Manuel Lisa, "I find that I have travelled a great distance while others are deciding whether to start their journey today or tomorrow."
Manuel Lisa appears in our Bent's Fort book a lot in the early chapters. Here is a little background information on Lisa.
- (September 8, 1772 – August 12, 1820)
- fur trader and explorer who was among the founders of the St. Louis Missouri Fur Company, later known as the Missouri Fur Company.
- Lisa was highly influential among American Indian tribes. Due to his personal standing with them, during the War of 1812, he helped neutralize pro-British tribes in the Minnesota region by inspiring the powerful Teton Sioux to attack them.
- 1796 Lisa married Polly Charles Chew, a young widow
- Lisa moved his trading post operations further east and south. He built his first Fort Lisa (1809-1812), also known as Fort Manuel Lisa Trading Post, near a Gros Ventres village between the mouth of the Little Missouri and the Big Knife rivers, in what is now North Dakota.
- He became the master of the upper Missouri by 1820, developing strong relationships with the Omaha, Ponca, Yankton Sioux and Teton Sioux, Mandan and Arikara peoples.
- After several founding members of the Missouri Fur Company left, Manuel Lisa headed the company. After 1814 he renamed it Manuel Lisa and Company
- Before dying in 1820, Lisa had remarried twice (three wives).
- He was buried there in Bellefontaine Cemetery. After Lisa's death, Joshua Pilcher took over the presidency of the fur company.
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