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Show Pe eee ee bed dot doa es ek, ek ed' ee ee ae ad Sed Pa - Ae ile hd eel ° ait 88 oa eSiat A ad eenll Gaal at cd nl Roe de eS aa nate SA” | ? a he . 98 LEADING FACTS OF NEW MEXICAN HISTORY OLD ahan, and Patterson, under the guidance of a Spaniard, Manuel Blanco, left St. Louis for Santa Fé. Nothing further was ever heard of them, and it is supposed that they were killed by Indians on the plains. An expedition of twelve men, under the leadership of Robert McKnight, James Baird, and Samuel Chambers, crossed the plains in 1812 and reached Santa Fé They were arrested by the Spanish authorities, their goods confiscated, and they were held as prisoners at Durango and Chihuahua until 1822, when they were released by order of Iturbide. Efforts had been made in 1817 in their behalf by Secretary of State Adams through the Spanish minister, Oiis, IMPRISONMENT OF MC KNIGHT, BAIRD, AND CHAMBERS but Ce nothing was accomplished, although the latter wrote both to the viceroy and to the king of Spain.*® In 1815, Auguste P. Chouteau and Julius De Munn,°* partners, led an expedition to the headwaters of the Arkansas, where they hunted and traded with the Indians. The following year they visited Taos and Santa Fé, securing permissio n from the Spanish | zee governor, Alberto Maynez, to trap and trade east of the mountains and north of Red river. Early in 1817, however, under Governor Allande, came a change of policy. A force of two hundred met under Lieutenant Francisco Salazar marched from Santa Fé to the Rio de las Animas, where it was said the Americans had established a fort. No such fort existed, but in June, 68 They were authority in N Sergeant Mariano Ber- induce oe were prison. revolutionar set at liberty. ee bef from the president Here they remained upwar d of nine Nees of the United on ae i a States, transmitti ng inform Santa Fé » eurWashin thegton, arrest1818.and imprisonment of certain American citizens @ See also Annal <night, escaped FE TRAIL 99 nal was sent out for the purpose of arresting Chouteau, De Munn, and their companions. This he succeeded in doing, bringing them to Santa Fé, where they were tried by court-martial, kept in jail forty-eight days, and finally released. Auguste Chouteau was the head of the celebrated family of that name and was one of the founders of the city of St. Louis. He was born in New Orleans, August 14, 1750. The Chouteaus were the leaders in the fur trade in the early part of the nineteenth century. Pierre Chouteau was a brother, six years younger than Auguste. St. Louis was the seat of their business operations, and as owners of the Missouri Fur Company they controlled the fur traffic west of the Kansas river, reaching to the headwaters of the Platte, the Arkansas, and the Rio Grande. In the year 1813 the company controlled by the Chouteaus was merged with the American Fur Company, a corporation organized in New York in 1808 by John Jacob Astor. It seems that Chouteau and De Munn left St. Louis on the 10th of September, 1815, in company with a trader named Phillebert, ARREST AND COURT-MARTIAL CHOUTEAU AND DE MUNN for horses with the Indians OF who had gone to the Rocky Mountain country the year previous and had returned for the purpose of buying supplies with which to trade so that he could bring in his supply of furs. On the way out Chouteau and De Munn purchased Phillebert’s entire outfit. Phillebert had named Huerfano ereek as the rendezvous for his hunters, but when Chouteau and his companions arrived in December, 1815, they were informed by Indians that Phillebert’s men, thinking he would never return, and being with- expected. The Hidalgo movement had failed, the chief had been executed, 7 the Spanish authorities, intensely suspicious of forei gners and especially 0 _ eeaeirea selzed the traders immed iately upon their arriv 2 ctor ye el dy an M al, sent them 1 — SANTA down aeandGiatas an it » William tee s of Congress, 1817-1 818. wat Benjamin Shrive, James Baird, a Mines, whose Peter name Baum, was Samuel : Miers. Two Cham’) 0 f these Out supplies of any kind, had gone to New Mexico. De Munn went to New Mexico in search of them and found them at Taos, where they had been well treated. De Munn now went to Santa Fé where he had a very favorable interview with Governor Maynez. He did not secure permission, however, to trap beaver in the streams in New Mexico, but the governor promised to recommend to the 8overnment at Chihuahua that such permission be given. now returned to Chouteau’s camp on the Huerfano, “oMmpany with Phillebert and another trapper, Louis, making the journey in forty-six days. De Munn and soon, in returned to St. |