclusive trade. When these territorial limits were changed, or privileges taken away, no little feeling and antagonism was created. Thus the Chouteaus had the trade with the Osages, until the Spanish authorities gave it to Manuel de Lisa, and then the Chouteaus caused some of the Osages to leave their villages on the Osage river, and move to the Arkansas. The trade with Poncas was granted to Juan Munier, 43 because he
41 Wallace's History of Illinois and Louisiana, p. 311 .- Gayarre's Louis- iana French Domination-vol. 2, p. 23-24. As to the extent of the French trading operations, note Voyage des Freres Mallet avec six autre Francais in 6 Margry, in 1739-1740, p. 455. As to this fort on the Missouri, see Bossu's Nouveaux Voyages, vol. i, p. 157 (Amsterdam Edition, 1769).
42 Lewis' Observations and Reflections on upper Louisiana, Original Jour- nals Lewis & Clark, vol. 7, p. 369 (Thwaites' Ed.). Bradbury who visited upper Louisiana shortly after the cession thinks, that the political circumstances under which the country was placed during the Spanish dominion precluded the possi- bility of prosperity. He says that the Governors were petty tyrants, who con- sidered their positions simply a means to aggrandize and enrich themselves and that the interest of the colony was with them only a "remote consideration," that the most depressing regulations were made to shackle the internal trade of the country, that no man could sell the smallest article, not even a row of pins, without a license and that those licenses were sold by them at an extravagant rate, that a stranger coming into the province, offering to sell goods at a reasonable rate was arrested and his goods confiscated, that all favors from the command- ants, such as grants of land, could only be obtained by bribery, and that these officers defrauded their own government, that for instance, a little triangular fort above St. Louis, was paid for by grants of land, but that the Governor made a claim for a large amount against his government for the work and collected the amount. Bradbury's Travels, p. 284.
43 This name is given as Juan Munie in the Spanish Archives, but evidently is Jean Munier, of Kaskaskia, where he rendered military service. Probably removed to St. Louis after the conquest of Illinois, like so many other French inhabitants of the eastern Illinois country.
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ENGAGÉS
first discovered this tribe in 1789. So also the exclusive trade on the upper Missouri was granted in 1794 to the Spanish Com- mercial Company, of which Clamorgan was director, for a period of ten years, in order to exclude the English traders from that territory. Lorimier seems to have enjoyed the trade of the Shawnees and Delawares west of Cape Girardeau, as far as the Arkansas.
When the settlements on the Mississippi, at Ste. Genevieve, St. Louis and St. Charles were first established, the Indians brought their furs to these posts, and it was not necessary to take goods into the country for them. When other posts were established in the upper country, the Indians ceased to come to these posts, and the fur traders on the river either had to send goods up to them or go out of business. Under this system, the traders of upper Louisiana would send out, directly, agents to trade with the Indians. A contract between such an agent, Alexander Langlois dit Rondeau, and one Antoine Hubert, merchant in St. Louis, is now not without interest :
"Before the Royal notary in Illinois in the presence of hereinafter named witnesses, was present in person Alexander Langlois, a traveling trader living at the post of St. Louis, who, by these presents, voluntarily binds himself to Mr. Antoine Hubert, merchant, residing at the post of St. Louis, to go up for him, as his clerk, to the post of the Little Osages to trade, at that place, his goods to the Indians, and manage his business, and do all for the advantage of said Mr. Hubert. Said Mr. Langlois promises to conduct said boat, and bring her back after said trade is over, as also the peltries he may have acquired and give all the care to avoid loss or damage to said Mr. Hubert; and will start from said post of St. Louis at the first requisition of said Mr. Hubert. This agreement is made for the sum of eight hundred livres in peltries, deer-skins, or beaver, at the current price of the same at this post, which they will establish on the peltries of this trade at his arrival at St. Louis. It is also agreed that in case said Langlois will take a negro in place of said sum of eight hundred livres in peltries, said Mr. Hubert obligates himself to deliver him one on the arrival of the convoy from New Orleans in the next spring, said negro to be sound and free from all disease, in which case the said Langlois will repay to Mr. Hubert said sum of eight hundred livres in the same manner in peltries.
"And said Langlois is free to manage the said Hubert's business as he may think best, promising the said Mr. Hubert to do the best he can for him. All the foregoing has been agreed to at the post of St. Louis, in the house of Mr. Hubert in the year 1768, the 14th of August, in the presence of Mr. Chauvin, merchant, and Joseph Blondeau, trader, witnesses, who have, with said Hubert and said notary, signed these presents after being read, the said Langlois declar- ing he did not know how to write."44
44 In this case Langlois afterward, by arbitration, lost his compensation agreed upon, because he did not faithfully comply with his agreement.
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HISTORY OF MISSOURI
When the agent served for a given compensation as in this instance, he was called an engagé. When the trade assumed this character a greater variety of goods was forwarded to the Indian villages, and larger means were employed in the trade. Often forts and store- houses were established in the Indian country. These agents thus supplied with every kind of goods demanded by the Indian trade, generally made their long, toilsome and dangerous journey in canoes and pirogues or batteaus up the Mississippi and Missouri, and the numerous tributaries of these great rivers, and established themselves in trading houses at some convenient point. From time to time they would send down rich cargos of furs, remaining themselves some- times for years in the Indian country-visited occasionally, perhaps, by their principals. At the trading houses the Indians would annually gather to sell their furs. From these posts hunters and trappers were sent out to follow and trade with the Indians, and successively other posts, or trading posts were established farther up the stream or farther in the interior.
Thus the Chouteaus established Fort Carondelet on the Osage in 1794, as well as to secure from the Spanish officials the exclusive trade with the Osage Indians. The fort was erected "upon a hill which dominates all the vast plain in which the Osages dwell, " says Carondelet in his letter to the Duke of Alcudia. Trudeau, who conducted an expedition for the Spanish Commercial Company, established a fort and trading place, in 1796, on the upper Missouri which became known as "Trudeau's House, " not far from the present Fort Randall. Regis Loisel,45 in 1800, had a trading house at a place which became known as "Fort aux Cedres, " from the fact that it was built out of cedar logs. He received a grant of 150,000 arpens from DeLassus at this point, a grant he afterwards assigned to Clamorgan and which was never confirmed. One, Cruzat, in 1802, had a post near the site of Council Bluffs. Near Omaha in 1796, Mackay estab- lished a trading post which became known as "San Carlos, " Mackay also conducting an expedition for the Spanish Commercial Com-
45 This "Fort aux Cedars" was a four bastioned fort-which according to Chouteau, Loisel began to build in 1800. This Regis or Registre Loisel, was a native of Canada - in 1793 he came to St. Louis, where he married Helene - a daughter of Jacque Chauvin. In 1804 he made a report to DeLassus, of the extent of the boundary claim advanced by the Americans after the cession -and offered his "good services as a faithful vassal" to the Spanish government. He died in New Orleans in Oct. 1804. One of his sons- Regis Loisel, Jr., - became a priest and took up his residence at Cahokia.
253
FORTS
pany. Lisa,46 in 1808, built a trading post on the Big Horn. Chou- teau's Post was another trading place, three miles below the mouth of the Kansas river. Jos. Robidoux had a post near the present St. Joseph, a locality known in early times as the " Blacksnake Hills." In 1819 Chouteau, Robidoux, Berthold and Papin had a trad- ing house at the mouth of the Nish-na-botna and Pratte and Vasquez a similar establishment above Council Bluffs. Crooks and McClelland had a post in 1810 near Bellevue. Lisa, in 1812, built Fort Lisa five or six miles below Council Bluffs. In JOSEPH ROBIDOUX this way, from time to time, forts and trading places were founded to exploit the fur trade in all the vast region stretching westward to the Rocky Mountains.
No doubt the heavy charges made by the Spanish officials for the privilege of trading with the Indians caused much of the trade to fall into the hands of the English traders. Then, too, the greater enter- prise of the Hudson Bay Company and the Northwestern Company and the cheaper and better goods furnished the Indians by these com- panies attracted the trade, and caused a great loss to the Spanish trade. Lewis says that from the Spanish system much evil resulted to the Indian, that he was compelled to pay enormous prices to Spanish traders for the articles he purchased from them, and that the greatest exertions he could make would not enable him to secure those things which had become necessary to him; that the Spanish officials gener- ally became more exorbitant in their demands, the traders conse- quently raising the price higher, although the fur bearing animals became scarcer, and that finally the Indians, seeing they could not buy in many instances, took by force the things they considered
46 Manuel Lisa or De Lisa, born in New Orleans in 1771, was one of the most enterprising and conspicuous of the Indian traders and merchants of St. Louis. He was a man of restless energy and wonderful enterprise. His father was Christoval De Lisa, who came to Louisiana when the Spaniards took possession of the province, it is said, from South America. Manuel Lisa came to upper Louisiana in about 1790 and at first settled and traded in the New Madrid region and on the Wabash in partnership with Vigo. Then he moved to St. Louis - although the date is not precisely known, but in 1794 when the Spanish Commercial Company was organized by Trudeau he was evidently not a resident
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HISTORY OF MISSOURI
necessary to themselves. This led to a loss of much of the Indian trade in upper Louisiana, on the Des Moines, St. Peter's, and almost to the banks of the Missouri, and which was thus diverted to the British merchants, who were selling cheaper and better goods. Shortly before the purchase, some of the Indian tribes of these upper rivers would lay in ambush and capture boats in their descent of the Missouri to St. Louis, and then compel the crews to load themselves with heavy burdens of the best furs and carry them across the country to their towns on the upper Mississippi, where they would dispose of them to the British traders.
In order especially to exclude the Hudson Bay Company and the Northwestern Fur Company from this trade, it was proposed in 1796, to erect a chain of forts on the upper Missouri. Governor- General Carondelet agreed with the Spanish Commercial Company, to pay annually, a subsidy of ten thousand dollars to establish, main- tain and garrison these forts. But the Hudson Bay Company and Northwestern Fur Company were never successfully excluded from the upper Missouri river territory of Louisiana. To the cheapness and superiority alone of the goods of English manufacture sold by these companies, must be attributed the greater success of the Eng- lish fur companies, because the French traders were always per- sonally more popular with the Indians than the English, Scotch or American traders, and possessed greater influence with them. Yet . it should be observed, that the ease of access into the interior country by means of the great water system of the Mississippi and there because his name is not mentioned. In 1800 or 1801, however, his name is the first one to a memorial, asking that the exclusive privilege of the Commer- cial Company be cancelled. In 1800 he secured the exclusive trade of the Osage Indians - a trade the Chouteaus had enjoyed for twenty years. This caused a division of the tribe and some of these Indians moved from the Osage river to Arkansas. How Lisa secured the privilege of this trade is not known, but evidently in the management of the Spanish officials he then was the equal of the Chouteaus. But Pedro Chouteau, the Commandant of Fort Carondelet was in high favor with DeLassus and he reported to the Governor of Louisiana - that he was surprised to see "the confidence which this tribe places in the Messrs. Chouteau, and the manner in which they get along with them" and "in particular Don Pedro Chouteau." The life of Lisa after the cession was one of incessant activity. He was the leading spirit of the first Missouri Fur Company in 1808, and from that time until his death constantly traded up the Missouri to the head waters of this great river - where he had a fort on the Big Horn. As Indian agent in 1812 he rendered the U. S. conspicuous service. In 1818 he married a daughter of Stephen Hempstead and a sister of Edward Hemp- stead. Compelled to come to St. Louis in 1820 to defend his interests against his numerous enemies, he was seized with an illness and died on the 12th of August. He was the most remarkable man among the pioneer merchants of St. Louis. His wife survived him fifty years and died at Galena, Illinois, Sept. 3, 1869, aged 87 years.
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SALT
Missouri, gave the traders, then residing in the trading villages on the Mississippi, a great advantage and laid the foundation of St. Louis as a commercial metropolis.
For a long time the fur trade represented the principal commer- cial activity of the country. A small trade in bear's meat and grease from the upper country to New Orleans was carried on. It is said by DuPratz, who traveled with the Indians along the St. François river in Arkansas and Missouri as early as 1745, that in the fall of the year merchants and traders came up from New Orleans and estab- lished camps along the banks of that river, to salt down bear's meat, and for that purpose they had huge troughs hewn out of big cotton- wood and poplar trees. The meat thus secured was sent by batteau to New Orleans. This trade in bear-meat and bear's grease was a comparatively important business at that time. The same business was also followed on White river, and to this day one of the bottoms along that stream is named "Oil Trough Bottom." Salted and dried buffalo tongue and meat, as well as the meat of other wild ani- mals, was also shipped by boat. Then the people of New Orleans and the garrison located there depended largely for their meat supply on salted bear's meat and grease or oil. According to Father Vivier in 1750, flour and pork were shipped to New Orleans from the Illinois country.47 Later on, bacon, salt pork and lard were exported from the upper Louisiana. In 1802 the Cape Girardeau district exported to New Orleans 371 barrels of salt pork, fourteen barrels of refined lard, 7000 pounds of bacon, 8675 pounds of beef, 1800 pounds of cotton and in addition maple sugar and corn.
To these exports from upper Louisiana should be added salt, manufactured on the Saline near Ste. Genevieve. In 1768 Frazier says, "There is a rich lead mine in that (Louisiana) colony, from which they get all the lead that is needed in the country, and the river (the Saline) from the water of which (though fresh to the taste) they make a sufficiency of salt for the consumption of the inhabitants; but these latter conveniences are, unluckily, on the western or Spanish side of the river. "48 Nothing shows the im- portance of these salt works on this stream better than the fact that in 1778 an expedition came from Kentucky to the mouth of the Saline to purchase salt, a necessity of which the settlers in Kentucky had been deprived since their arrival in that country. For this trip fifteen
47 69 Jesuit Relation, p. 213.
48 Letter of Lt. Frazier, 2 Indiana Hist. Publications, p. 411.
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HISTORY OF MISSOURI
volunteers of Captain Harrod's company were selected; this on ac- count of the labor and danger the expedition involved. This little band - of which Joseph Collins 49 who afterward gave an account of the expedition, was one - went down the Ohio and then up the Mississippi to the salt works, and securing the salt after some delay, returned shortly before Christmas. On their way back four hundred Indians were in ambush at the mouth of the Tennessee to intercept them, but they escaped and got the salt to the falls, from whence it was taken to Boonesboro, arriving there March 1, 1779.
In 1769 a village of four or five houses existed at these salt works, and Piernas complains that the company making the salt supplied the English at a lower rate than was charged the people at home. Francois Vallé, in 1797, had salt works on the Saline, Edward Dugan in 1799, and John Hawkins in 1800. Salt was manufactured exten- sively there by Israel Dodge and his son Henry; and that they pushed this business with true American energy is shown by the fact that Ste. Genevieve salt was shipped by them in boats to Illinois settlements50 as well as to the Big Barrens in Kentucky in 1802. Michaux, who in that year went far into the interior of Kentucky on his overland jour- ney to Charleston, South Carolina, notes that Ste. Genevieve salt was sold on the Cumberland river.51 Stoddard says that in 1804 most of the inhabitants on both sides of the Mississippi derived their salt supply from these works, and that no small proportion of the product was shipped up the Ohio by boat.52 On this river and on the Cum- berland Ste. Genevieve salt sold at two dollars a barrel of sixty pounds. Michaux remarks that saline springs were abundant on the Cumberland river, yet the scarcity of labor such that salt could not be profitably manufactured. Dodge had several hundred laborers in his service at times working his saline, says Reynolds.53 Salt was also manufactured during the Spanish occupancy of upper Louisiana for local use by Cabanne west of St. Louis on the Maramec.54
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