The Brothers Robidoux and the Opening of the American West

by Robert J. Willoughby

Unbeknown to Robidoux and the rest of the merchant community of St. Louis, their destiny had been altered irrevocably by the secret Treaty of San Ildefonso, signed in October 1800 between Napoleon Bonaparte, consul of France, and the king of Spain. Robidoux and the rest of the French population of St. Louis and Louisiana found themselves returned to French rule, but they did not know it yet, nor did the Spanish officials still governing them, for the time being. While French and Spanish officials corresponded at the minister level, Spanish governors still decided who received rights to trade with the Indians on the Missouri for the next three years.44

  Arriving in 1800, Casa Calvo replaced Gayoso de Lemos as governor. Joseph II quickly joined the other St. Louis traders bombarding him with memorials and representations asking for trade favors. Lieutenant Governor Delassus reported to Casa Calvo in October 1801 that indeed many of them had been financially burned by the Clamorgan debacle, but that he also felt many exaggerated their claims. He did confirm the fact that although Robidoux had no license of his own, he had been working with Sanguinet, providing half of the “equipment,” for trade with the Mahas and Poncas. In the report, Delassus described Don Joseph Robidoux thus, “Resident of this commerce, father of a large family and ruined because of his envy and undertaking too much.” He also identified one Juan Bautista Monier, a sutler and saloon keeper, as being employed by Robidoux, as well as Antonio Janis Pichè in the same role and sometimes in the service of Don Gregorio Sarpy.45

  The day following the less-than-flattering report by Delassus, Robidoux affixed his name along with forty-one other merchants to a long memorial to the governor calling for the end of exclusive trade, penned by a newly arrived St. Louis trader named Manuel Lisa. Lisa wrote eloquently,

  If commerce were free, and every individual could have a claim on the trade, there would be a much greater consumption of merchandise. With the peltries reverting to all, there would be abundance of business; and the metropolis, from which the people would be obliged to obtain their merchandise, would find therein a great benefit.

  Exclusion from the commerce is the worst scourge which this country can experience. This country demands all the encouragement possible, in order to bring it to the degree of splendor of which it is capable.

  Exclusion enervates courage, withers imagination, and ruins industry; and, without mentioning the particular evils to which it gives birth, we shall say that exclusive privileges are contrary to all laws, civil and political, and wound natural equity.

  Delassus attached his loud criticism of the memorial before sending it off.46

  Subsequent to the memorial, and the stand of the lieutenant governor in opposition, all the signers submitted a transferal of power of attorney to Manuel Lisa to deal directly with the governor-general in any legal cases regarding the “revocation, abrogation and absolution of the exclusive rights enjoyed at the present time by various individuals here, who monopolize by special grace all the trade in furs.” Robidoux signed, “Don Joseph Robidou, lieutenant of the militia of this city of St. Louis,” and took Delassus to task for apparently refusing the document, “denied without our knowing what motives there were for his doing so. Because of his having refused it—which I certify, and heedful of the objects which may be best, I beg the Senor Governor and Justices in the name of all the undersigned give credence to the present power-of-attorney.”47

  In December 1802, Joseph II apparently had run up a substantial account with one of the big supply houses of New Orleans, Cavelier and Petit (Son), and found himself forced to offer mortgages to cover the debt. It included nearly all the family holdings in St. Louis and elsewhere, listed as “a lot of the usual dimensions on Main St. with two houses and a bakery, another piece on Second St. with a mill, a plantation in St. Ferdinand [Florissant], 18 A [arpents] x 1 league and a quarter deep with building, also a piece of land on Main St. in St. Charles with building and five slaves.”48

  While Robidoux and the rest of habitants of St. Louis knew nothing of the diplomatic affairs conducted by Napoleon, the United States began to suspect that a transfer of Louisiana from Spain to France had indeed gotten underway by the autumn of 1801. In early 1802, President Thomas Jefferson began talking with France, through diplomatic channels, regarding navigation rights on the Mississippi, which under the Spanish regime had not always gone well. The key, as far as the Americans were concerned, was not St. Louis or the fur trade based from there, but New Orleans, which controlled the access to all the Mississippi and the right of deposit there for all the commerce flowing down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to the Gulf of Mexico. Jefferson did find dealing with the complacent Spanish difficult at times, but he feared France as a more potentially aggressive neighbor. Napoleon did have plans in mind for the new vast addition to the French Empire, but first he wanted a base of operations established in the West Indies. He dispatched General Victor Leclerc to Santo Domingo in February 1802 to retake control of the island from the guerrilla forces of Touissant L'Overture, who had led a successful slave rebellion during the late 1790s.49

  With L'Overture taken and shipped to France, where he died in prison, the rebellion did not end, and Leclerc's infantry wilted in the heat and died from yellow fever. Further perking the interest of the United States, Calvo took action in October 1802 to close New Orleans to all foreign traffic, meaning the United States. Officials in Spain blamed the action, a violation of the earlier Treaty of San Lorenzo, negotiated between the United States and Spain in 1795 to ensure Americans had access to port facilities at the mouth of the Mississippi, on Calvo's arbitrary nature. Spain's actions appeared to be a moot point, since France did in deed own the territory. Jefferson sent James Monroe to France to join the United States minister there, Robert Livingston, to clear up the confusion and find out exactly whom the Americans should be talking to.50

  Napoleon's foreign minister Charles Maurice Talleyrand approached Livingston about American interest in buying Louisiana. The West Indies adventure had turned sour with the death of General Leclerc and Napoleon planned to turn his attentions elsewhere in Europe. He also viewed the United States with some favor and wanted to retain a sense of friendship in the face of a possible alliance between the Americans and the British. Jefferson had stated that “the day that France takes possession of New Orleans we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation.” Monroe and Livingston had no authorization to buy the whole Louisiana Territory but took the initiative to act before Napoleon changed his mind. A Treaty of Cession was signed on May 2, 1803. The United States would pay $15 million, provide French and Spanish vessels with caps on payable duties, and promise that all residents of Louisiana would be given American citizenship immediately. Jefferson, delighted when news arrived in July, seemed unruffled that the deal with France raised constitutional issues and had to still be approved by the Congress.51

  CHAPTER 2

  Emerging Sons

  The events of 1803 left a profound impact on the direction of this story. Though of French roots, the brothers had been born subjects of the king of Spain. In 1803, they became Americans, as the result of one of the greatest real estate deals in all history, the Louisiana Purchase, which made St. Louis, in deed, the gateway to the American West. Personally, 1803 began to mark the decline of Joseph II, due to ill health, the onset of gradual blindness, and financial burdens, which in May 1803 on the account sheet of the Chouteaus alone amounted to over 6,300 piastres. The year marked the emergence of his son Joseph III as the principal family business leader, a position he would dominate for the next generation. In 1803, Joseph III turned twenty, having grown in both experience and responsibility for the family operations in St. Louis. There exists no firm record of how far he had been up the Missouri River, or if any of his younger brothers had gone with him, but considering the father's known association with men like Sanguinet and others who held licenses to trade as far up as the Platte, it would not be beyond reason to assume that at least Joseph III had traveled that far, if only at his father's be
hest to keep an eye on the family investments.1

  Late in his life, Joseph Robidoux III was called to a St. Louis deposition in 1856 regarding the property claims against the estate of Joseph Brazeau, a family he had once had close ties with during his youth. The deposition is important because in it he clarifies two dates or events that have been in some contention regarding his emerging years. He identified himself for the attorney and began by briefly outlining his early life there. “I was born in this town of St. Louis. I lived here from 1784 where I was born, all the time until now, except when I have traveled and was absent. I lived here all the time when I was a boy and a young man. I began to travel in 1803. I traveled to trade with the Indians west and north of the Missouri.” Assuming the recollection accurate, the inference is that he first ascended the Missouri River in 1803 and not before. “I would be gone about 10 months in my trading expeditions. I would go away in August and return in June. I have resided in St. Joseph since 1843. I was acquainted with the Spanish inhabitants of St. Louis and neighborhood during the Spanish times. I knew a man by the name of Joseph Brazeau. I knew two of that name, one an old man and the other a young man. These talks I had with Brazeau, took place while I lived with him—my business has been that of a merchant and trader.”2

  When he first ascended the Missouri, in1803 as he recalled, we know that at one spot on the muddy banks of that swirling river he established an association that stuck, for better or worse. Young, handsome, and swarthy of complexion, with dark brown, nearly black hair, he already had the experience and the physical and mental frame of a frontiersman. Area Indian tribes, the Missouri, Oto(e), and Iowa(y), with their valuable furs, congregated at the site to trade. A creek flowed into the Missouri from the east bank, sixty miles as the crow flies above the Kansas River, that Robidoux and his French-speaking compatriots called Le Serpent Noir, which means “the blacksnake.” Because of the sharply rising river bluffs, the area became known as the Blacksnake Hills. Why it was called blacksnake is attributed to a number of sources. A band of the Missouri tribe called the Blacksnake Indians lived in the area. The dark, shaded, winding creek that flowed through the area reminded them of the black serpents. Or it may have been the fact that there were black snakes, indigenous to the area, crawling all over the place when they arrived. No one really knows if one or all of the reasons are correct. The name Blacksnake Hills took, and young Joseph Robidoux III began a lifelong, but by no means exclusive, connection with the site.3

  During those first travels up the Missouri, Joseph began to establish personal relations with the area tribes through the taking of Indian women as his concubines or “country wives.” Historian Tanis Thorne, who has done extensive research on the subject, writes that the practice of French Creole men taking Indian women as frontier lovers, common-law wives, or even wives with benefit of clergy, existed from the very beginning of Native American contact and trade. Families of métis or biracial, French-Indian blood dominated the fur trade and frequented St. Louis society, up to the highest levels, including some members of the Chouteau family. The libido of the young French voyageur or trader could easily be soothed by a comely Indian maiden, whose favor might be obtained simply through physical attraction, or by a gift of trade goods, or the realization of some benefit to the father or tribal chief. In some cases, chiefs demanded the union of the French trader with their female relatives to secure exclusivity of trade with their tribe. The moral questions that might attend such an affair in the confines of white civilization seemingly vanished in the wilderness as nature called.4

  In 1805 Joseph sired a child, a little girl who was called Mary, by an Ioway woman. That daughter grew and later married the Ioway chief White Cloud, which created a life-long connection between the two men. Willingness, even open desire, to take Indian women, out of lust or as the improvement of a trading situation, remained with Joseph throughout the rest of his life. The practice of French-Indian unions, formalized in marriage or otherwise, seemed almost universally accepted in the culture of the frontier trader. Therefore he found no clear argument against what he was doing, other than his Catholicism and the tenant of monogamy, which he found either desirable or expedient to ignore.5

  The Robidoux family had trade interests other than along the Missouri. Land near the confluence of the Des Moines and Mississippi had been acquired and they continued to do business with Canadian suppliers, as indicated by documents showing that a British trader named David Duncan offered Joseph Robidoux II a certification of goods he shipped into the United States via Wisconsin in July 1803.6 It has been suggested that Joseph III may have briefly traveled to the vicinity of present-day Chicago and attempted to establish a post there that same year. According to the story, he stayed there but a brief period before Indians attacked and destroyed his stock of trade goods. There might possibly be a connection between the manifest for goods and the story, but it must be remembered that any post the Robidouxs might have been interested in establishing there would have been illegal at the time, as they were not citizens of the United States yet, nor would they have been granted a license by the U.S. Government.7

  As 1803 closed, the French trading families of St. Louis still had not come under new administration. The United States tried to take charge, but communications between the three parties involved in the transfer proved slow to nonexistent. Jefferson had long harbored an interest in seeing what lay beyond the front range of the Rocky Mountains, even before the possibility of buying Louisiana materialized. With the purchase accomplished he immediately put into effect plans to have the new territory explored by an official United States expedition, to be led by his personal secretary, Meriwether Lewis. It is worth noting that Jefferson actually considered the idea of closing the upper Louisiana to white settlers, turning the entire area over to the Indians, envisioning a homeland for those transplanted from east of the Mississippi, and moving the inhabitants of St. Louis to the east side of the Mississippi River. That traumatic disruption of the lives of the Robidoux brothers and all the other French Americans was saved by the common sense objections of Senators John Breckinridge and Rufus King and members of Jefferson's own cabinet.8

  In December 1803, Meriwether Lewis arrived at St. Louis and met with the Spanish lieutenant governor Delassus. Delassus had not received word from New Orleans of the transfer of Louisiana from Spain to France, much less the sale of the same to the United States. Actually, Spanish officials in New Orleans did not officially cede control to France until November 30, 1803, followed by France ceding control to the United States on December 20. As Delassus had heard nothing, he asked Lewis for his passport from the Spanish ambassador and forbid him to ascend the Missouri River until he had instructions from Manuel de Salcedo in New Orleans. Henri Peyroux, commandant of upper Louisiana, sent a letter to Delassus, dating from July 1803, which explained everything to him.

  I have procured a passport for him and his party [Lewis], from the Minister of France here, it being agreed between him and the Spanish Minister that the country having been ceded to France her minister may most properly give authority for the journey. This was the state of things when the passport was given, which was some time since, but before Capt. Lewis's actual departure we learned through a channel of unquestionable information that France has ceded the whole country of Louisiana to the U. S. by a treaty concluded in the first days of May, but for an object as innocent and useful as this I am sure you will not be scrupulous as to the authorities on which the journey is undertaken; and that you will give all the protection you can to Capt. Lewis and his party in going and returning. Signed, Th Jefferson.9

  Delassus received official notification to turn over St. Louis and the rest of upper Louisiana on January 28, 1804. From the beginning, Jefferson intended that the Louisiana Purchase be administered as two distinct regions, with St. Louis being the northern counterbalance to New Orleans. The Brothers Robidoux and their French compatriots must have been truly shocked at the news, and maybe a bit relieved at the
end of Spanish rule. True, the Spanish had put little in the way of taxes on the citizens of St. Louis, but the constant struggle to find favor with the governors and gain trade licenses had been maddening, as witnessed by the efforts of Joseph II. He and his sons saw the Stars and Stripes raised over St. Louis for the first time on March 9, 1804, as Delassus formally signed off to the American agent, Amos Stoddard.10

  It was not a great patriotic moment for the French families. They had not suddenly become American red, white, and blue. A few of the leading families turned out for the exchange ceremony and reciprocating parties were thrown by the Spanish and American delegations. New world French, either Canadian or Louisianan, retained their culture and source of personal identity. When everything settled, the French, then Spanish, then French, and finally American inhabitants of St. Louis simply waited to see what came next. The major issues of concern for the families of St. Louis included their land titles, granted under Spanish rule, and the impact on the issuance of the all-important Indian trade licenses, both of which could be greatly affected by a rush of Americans into the area. Neither concern produced any immediate panic, as the population remained docile, and not overly enthusiastic to the change of national identity. Stoddard wrote to the secretary of war, “I have not been able to discover any aversion to the new order of things; on the contrary a cordial acquiescence seems to prevail among all ranks of people.”11

  Lewis and Clark, began their voyage of discovery from St. Louis on May 14, 1804, taking along at least six French voyageurs with them, named Mabbauf, Primaut, Hebert, La Jeunesse, Pinaut, and Roi, as part of the Corps of Discovery. The final send-off from St. Charles on May 20 saw Auguste Chouteau and other leading citizens in attendance. Once up the Missouri, on occasion they met French traders or interpreters already on the river. In late October, they encountered the Frenchman Touissant Charbonneau at the Mandan villages sixteen hundred miles above St. Louis. It came as no surprise to Lewis or Clark to encounter French or British traders in the new American territory, as they had been operating in parts of it for more than a decade. The significant event proved to be meeting Charbonneau's Indian wife, Sacagawea, who contributed greatly to the outward-bound expedition as a guide and go-between with the powerful Shoshone tribe. During 1805 Lewis and Clark did push on to the Pacific and establish Fort Clatsop, before turning for home in early 1806.12