Manuel Lisa | |
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 Portrait in 1818 | |
| Born | (1772-09-08)September 8, 1772 |
| Died | August 12, 1820(1820-08-12) (aged 47) |
| Nationality | Spanish,American |
| Other names | Manuel de Lisa |
| Occupation(s) | land owner, merchant, fur trader,Indian agent, explorer |
| Employer(s) | Missouri Fur Company,US Government |
| Known for | Spanish American frontiersman, who was co-owner of theMissouri Fur Company and as a United StatesIndian agent, during theWar of 1812, helped to pacify theTeton Sioux,Omaha andPonca Nations and keep them loyal, in wartime, to America. |
| Spouse(s) | 1) Polly Charles Chew; 2) Mitane (Meetahnay); and 3) Mary Hempstead Keeney |
| Children | 1) children; 2) Rosalie and Christopher;[1] and 3) no children |
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Manuel Lisa, also known asManuel de Lisa (September 8, 1772, inNew OrleansLouisiana (New Spain) – August 12, 1820, inSt. Louis, Missouri), was a Spanish citizen and later American citizen who, while living on the western frontier, became a landowner, merchant, fur trader, United StatesIndian agent, and explorer. Lisa was among the founders, inSt. Louis, of theMissouri Fur Company, an early fur trading company. Manuel Lisa gained respect through his trading amongNative American tribes of the upper Missouri River region, such as theTeton Sioux,Omaha andPonca.
After being appointed, as USIndian agent, during theWar of 1812, Lisa used his standing among the tribes to encourage their alliance with the United States and their warfare against tribes allied with theUnited Kingdom.[2] While still married to a European-American woman in St. Louis, where he kept a residence, in 1814 Lisa married Mitane, a daughter ofBig Elk, the principalchief of theOmaha people, as part of securing their alliance. They had two children together, whom Lisa provided for equally in his will with his children by his other marriage.
Little is known of the early life of Manuel Lisa, but he is believed to have been born in 1772 inNew Orleans, then part ofSpanish Louisiana. It was ceded to Spain by France after the British victory in theSeven Years' War, when the British gained Florida in exchange with Spain for French lands west of the Mississippi River.[3][4] His father, Christoval de Lisa, was born inMurcia,Spain, while his mother, Maria Ignacia Rodriguez, was born to a colonial family inSt. Augustine, Florida.[3] It is likely that Christoval came to Spanish Louisiana in the service of the governorAlejandro O'Reilly, who started his tenure in 1769.[3] Manuel had at least one elder brother, Joaquin Lisa, who worked with him in his early trade expeditions.[5][6]
By 1789, Manuel Lisa and his brother Joaquin were trading on theMississippi River inNew Madrid, Missouri; the next recorded mention of Manuel Lisa was again in New Madrid, after he had returned from trading along theWabash River.[3]
By 1796 Lisa had married Polly Charles Chew (d. 1817), a young widow from New Orleans.[citation needed] After he obtained a land grant in the Missouri area, they relocated to St. Louis, which was the center of the region's thrivingfur trade, established primarily by French colonists, some also from New Orleans. Polly Lisa lived in the city with their three children while her husband made his long expeditions to various Indian territories on the Upper Missouri River.
After foundingFort Lisa about 1813, a post in what is now part ofOmaha, Nebraska, Lisa worked to gain alliances with local tribes, such as theOmaha. After being appointed USIndian agent in the area by the governor of the Missouri Territory, in 1814 Lisa married Mitane, a daughter ofBig Elk, the principal chief of the Omaha until 1846. Both sides saw it as a strategic alliance. Lisa and Mitane had two children together, Rosalie and Christopher,[1] born in subsequent years after Lisa's expeditions and wintering over at Fort Lisa.
"Kinship and ties of affinity proved more than merely useful to the traders. They were both a source of power and a necessity if one was to achieve success in the trade."[7] Only traders were accepted for marriages to high-status women, such as the daughters of chiefs, as the chiefs saw such marriages as a way to increase their own power. As the Omaha had apatrilineal system, the children of Lisa and Mitane were considered "white" as their father was "white". The tribe protected them, but unless such mixed-race children were officially adopted by a man of the tribe, they were not considered Omaha and had no real place in a gens (clan), the basic kinship unit.[8]
Polly Chew Lisa died in 1817 in St. Louis while Manuel Lisa was away on an expedition. After his return the following year, on August 5, 1818, Lisa married the widow Mary Hempstead Keeny, a sister of his friend, the attorneyEdward Hempstead. As a widow, she had migrated with her parents and siblings from Connecticut to join four brothers already in Missouri.[9][10]
In 1819 Lisa took his new wife Mary with him for his next expedition and winter at Fort Lisa, Nebraska. He tried to gain custody of his children with Mitane, who let him take Rosalie back to St. Louis the next year for education at a Catholic school, but refused to let him have Christopher.[1] Lisa included provisions for both Rosalie and Christopher in his will, along with his children by his first wife Polly Chew. Only Rosalie Lisa Ely (c. 1815 – 1904) survived to adulthood, married and had children.[11]
In 1799, Manuel Lisa requested a land grant; according to his letter to the Spanish governor, Manuel wanted it "upon one of the banks of the River Missouri, in a place where may be found some small creek emptying into the said river, in order to facilitate the raising of cattle, and, with time, to be able to make shipments of salted and dried meat to the capital. After being awarded the grant, Manuel Lisa and his wife relocated to St. Louis, where they purchased a home on Second Street near theMississippi River. In the late 1790s and early 1800s, Lisa purchased numerous enslaved people.[12]
Lisa likely moved to St. Louis to enter the fur trade, the major part of the regional economy. By 1802, he had obtained a trade monopoly from French officials (the territory had traded hands again) with theOsage Nation. (The monopoly had formerly been held byAuguste Chouteau, a French colonist and first settler of St. Louis).[3] But, after theLouisiana Purchase and annexation of the territory by the United States, Lisa's relationship with the new government officials was not as strong. He competed withPierre Chouteau, a prominent member of the founding family, who had gained a position as a U.S. governmentIndian agent; Chouteau and his brother had gained their wealth and social positions through the fur trade and as merchants.[3]
Lisa had difficult relations withJames Wilkinson, then-governor of U.S.Louisiana Territory.[3] Later found to have been a secret agent of the Spanish Crown, Wilkinson denied Lisa's requests to establish trade routes toSanta Fe, New Mexico, which was still under Spanish colonial rule.[3] In 1806, Wilkinson warnedZebulon Pike, undertakingPike's Expedition, to prevent Lisa's efforts to make business connections to Santa Fe.[13]
Having been stymied by the government and the Chouteau family, Lisa began organizing a trade expedition to the upper Missouri River region.[3] On the first expedition, which departed in April 1807, Lisa and his company of 42 men (includingJohn Colter,George Drouillard orBenito Vázquez)[14] moved up the Missouri until they reached the mouth of theYellowstone River. After ascending the Yellowstone some 170 miles (270 km), Lisa established a trading post on November 21 at the mouth of theBighorn River in present-dayMontana.[3] NamedFort Raymond for his son (also known as Fort Manuel), it was the first such outpost in the upper Missouri region.[3]
Lisa assigned John Colter of his party to explore the region and trade with the nearbyBlackfeet tribe.[3] During his exploration, Colter became the first known European to visit what is now known asYellowstone National Park; he reported on what was named the eponymousColter's Hell.[3]
In July 1808, after a successful trading season, Lisa departed Fort Raymond, leaving behind a small party of men for the winter.[3] While operations from the area were profitable for Lisa, the outpost suffered frequent attacks by the Blackfeet. During these years of Lisa's expeditions to the upper Missouri, his wife Polly and children stayed in St. Louis.[15]
Upon his return to St. Louis in August 1808, Lisa established theMissouri Fur Company (sometimes referred to as the St. Louis Missouri Fur Company), a joint venture withJean Pierre Chouteau,Pierre Chouteau, Jr.,William Clark,Andrew Henry, Francois Marie Benoit,[16] and other prominent St. Louis fur traders.[17] Jean Pierre Chouteau had also come from New Orleans, so the two men had ties to its French and Spanish Creole community. The company was created as a temporary trust by its founders, designed to either expire or reorganize after three years.[13]
In the spring of 1809, Lisa returned to Fort Raymond with a major expedition, made up of 350 men, about half of whom were Americans, the rest French Canadians and Creoles. They had 13 barges and keel-boats loaded with food, munitions, and articles suitable for the Indian trade, and the trip up the Missouri River was slow. Lisa transferred the fort's contents to the new company, and abandoned the isolated post.[18]
Directing the large force of men, Lisa built the firstFort Lisa (also called Fort Manuel) near what is nowBismarck, North Dakota. It was near aGros Ventres village between the mouth of theLittle Missouri and theKnife rivers.[19] After the new fort was constructed, Lisa returned to St. Louis in October 1809.[17] The next year, he ascended the river to Fort Lisa and conducted more trading operations. He returned to St. Louis in the autumn of 1810.[13]
In April 1811, Lisa began a final expedition of the Missouri Fur Company's first three years; he had two goals: to locate the then-lost fur trader Andrew Henry, and to transport the remaining property from Fort Lisa to St. Louis.[13] The expedition became famous in its day as the company's barges heading up the Missouri overtook the rivalAstor Expedition, led byWilliam Price Hunt for theAmerican Fur Company, which had set out three weeks earlier.[13] Lisa remained among theMandan andArikara tribes until Henry came downriver, and they returned to St. Louis together at the end of 1811.[13] In 1811 Lisa was host to the first recorded tourist to present-daySouth Dakota: Pittsburgh lawyerHenry Marie Brackenridge.[20]
When the Missouri Fur Company was reorganized during the winter of 1811-1812, Lisa became more prominent among its leadership.[21] That year he built a brick home in St. Louis as a measure of his success.[22] (Earlier he had built a stone warehouse for his fur company, which stood until the late 1930s, when it was demolished for other development.[23])
In May 1812, Lisa went upriver to Fort Lisa, trading there until his return to St. Louis on June 1, 1813.[13] Lisa happened to be at Fort Lisa in North Dakota whenSacagawea, the historic interpreter and guide for theLewis and Clark Expedition, died at the fort on December 20, 1812. She was buried there.[24]
On this journey he established a new fort further downriver, also calledFort Lisa, in what is now theNorth Omaha area ofOmaha, Nebraska.[13] Lisa at that time became the first known United States settler ofNebraska. His outpost became among the most important in the region, and the basis for the development of the major city of Nebraska.[19]
In June 1812 theU.S. Congress voted to declare war on theUnited Kingdom. After Lisa's return to St. Louis in 1813, he heard fears expressed that British agents would encourage the upper Missouri tribes to attack settlements throughout the northern and western territories.[13] The war disrupted the fur trade with the northern tribes on both sides of the border; in 1813 the British and American Indian allies burned Fort Lisa of North Dakota. Like other traders, Lisa had to suspend his operations for the period of the war.
Early in 1814,William Clark, governor of theMissouri Territory, appointed Lisa as USIndian Agent to the tribes located above the mouth of theKansas River, at an annual salary of $548.[13] Lisa set out for Fort Lisa of Nebraska, where he secured alliances between the United States and Missouri-area tribes, such as theOmaha andPonca. He was especially effective among theTeton Sioux further upriver in present-day Minnesota,[25] whom he organized to send war parties against tribes allied with the British.[13] While securing these alliances, in 1814 Lisa tookMitain as a consort; she was the daughter ofBig Elk, the principal chief of theOmaha people. (Lisa was still legally married to Polly, his first wife, but European-American men often took "country wives" among their Native American allies to build their relationships.)[26]
Later, the U.S. government recognized Lisa, calling his efforts as a "great service in preventing British influence" in the northern area.[27] After the war's conclusion in 1815, Lisa renewed his yearly trade expeditions to the area, staying each winter at Fort Lisa, Nebraska. He eventually had two children withMitain: Rosalie and Christopher.[1][28]
After the war, Lisa's reputation in St. Louis improved as a result of his success in the fur trade and having aided the Americans. In 1815, he invited 43 Native American chiefs and headmen from various tribes living between the Mississippi and Missouri to the city to strengthen their alliance with the Americans, and entertained them for about three weeks. He conducted them to Portage des Sioux to meet with the commissioners William Clark, Edwards and Auguste Chouteau to sign treaties of friendship. About two years later, he hosted another 24 chiefs from the Pawnee, Missouri and Sioux before another treaty signing.[29]
In St. Louis, Lisa was considered an ally of the landed elite.[30] He became more affiliated with leading American members of St. Louis, includingEdward Hempstead, a land claims attorney, andThomas Hart Benton, editor of theSt. Louis Enquirer.[31] In the fall of 1817, while the trader was on an expedition up the Missouri, his first wife Polly Lisa died.[26]
In 1818 Lisa was with most of the residents in St. Louis who turned out to welcome the newly assigned Bishop Louis William Du Bourg. He had decided to make St. Louis the seat of the diocese of Louisiana and the Floridas. Lisa and otherCreole families pledged substantial funds to build a church (now called theOld Cathedral) near the river that was fit for the diocese.[32] After his return from that year's expedition, on August 5, 1818, Lisa married the widow Mary Hempstead Keeny (a sister of Edward Hempstead).[33][34] As a measure of Lisa's social standing,Pierre Chouteau was a witness at his second wedding.[35]
After living a year in St. Louis, Lisa took Mary with him for the winter of 1819-1820 to Fort Lisa in Nebraska (Mary Lisa reportedly became the first woman of European descent to travel so far up the Missouri River).[36] When he and Mary arrived, Lisa sent his second wifeMitain away from the fort.
By the time of his 1819 expedition, Lisa had developed strong relationships with the Omaha, Ponca,Yankton andTeton Sioux, Mandan and Arikara peoples. He was instrumental in extending the "commercial outreach of St. Louis" to the Yellowstone and Bighorn rivers and to tribes previously more under British influence.[37] By 1829 the Missouri Fur Company had invested capital of about $10,000, highest among the local firms.[38]
Although Lisa returned to St. Louis in good health in April 1820, he soon became ill.[39] The unidentified illness caused his death at Sulphur Springs (now within the city of St. Louis) on August 12, 1820. He was buried atBellefontaine Cemetery at the Hempstead family plot.[40][41] Although his will provided for $2000 for each of his children upon reaching adulthood (including those byMitain[42]), there is no evidence that they received any money. The historian Chittenden believed Lisa left few assets to his estate.[43]
After his death,Joshua Pilcher led the Missouri Fur Company to do business under various names until about 1830. By 1830,John Jacob Astor had gained amonopoly with his American Fur Company. As the fur trade had been declining overall with changes in taste, Pilcher dissolved the Missouri Fur Company.
Manuel Lisa was responsible for constructing at least seven forts as trading posts in the American West.[44] They included:
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