Manuel Perez | |
|---|---|
 Portrait of Manuel Pérez | |
| 5th Lieutenant Governor of Upper Louisiana | |
| In office 1787–1792 | |
| Preceded by | Francisco Cruzat |
| Succeeded by | Francisco Cruzat |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1735 Zamora, Castile and León, Spain |
| Died | November 1819 (aged 84) New Orleans, Louisiana |
| Profession | Soldier, administrator (Lieutenant Governor of Illinois) |
Manuel Perez (1735 - November 1819) was the Lieutenant Governor of Illinois between November 1787 and 1792.
Pérez was born in Zamora, in the Autonomous Community of Castile and León, Spain. When he was only eighteen, he enrolled the army of his country. During his military career, he took part in the campaigns of both Spain and Portugal. In 1769, Pérez emigrated to New Orleans, where he took up permanent residence.
In 1779, Perez's army was sent to the British side of North America to help the rebels in their fight against the British in the American War of Independence. Perez's troops fought in Mobile and Pensacola. His military achievements allowed him to get the title of captain in 1780.
Later, in 1787, he was appointed Lieutenant-governor of Upper Louisiana, and assumed the charge in Saint Louis, the capital of Upper Louisiana, in modern-day Missouri. The highlight of his administration seems to have been his work on the fortifications of Upper Louisiana, which were quite deteriorated. [1] He pushed for the reconstruction of a fort located in the north of Saint Louis, [1] [2] work for which he commissioned Rodríguez Miró, governor of Louisiana. He used stone for its reconstruction, but could not incorporate further improvements in it, because he did not get the necessary funding for that.
In addition, Perez had to face Osage tribes, who were attacking the European settlements of the province. To confront these, he asked for the construction of a fort between the French-Spanish settlements and the main Osage settlements. The fort would be built on the banks of the Osage River, but the New Orleans government opposed the proposal. Perez also helped trader Louis Lorimier promote the migration of members of the Shawnee and Lenape tribes, natives of eastern Mississippi, to Ste. Genevieve, in modern-day Missouri, to ignite good relations between the settlers and the Osages. He also asked the New Orleans government to establish several fortifications at the mouths of the Des Moines and Saint Peters Rivers in order to keep the British away from the Amerindians, whom they were influencing, but the government rejected the proposal because, according to him, the forts would be too far from Saint Louis, and instead would be near areas with little or no French-Spanish presence.
Perez, along with the Spanish authorities, encouraged U.S. migration to Upper Louisiana so that the new immigrants would populate areas of the province (which was largely uninhabited) and become subjects of the Spanish Crown. Thus, the population loyal to the Spanish Crown would be introduced into more areas of the province. The area chosen was called New Madrid by the European Americans, and was founded in what is now Missouri. However, although Perez himself welcomed them when they reached St. Louis in 1789, and provided them with various goods (provisions and horses) and guides, the American settlers were only living there for a while, as they then returned to their country.
Perez ended his rule in 1792. After this, he returned to New Orleans, where he held some low-level political positions and spent the last years of his life. He died there in November 1819. [1]
In 1776, Perez married Jeanne Catherine Dubois and they had five children. [1]
The Louisiana Purchase was the acquisition of the territory of Louisiana by the United States from France in 1803. In return for fifteen million dollars, or approximately eighteen dollars per square mile, the United States nominally acquired a total of 828,000 sq mi. However, France only controlled a small fraction of this area, most of it inhabited by American Indians; for the majority of the area, what the United States bought was the "preemptive" right to obtain Indian lands by treaty or by conquest, to the exclusion of other colonial powers. The total cost of all subsequent treaties and financial settlements over the land has been estimated to be around 2.6 billion dollars.
Ste. Genevieve is a city in Ste. Genevieve Township and is the county seat of Ste. Genevieve County, Missouri, United States. The population was 4,410 at the 2010 census. Founded in 1735 by French Canadian colonists and settlers from east of the river, it was the first organized European settlement west of the Mississippi River in present-day Missouri. Today, it is home to Ste. Genevieve National Historical Park, the 422nd unit of the National Park Service.
The history of Missouri begins with settlement of the region by indigenous people during the Paleo-Indian period beginning in about 12,000 BC. Subsequent periods of native life emerged until the 17th century. New France set up small settlements, and in 1803, Napoleonic France sold the area to the U.S. as part of the Louisiana Purchase. Statehood for Missouri came following the Missouri Compromise in 1820 that allowed slavery. Settlement was rapid after 1820, aided by a network of rivers navigable by steamboats, centered in the City of St. Louis. It attracted European immigrants, especially Germans; the business community had a large Yankee element as well. The Civil War saw numerous small battles and control by the Union. After the war, its economy diversified, and railroads centered in Kansas City, opened up new farmlands in the west.
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 Illinois Country — sometimes referred to as Upper Louisiana — was a vast region of New France claimed in the 1600s in what is now the Midwestern United States. While these names generally referred to the entire Upper Mississippi River watershed, French colonial settlement was concentrated along the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers in what is now the U.S. states of Illinois and Missouri, with outposts in Indiana. Explored in 1673 from Green Bay to the Arkansas River by the Canadien expedition of Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette, the area was claimed by France. It was settled primarily from the Pays d'en Haut in the context of the fur trade. Over time, the fur trade took some French to the far reaches of the Rocky Mountains, especially along the branches of the broad Missouri River valley. The French name, Pays des Ilinois, means "Land of the Illinois [plural]" and is a reference to the Illinois Confederation, a group of related Algonquian native peoples.
Louisiana or French Louisiana was an administrative district of New France. Under French control 1682 to 1769 and 1801 (nominally) to 1803, the area was named in honor of King Louis XIV, by French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle. It originally covered an expansive territory that included most of the drainage basin of the Mississippi River and stretched from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico and from the Appalachian Mountains to the Rocky Mountains.
René-Auguste Chouteau, Jr., also known as Auguste Chouteau, was the founder of St. Louis, Missouri, a successful fur trader and a politician. He and his partner had a monopoly for many years of fur trade with the large Osage tribe on the Missouri River. In addition, he had numerous business interests in St. Louis and was well-connected with the various rulers: French, Spanish and American.
Francisco Luis Héctor de Carondelet y Bosoist, 5th Baron of Carondelet, was a Spanish administrator of partial Burgundian descent in the employ of the Spanish Empire. He was a Knight of Malta.
The Battle of St. Louis, also known as the Battle of Fort San Carlos, was an unsuccessful attack led by the British on St. Louis on May 26, 1780, during the American Revolutionary War. A former British militia commander led a force primarily of Indians and attacked the settlement. Fernando de Leyba, the Lieutenant Governor of Spanish Louisiana, led the local militia to fortify the town as best as they could and successfully withstood the attack.
Don Manuel Luis Gayoso de Lemos y Amorín, KOM, OTS was the governor of Spanish Louisiana from 1797 until his death in 1799.
Fort Orleans was a French fort in colonial North America, the first fort built by any European forces on the Missouri River. It was built near the mouth of the Grand River near present-day Brunswick. Intended to be the linchpin in the vast New France empire stretching from Montreal to New Mexico, the fort was occupied from 1723–1726. It was the first multi-year European settlement in what is today the U.S. state of Missouri.
Spanish Louisiana was a governorate and administrative district of the Viceroyalty of New Spain from 1762 to 1801 that consisted of a vast territory in the center of North America encompassing the western basin of the Mississippi River plus New Orleans. The area had originally been claimed and controlled by France, which had named it La Louisiane in honor of King Louis XIV in 1682. Spain secretly acquired the territory from France near the end of the Seven Years' War by the terms of the Treaty of Fontainebleau (1762). The actual transfer of authority was a slow process, and after Spain finally attempted to fully replace French authorities in New Orleans in 1767, French residents staged an uprising which the new Spanish colonial governor did not suppress until 1769. Spain also took possession of the trading post of St. Louis and all of Upper Louisiana in the late 1760s, though there was little Spanish presence in the wide expanses of the "Illinois Country".
Jean-Pierre Chouteau was a French Creole fur trader, merchant, politician, and slaveholder. An early settler of St. Louis from New Orleans, he became one its most prominent citizens. In 1975, he was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.
Fort Carondelet was a fort located along the Osage River in Vernon County, Missouri, constructed in 1795 as an early fur trading post in Spanish Louisiana by the Chouteau family. The fort also was used by the Spanish colonial government to maintain good relations with the Osage Nation. Sold by the Chouteau family in 1802, the fort was abandoned the same year by its new owners. By the time of an 1806 visit by Zebulon Pike on his expedition through southern Louisiana, the buildings were in disrepair. Although archaeological remains of the fort and its buildings were extant in 1874, a congregation known as the Church of Israel has occupied the site since the 1940s.
The history of St. Louis, Missouri from 1763 to 1803 was marked by the transfer of French Louisiana to Spanish control, the founding of the city of St. Louis, its slow growth and role in the American Revolution under the rule of the Spanish, the transfer of the area to American control in the Louisiana Purchase, and its steady growth and prominence since then.
The history of St. Louis, Missouri from prehistory to 1762 was marked by the presence of the Moundbuilder indigenous culture, the explorations of Europeans, and the establishment of French trading posts along the Mississippi River.
Pedro Vial, or Pierre Vial, was a French explorer and frontiersman who lived among the Comanche and Wichita Indians for many years. He later worked for the Spanish government as a peacemaker, guide, and interpreter. He blazed trails across the Great Plains to connect the Spanish and French settlements in Texas, New Mexico, Missouri, and Louisiana. He led three Spanish expeditions that attempted unsuccessfully to intercept and halt the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
Francisco Zavier Cruzat was a Spanish soldier who served as lieutenant governor of Upper Louisiana in New Spain from 1775-1778 and again from 1780-1787. He served as Interim Governor of East Florida in 1789.
The Colonial history of Missouri covers the French and Spanish exploration and colonization: 1673–1803, and ends with the American takeover through the Louisiana Purchase