Several
Of These Traders Had, Two Or Three Years Previously, Formed
Themselves Into A Company, Composed Of Twelve Partners, With A
Capital Of About Forty Thousand Dollars, Called The Missouri Fur
Company; The Object Of Which Was, To Establish Posts Along The
Upper Part Of That River, And Monopolize The Trade.
The leading
partner of this company was Mr. Manuel Lisa, a Spaniard by birth,
and a man of bold and enterprising character, who had ascended
the Missouri almost to its source, and made himself well
acquainted and popular with several of its tribes.
By his
exertions, trading posts had been established, in 1808, in the
Sioux country, and among the Aricara and Mandan tribes; and a
principal one, under Mr. Henry, one of the partners, at the forks
of the Missouri. This company had in its employ about two hundred
and fifty men, partly American and partly creole voyageurs.
All these circumstances combined to produce a population at St.
Louis even still more motley than that at Mackinaw. Here were to
be seen, about the river banks, the hectoring, extravagant
bragging boatmen of the Mississippi, with the gay, grimacing,
singing, good-humored Canadian voyageurs. Vagrant Indians, of
various tribes, loitered about the streets. Now and then a stark
Kentucky hunter, in leathern hunting-dress, with rifle on
shoulder and knife in belt, strode along. Here and there were new
brick houses and shops, just set up by bustling, driving, and
eager men of traffic from the Atlantic States; while, on the
other hand, the old French mansions, with open casements, still
retained the easy, indolent air of the original colonists; and
now and then the scraping of a fiddle, a strain of an ancient
French song, or the sound of billiard balls, showed that the
happy Gallic turn for gayety and amusement still lingered about
the place.
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