Col. Auguste Pierre Chouteau

When Louisiana Territory was sold to the United States there was considerable unrest among the leading French Creoles. They resented being handed to Spain and then to the United States without their own wishes being consulted. Thomas Jefferson had lived long enough on the edge of the frontier to appreciate this situation. He immediately set about conciliating the Creole leaders.

In the summer of 1804 he appointed four young men from this group to the newly established military academy at West Point. A. P. Chouteau, Charles Gratiot, Louis Lorimer Jr., and Pascal Vincent Bouis were the ones so honored. At the same time Jefferson appointed Pierre Chouteau the United States Special Indian Agent for upper Louisiana. A. P. Chouteau was graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1806 with the rank of ensign in the United States Infantry.

He served for a little while as aide de-camps on the staff of General James Wilkinson. In 1807 he commanded a trading expedition up the Missouri river accompanied by a military unit under Nathaniel Pryor. At this time young Chouteau was twenty-one years old. This Chouteau-Pryor expedition was a direct outgrowth of the one led by Lewis and Clark. Pryor was attempting to escort safely home the Mandan chief, Shahaka, who had visited Washington. During the War of 1812 Pryor would serve as a captain under General Andrew Jackson in the Battle of New Orleans.

• Reference: MyHeritage Family Trees - SmartCopy: Feb 4 2016, 11:13:45 UTC

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The two other women he was most closely associated with were Rosalie Lambert, who he had two children by, and her sister Masina Lambert, with whom he had three children. The Lamberts' mother was Osage and their father was a Metis. Rosalie was born in 1809, was living with Chouteau by 1825, and she continued to live with him until his death at Fort Gibson, Indian Territory, in 1838.

By common consent Chouteau was a colonel, and in distinctio n from his uncl e, "Colonel Auguste," during the latter's l ifetime, he was known as "Colon el A. P." He was married a t St. Louis in church on Aug. 13, 1814 (a civ il ceremony h aving preceded this one), to his cousin Sophie Labbadie , w ho with one son and five daughters survived him. He als o had an Indian wif e, Rosalie, born an Osage but naturaliz ed a Cherokee, by whom he had sever al children, and he als o had children by three other Indian women. "For ho wever i t may be considered as a reproach on his character," wrot e Indian A gent Montford Stokes to the Commissioner of Indi an Affairs, Mar. 19, 183 9, "almost all Traders who continu e long in an Indian Country have Indi an wives." He died he avily in debt, and he was no sooner gone than Indi an and w hite creditors began to seize his property, which would hav e be en wholly dispersed but for the intervention of friend s. His personal qual ities and his worth as a citizen hav e been highly extolled by many writer s. -- W. J. Ghent

http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=jameschou...

Four (or five) partners or wives.

• Reference: MyHeritage Family Trees - SmartCopy: Sep 16 2016, 19:06:14 UTC