Manuel Lisa was a Spanish-born American trader, merchant, and explorer.
Background
Manuel Lisa was born on September 9, 1772 at New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. He was the son of Christopher de Lisa, a native of Murcia in Spain, who came to America about the time the Spanish took possession of Louisiana, and of María Ignacia Rodríguez, a native of St. Augustine, Florida.
Career
Probably not later than 1790, Manuel Lisa went to St. Louis during the next ten years he became well established in the fur trade. The Spanish government awarded him a patent entitling him to a monopoly of trade with the Osage Indians. About 1806 he formed relations with a group of St. Louis traders, and on April 19, 1807, headed an expedition of forty-two men up the Missouri River with the purpose of erecting trading posts and forts where furs might be stored and exchanged and from which watch might be kept upon the Indians. On November 21 he placed a trading house at the mouth of the Big Horn River and during the following spring built near it a fort which he called Fort Raymond in honor of his son. This post, later known as Fort Manuel, was the first structure of its kind on the upper Missouri.
Upon his return in the summer of 1808 he joined with Andrew Henry, Pierre Chouteau, and others in forming the Missouri Fur Company, of which William Clark, who with Meriwether Lewis had ascended the Missouri in 1804, was to be resident agent at St. Louis. In June 1809, the company sent forth from St. Louis its first expedition, 350 men, half of them Americans and half French Canadians and Creoles, with Lisa as one of the leaders. About twelve miles above the mouth of the Big Knife River, in what is now North Dakota, they erected Fort Lisa. It had been Lisa's intention to proceed to the Three Forks of the Missouri, but he sent Pierre Ménard and Andrew Henry instead, and in October 1809 himself returned to St. Louis.
In the spring of 1811 he led a search party of twenty-five men, sent out from St. Louis to look for Henry and his command. The trip of 1811 is famous in Missouri River annals for a race between the barge of the Lisa party and a flotilla belonging to the John Jacob Astor interests which was on its way to the Columbia River under the command of Wilson Price Hunt. Hunt had about three weeks' start of Lisa, but, on the second of June, was overtaken by the latter, just beyond the mouth of the Niobrara River. Here the two expeditions fraternized, and, when the Astorians, through Lisa's help, had secured horses from the Arikara and Mandan Indians, took their departure overland. Lisa, together with Andrew Henry, who had arrived at the Niobrara, returned to St. Louis in October. In the summer of 1814 he was appointed by William Clark, now governor of Missouri Territory, to the post of sub-agent for the Indian tribes on the Missouri above the mouth of the Kansas River.
Lisa's travels on the Missouri took him vast distances. Between 1807 and his death he made twelve or thirteen trips, performing some 26, 000 miles of river travel. His trade was profitable, amounting sometimes to as much as $35, 000 in one season. He died at St. Louis and was buried in Bellefontaine Cemetery, where a shaft marks his grave.
Achievements
Connections
Lisa was three times married. His first wife was Mary (or Polly) Charles, by whom he had three children, all of whom died when young. While his first wife was still living he married, in 1814, Mitain, an Omaha woman, daughter of one of the leading families of the Omaha tribe. By Mitain he had two children, who survived him. In 1819, on his last trip up the Missouri, he took with him his third bride, who had been Mrs. Mary (Hempstead) Keeney; she was a daughter of Stephen Hempstead, a prominent figure in the early history of St. Louis. They spent the winter at Fort Lisa, a post erected in 1812 a few miles above the site of the present Omaha. At this post Lisa entertained members of the famous expedition led by Major Stephen H. Long into the region beyond the Missouri.