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Manuel Lisa, also known as Manuel de Lisa, was a Spanish citizen and later, became an American citizen who, while living on the western frontier, became a land owner, merchant, fur trader, United States Indian agent, and explorer. Lisa was among the founders, in St. Louis, of the Missouri Fur Company, an early fur trading company. Manuel Lisa gained respect through his trading among Native American tribes of the upper Missouri River region, such as the Teton Sioux, Omaha and Ponca.
The Arikara War was an armed conflict between the United States, their allies from the Sioux tribe and Arikara Native Americans that took place in the summer of 1823, along the Missouri River in present-day South Dakota. It was the first Indian war west of the Missouri fought by the U.S. Army and its only conflict ever with the Arikara. The war came as a response to an Arikara attack on trappers, called "the worst disaster in the history of the Western fur trade".
Arikara, also known as Sahnish, Arikaree, Ree, or Hundi, are a tribe of Native Americans in North Dakota. Today, they are enrolled with the Mandan and the Hidatsa as the federally recognized tribe known as the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation.
The American Fur Company (AFC) was founded in 1808, by John Jacob Astor, a German immigrant to the United States. During the 18th century, furs had become a major commodity in Europe, and North America became a major supplier. Several British companies, most notably the North West Company and the Hudson's Bay Company, were eventual competitors against Astor and capitalized on the lucrative trade in furs. Astor capitalized on anti-British sentiments and his commercial strategies to become one of the first trusts in American business and a major competitor to the British commercial dominance in North American fur trade. Expanding into many former British fur-trapping regions and trade routes, the company grew to monopolize the fur trade in the United States by 1830, and became one of the largest and wealthiest businesses in the country.
Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site is a partial reconstruction of the most important fur trading post on the upper Missouri, 1829-1867. The fort site is about two miles from the confluence of the Missouri River and its tributary, the Yellowstone River, on the North Dakota/Montana border, 25 miles from Williston, North Dakota.
Kenneth McKenzie was nicknamed the "King of the Missouri", for as a fur trader for American Fur Company in the upper Missouri River valley, he controlled a territory larger than most European nations.
Fort Lisa (1812–1823) was established in 1812 in what is now North Omaha in Omaha, Nebraska by famed fur trader Manuel Lisa and the Missouri Fur Company, which was based in Saint Louis. The fort was associated with several firsts in Nebraska history: Lisa was the first European farmer in Nebraska; it was the first settlement by American citizens set up in the then-recent Louisiana Purchase; Lisa's wife was the first woman resident of European descent in Nebraska; and the first steamboat to navigate Nebraska waters, the Western Engineer, arrived at Fort Lisa in September 1819.
Pierre Chouteau Jr., also referred to as Pierre Cadet Chouteau, was an American merchant and a member of the wealthy Chouteau fur-trading family of Saint Louis, Missouri.
Wilson Price Hunt was an early pioneer and explorer of the Oregon Country in the Pacific Northwest of North America. Employed as an agent in the fur trade under John Jacob Astor, Hunt organized and led the greater part of a group of about 60 men on an overland expedition to establish a fur trading outpost at the mouth of the Columbia river. The Astorians, as they have become known, were the first major party to cross to the Pacific after the Lewis and Clark expedition.
Russel Farnham was an American frontiersman, explorer, and fur trader. An agent of John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company, he oversaw fur trading in the Great Lakes region throughout the 1810s and 1820s. A member of the Pacific Fur Company headed by Wilson P. Hunt during 1810–1812, he is also the first American to semi-circumnavigate the world traveling by foot from Fort Astoria to St. Petersburg, Russia, to New York City.
Fort Pierre Chouteau, also just Fort Pierre, was a major trading post and military outpost in the mid-19th century on the west bank of the Missouri River in what is now central South Dakota. Established in 1832 by Pierre Chouteau, Jr. of St. Louis, Missouri, whose family were major fur traders, this facility operated through the 1850s.
The first Fort Lisa (1810-1812), also known as the Fort Manuel Lisa Trading Post, Fort Manuel or Fort Mandan, was started by the notable fur trader Manuel Lisa of the Missouri Fur Company in 1809. This fort was likely where Sacagawea died; she had been the guide for the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Fort Lisa superseded Fort Raymond as the uppermost post of the Missouri Fur Company on the Missouri River. In 1812 Lisa built a replacement fort downriver near present-day North Omaha, Nebraska, which he also named Fort Lisa.
The Missouri Fur Company was one of the earliest fur trading companies in St. Louis, Missouri. Dissolved and reorganized several times, it operated under various names from 1809 until its final dissolution in 1830. It was created by a group of fur traders and merchants from St. Louis and Kaskaskia, Illinois, including Manuel Lisa and members of the Chouteau family. Its expeditions explored the upper Missouri River and traded with a variety of Native American tribes, and it acted as the prototype for fur trading companies along the Missouri River until the 1820s.
The fur trade in Montana was a major period in the area's economic history from about 1800 to the 1850s. It also represents the initial meeting of cultures between indigenous peoples and those of European ancestry. British and Canadian traders approached the area from the north and northeast focusing on trading with the indigenous people, who often did the trapping of beavers and other animals themselves. American traders moved gradually up the Missouri River seeking to beat British and Canadian traders to the profitable Upper Missouri River region.
This timeline of South Dakota is a list of events in the history of South Dakota by year.
Charles Larpenteur, born 1803, died 1872, was an American fur trader, whose memoir and diary frequently have been used as a source to fur trade history.
Alexander Culbertson (1809–1879), was an American fur trader who founded Fort Benton, Montana, and was a special government agent who played an important role in the negotiations leading to the 1851 treaty of Fort Laramie. Later, Culbertson and his wife Natawista Iksina negotiated with the Blackfoot Confederacy to let the northern Pacific railroad survey of 1853 continue unharmed.
Joseph Marie LaBarge was an American steamboat captain, most notably of the steamboats Yellowstone, and Emilie, that saw service on the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, bringing fur traders, miners, goods and supplies up and down these rivers to their destinations. During much of his career LaBarge was in the employ of the American Fur Company, a giant in the fur trading business, before building his own steamboat, the Emilie, to become an independent riverman. During his career he exceeded several existing speed and distance records for steamboats on the Missouri River. Passengers aboard his vessels sometimes included notable people, including Abraham Lincoln. LaBarge routinely offered his steamboat services gratis to Jesuit missionaries throughout his career.
The Spread Eagle was a steam-driven sidewheel riverboat that transported passengers, goods and supplies to the forts and trading posts along the Missouri River between 1857–1864. It was constructed and launched at Brownsville, Pennsylvania. The vessel was a wooden hull packet, 210 feet long, with a beam of 36 feet, a draft of 6 feet, and was rated at 389 tons. It was powered by two steam engines with 3 boilers each, at 40 inches in diameter and 24 feet in length. The Spread Eagle was constructed by Captain Benjamin Johnson who sold the vessel to the American Fur Company upon her arrival at St. Louis. Commanded by captain Bailey, she was once engaged in a race along the Missouri from St. Louis to Fort Benton where she rammed her opponent.
The Emilie was a sidewheel steamer, designed, built and owned by the famed riverboat captain Joseph LaBarge, and used for trade and transporting people and supplies to various points along the Missouri River in the mid nineteenth century. The Emilie was built in Saint Louis in 1859, was 225 feet in length with a 32 foot beam and had a draft of six feet. Larger than the average riverboat at the time, she could carry 500 tons of cargo. During her extended service on the Missouri River she also fell into the hands of both Union and Confederate soldiers during the Civil War. As a result of her numerous exploits, Emilie was among the most famous boats on the river and was widely considered a first rate and an exceptionally beautiful riverboat. After some nine years of service the Emilie was caught in and destroyed by a tornado on June 4, 1868.
References
Notes
- 1 2 3 Chittenden 1902, vol. 1, pp. 323-325.
- 1 2 3 Jones 1966, pp. 107-108.
- 1 2 Barbour 2001, p. 11.
- ↑ Wishart 1979, pp. 49-50.
- ↑ Barbour 2001, p. 17.
- ↑ Wishart 1979, p. 53.
- ↑ Barbour 2001, pp. 40-43.
- ↑ Chittenden 1902, vol. 3, p. 953.
- ↑ Robertson 1999, pp. 138, 151.
- ↑ "Columbia Fur Company Forts". Fort Wiki. Retrieved 2017-11-30.
- ↑ Chittenden 1902, vol. 3, p. 952.
- 1 2 Chittenden 1902, vol. 3, p. 957.
- ↑ Wishart 1979, map, p. 49.
- ↑ Chittenden 1902, vol. 3, p. 965.
Cited literature
- Barbour, Barton H. (2001). Fort Union and the upper Missouri fur trade . Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
- Chittenden, Hiram Martin (1902). The American Fur Trade of the Far West. New York: Francis P. Harper.
- Jones, Evans (1966). Citadel in the Wilderness. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
- Robertson, Roland G. (1999). Competitive Struggle: America's Western Fur Trading Posts, 1764-1865. Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton Press.
- Wishart, David J. (1979). The Fur Trade of the American West 1807-1840. University of Nebraska Press.