Description

The program introduces the beginning of the St. Louis fur trade with the Osage and Missouri Nations. As far back as the early 1600s, a strategic location at the confluence of the Mississippi, Illinois, and Missouri rivers attracted trade between Indian Nations and Spanish Empire traders. Spanish introduced horses to multiple Nations, eventually leading to the western expansion of horse mounted Indian cultures.

Later named St. Louis after the crusader King Louis IX and later named Saint Louis, European empires including the Spanish, French, Dutch, British, and the United States built fortunes from trading with Indian Nations. In the early 1700s French traders from New Orleans navigated upstream in flat-bottom boats to meet Indians traveling downstream with valuable animal furs headed for New Orleans and eventually European markets.

One French trader, Pierre Laclede, eyed St. Louis as an ideal place for profitable settlement. With his 14-year-old stepson, Auguste Chouteau, he supervised construction of the first St. Louis homes. Representatives of Osage and Missouri Nations arrived to inspect the new settlement. From St. Louis, traders took European wares to Indian settlements, who wanted French brass, iron, and firearms, and in exchange collected thousands of animal pelts, shipping them over land and water from St. Louis and on to Europe.