Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West

by Stephen E. Ambrose

St. Louis businessman and friend of Lewis Pierre Chouteau accompanied the Osages as interpreter and general manager of the tour. Chouteau had his eye on the main chance; he met with Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin, who sized him up thus: “He seems well disposed, but what he wants is power and money.” He asked for a monopoly on the Indian trade west of the Mississippi. “I told him this was inadmissable, and his last demand was the exclusive trade with the Osages. . . . As he may be either useful or dangerous I gave no flat denial. . . .”2 Thus did the intense competition between frontier businessmen for the Indian trade continue under new management. The Chouteau family, along with Manuel Lisa, Joseph Robidoux, and others were adept at currying favor with corrupt Spanish bureaucrats for precious trading licenses with the western tribes. And no wonder: it was the most immediate and by far the most profitable source of wealth in the trans-Mississippi West.