Subsequently, on May 5, 1794, Trudeau allowed Clamorgan, serving as syndic to convene the St. Louis Board of Trade for the purpose of drawing up articles of incorporation for the Missouri Company. Robidoux again signed the list as a member of the board. Those members approved on May 12 forty-five articles governing every aspect of the trade. Nine members of the Board of Trade, “who have wished to try and risk their fortunes in an undertaking of so much cost and danger for the discovery of the remote tribes,” signed on as the original partners of the company. Joseph Robidoux II signed along with Clamorgan, Vazquez, Motard, Dubreuill, Sanguinet, St. Cyr, Reihle, and Durocher. Each of the nine signed as a bondsman of another member; Robidoux and Sanguinet for each other. In reaction to what the partners may have perceived as a lack of support from more members of the Board of Trade, Clamorgan immediately petitioned Governor Carondelet to grant the company exclusive trade for ten consecutive years. Carondelet replied to the petition in the affirmative.24
Though Governor Carondelet wholeheartedly approved of the idea, the partners did not wait for his formal approval and sent off Jean Baptiste Truteau during the summer of 1794 to ascend to the Mandan villages and build a fort. To that point in time Truteau had been known for operating one of the few private schools in St. Louis. Despite his best efforts to represent the company and Spanish interests, Truteau had a disastrous eighteen months, finding most of his trade goods stolen, extended to the Indians on credit, or ruined by the elements. He spent several months stranded among the Arikara waiting for transportation. The former schoolteacher did make contact with other traders in the area, as well as other tribes, the Cheyenne and Gros Venture, and gave the official Spanish line of communication and peace from the great Spanish Father. Much of Truteau's failure can be attributed to the Omaha chief Black Bird, a man Clamorgan called the “Prince of Nations,” dominating all the tribes in the vicinity of the Platte and strong enough to blockade the Missouri throughout the decade of the 1790s. It was Black Bird who relieved Truteau of his trade goods, left him stranded, and humiliated, to the point of groveling for the few low-grade pelts he secured.25
In 1795 a second or relief expedition ascended the Missouri, with an even grander goal, of pushing beyond the Mandans and reaching “the shores of the Sea of the West,” with the impetus of a $3,000 prize from the governor for the first Spaniard to do so. The second expedition had a capital expenditure of twice the first outing, but it also came to nothing. It reached only as high as the Platte, primarily due to the ongoing campaign against the French by Black Bird, and the poor leadership of N. Lecuyer, who, according to a contemporary, “has not had less than two wives since his arrival at the home of the Poncas, has wasted a great deal of goods of the Company.” Clamorgan's poor choice of leaders, as well as some gross miscalculations of the difficulties the company faced, brought mounting financial ruin on the investors including Joseph Robidoux II.26
The hopes of a better return for Robidoux and the others lay with the appointment of the Scotsman-turned-naturalized-Spaniard, James Mackay. Described as a man of honesty and intelligence and apparently without the vices he had observed in Lecuyer, he would be appointed the field manager of the company's efforts on the upper Missouri, with a salary of $400 per year, a share of the profits, and the approval of the governor-general, on December 10, 1795. Mackay actually left St. Louis prior to his appointment becoming official in August 1795. By October he had reached the Otoe villages at the mouth of the Platte and paused to establish a trading base, both for the benefit of the later traders sent by the company, and to keep the British from further encroachment. From the Otoe site he advanced north to the Poncas and established an outpost called Fort Charles, in honor of Charles IV of Spain, where the expedition spent the winter. The next spring, Mackay and his chief lieutenant, John Evans, who had come to America to search for “Welsh” Indians, pushed on to the Mandan villages on the upper Missouri where they encountered traders from both the British North West Company and Hudson's Bay Company. The Missouri Company informed them of their exclusion from trade on the upper Missouri River, and though polite in exchanges, the British had no intent of backing down or giving up their own pursuit of advancing toward the Yellowstone and the Rocky Mountains. Mackay, though a great administrative improvement, could not turn the financial misfortunes of the company around.27
The opening of the upper Missouri region and reaching the Pacific coast lay far beyond the grasp of the St. Louis consortium. Pressure on Clamorgan to recover assets and turn a profit led to the concentration of efforts on the lower Missouri, while still trying to keep a foothold on the upper reaches of the river. Some original investors bailed out and the company reorganized as new men brought in fresh money. Clamorgan bought out all of the original investors except one, “Don Joseph Robidou,” according to a report by Trudeau to Gayoso de Lemos, who replaced Carondelet as governor of Louisiana in 1797.28 The Missouri Company did business as Clamorgan, Loisel (Regis) and Company beginning in 1796. It continued to fail due to mismanagement, the failure of Spanish officials to provide troops for protection from Indian attacks, and little more than bluster to curb competition from British traders from the North West Company, fanning out from the Great Lakes, Red, and upper Mississippi Rivers. Over the first three years those failures mounted, leading to a falling out on a very personal level and bitter family feuding within the St. Louis community.29
Joseph Robidoux II had been burned financially and questions of ethics flew both ways. Apparently by the spring of 1796 he had raised publicly some hard questions about Clamorgan's leadership, as claimed in a letter to Governor Carondelet by Clamorgan.
Nothing has astonished me more than the underhanded and unfaithful [disloyal] trickery of Sieur Robidou, a member of the Missouri Company who has been shamelessly goaded by malicious envy. I have learned that he has villainously complained to you; that he has acted with the blackest and most evil artifice in order to make me hated by you. Most Excellent Governor, I would like to be openly accused if I am guilty of the slightest misconduct towards the Company or to him or to any private person, and I will justify without any trouble at all the purity of my sentiments. They do not fear the attacks of any ambitious, envious, or jealous enemy. Most Excellent Governor, for the future impose silence on Sieur Robidou and his bitterness, just as your law imposes upon me never to harm my equals, especially those who, conjointly with me, have sought by new discoveries to render themselves useful to the prosperity of our colony.”30
Still Joseph II continued to raise capital or receive credits to invest in operations on the Missouri. The Spanish governor intervened and gave certain families the license to trade with only specific tribes. Clamorgan held onto those tribes above the Platte, while the Chouteaus, Auguste and Pierre, held a monopoly with the Osage Indians, and the families of Sanguinet, Chauvin, Vasquez, Sarpy, and Cabanné received monopolies, thus becoming the most powerful dons of St. Louis, with political influence unrivaled until the purchase of the Louisiana Territory by the United States in 1803.31
A new governor, Gayoso de Lemos, visited St. Louis in 1795, and met with Robidoux and the other dons. Auguste Chouteau held a grand reception at his mansion and all the upper crust of St. Louis attended. Apparently de Lemos wanted to know where his French subjects stood in regard to Spanish rule and whether the pulse of republican revolution reached as far as the Mississippi Valley. He saw no signs to indicate the French population would rise against him, no symbol of their nationalism, except for the three-color, red-, white-, and blue-trimmed dress worn by Catherine Robidoux, Joseph II's wife. The governor chalked the tricolor display up to the dress being an old garment and Madame Robidoux's bad taste.32
Despite his wife's fashion flop, Robidoux continued to press the governor, hoping to get some financial relief for himself and other traders on his economic tier.
Since your sojourn to our city, you have had the goodness to offer your services to us, and more particularly to me, Monseigneur; consequently, I
dare from this generous offer to beg you to kindly grant me the post of the Kansas nation to trade there exclusively for several years. This post will redeem for me the immense losses which I have suffered from time to time. It will furnish me with the means of honoring my creditors and raising my numerous family. Due to the manner in which this post is exploited today, it is pure loss to the country because of the manner in which it is distributed; it is divided into ten portions. It is necessary that a trader who goes to the Kansas pay a sum to these ten persons, who have the permission, neither the trader nor the equipper can make their returns [profits]; thus causing commerce to languish.33
In a second letter to the governor, on the same date, Robidoux II expounded in much greater detail, the disastrous financial dealings with Clamorgan. “It was Sr. Clamorgan, whose private business affairs were in the greatest disorder and confusion, whose probity was violently suspected, [who engaged in] intriguing, great talking, complacency, affability, and even servility, when it was politic to deceive, in order to exalt himself, or to injure others. Such was the man that the supplicant [Robidoux] and his associates chose, believing him to be the most competent to conduct great operations, which he said he had done all his life.” Robidoux explained that the investors in the company may not have fully trusted Clamorgan, but in a sense were giving him the benefit of the doubt because of the support of Lieutenant Governor Trudeau. “Sr. Clamorgan, chosen and placed at the head of the societe, began his work. He was then entirely unprovided with merchandise, as were also several of the associates. The supplicant, in order not to delay the operations of the Company, opened his store and loaned to Sr. Clamorgan, and to some of the co-partners, the articles which they lacked. It was believed that he was going to select from amongst the traders, men of integrity, skill, and speaking various Indian dialects. The associates were surprised that he selected only those who where known to be the most worthless and corrupt, and for the sole reason that they had long been in his debt.”34
Robidoux made it perfectly clear to the governor that Clamorgan's mismanagement had nearly ruined him. “If Sr. Clamorgan had really had at heart the success of the Company, he would have selected intelligent, prudent, economical men, to manage an undertaking which required wisdom, system and economy to accomplish success for the benefit of the societe and the government. A conduct so lacking in honesty on the part of Sr. Clamorgan caused the loss of the first envois [the outfit sent with Truteau]. Men poorly selected, goods in bad condition, damaged, and even changed necessarily cause this loss. Second and third outfits were no more successful, because nothing was done properly. Thus, he [Clamorgan] succeeded in consummating the ruin of the supplicant who lost in the three adventures, ten thousand piastres.”35
Further, Robidoux made some pointed personal remarks about Clamorgan, in hope of them being interpreted as treasonous against the Spanish administration of Illinois. “He [Clamorgan] forestalled a rich English merchant of Canada who was intent upon means he had to promptly realize a great fortune; he succeeded in gaining his confidence to such an extent that he put in his hands a large capital, solicited for him the exclusive trade of the Mississippi, hoping by this means to re-unite some day, this privilege to the one of the Missouri, and to forestall all the trade of the Illinois country. He was upon the point of succeeding, when death carried off this merchant at New Orleans, who had been duped as the supplicant.” The merchant Robidoux referred to was Andrew Todd, an Englishman turned naturalized Spaniard who had been introduced to Governor Carondelet by Clamorgan and became a major supplier for the Missouri Company. At the helm of the Missouri Company, Clamorgan admittedly lost 100,000 piastres (piastres were about the same value as a silver dollar) and badly needed Todd's money.36
In conclusion, Robidoux stated he had made a mistake dealing with Clamorgan, but hoped that de Lemos could offer some relief in the form of trade concessions. Why Robidoux did not simply sue Clamorgan needs to be explained. “Your Excellency may perhaps imagine that the object of the supplicant is to demand from Sr. Clamorgan damages and interest on the losses he sustained. He is not so fond of litigation as to attempt such an enterprise. Moreover, it would necessitate lifting of the curtain which hides all the fraudulent tricks of Sr. Clamorgan; and probing an almost impenetrable abyss; and the supplicant's life would not be long enough to travel over the ground. He does not intend to call Sr. Clamorgan to account for his depredations.” Robidoux did ask that Clamorgan be stripped of his trade rights on the Mississippi and that the Missouri Company be reformed, under new leadership, with Robidoux remaining a partner. Governor de Lemos sent Lieutenant Governor Trudeau a letter stating Robidoux's claims should have his “prompt attention.” However, when called to appear against Clamorgan at a hearing called by Trudeau, Robidoux reportedly refused, out of “fear of incurring his ill-will and strategy.” Ultimately, Robidoux failed to gain any direct redress of his claims and discomforts against Clamorgan. He may have seen justice in the collapse of Clamorgan, Loisel and Company toward the end of 1800, after Auguste Chouteau, the most powerful of all the St. Louis dons, stopped doing business with Clamorgan and initiated legal proceedings. But in the interim, Robidoux continued to press the governor, alone or with any ally he could find, against his arch-enemy Clamorgan.37
Charles de Hault Delassus replaced Trudeau as lieutenant governor in August 1799. He subsequently reported trade licenses with the Indians of the Missouri valid for the next five years through 1804. Joseph Robidoux II appeared nowhere to be found on the list.38 Fault him not for lack of trying. In 1799 he petitioned for exclusive trade rights with the Octoctacta, Mahas, and Ponca, citing further mismanagement by multiple traders, mismanagement that Robidoux felt he could correct. The departing lieutenant governor Trudeau even attached his own recommendation, stating, “I agree with everything that the person concerned has said, and I consider it important to the government to find a person who will undertake to inform the government of the progress that is made by the merchants, and that is know those established on the Upper Missouri of whom it has heard nothing for two years. For these reasons and because I have found the petitioner [Robidoux] to be a man of his word, Your Excellency should decide what you consider best.” Governor Gayoso de Lemos in New Orleans did, and he turned down Robidoux's appeal.39
In December 1800, Robidoux and five other merchants again pleaded with the governor to open the Indian trade to them. “Our fate is frightful, and we have before us only a most unhappy future. Nearly all of us, fathers of large families, are on the eve of being ruined. The trade in furs, the one and only unique resource for supplying the commerce of Illinois, is forbidden to us. The exclusion of this trade threatens us with imminent poverty, a poverty all the harder to endure, since we see every day how easy it would be to make us all happy and the commerce flourishing. We are far from claiming the exclusion of this trade; our old men limit themselves to sharing it with our co-citizens, merchants like ourselves. All children of the same father, we desire to participate in his benefits.”40
The position of Robidoux and the others, as secondary investors in the Missouri trade, left them subject to the license holders for a share, if they got anything at all. “The merchant who alone enjoys this privilege monopolizes all the furs; he allows only whatever part of them he so desired to circulate; thus, he makes a brilliant fortune while the trade of his colleagues languishes, is in jeopardy, and ends by dragging him into the abyss. It is a well known truth that the circulation of specie or of a valuable product which represents it makes the wealth of the merchant, tests the abundance in the country, regenerates it, makes it flourish, and makes in general for the happiness of all the individuals who live in it.”41
And Robidoux added that his beloved city, St. Louis, suffered. “The commerce of the metropole must by this exclusion lose a considerable sum. In 1793, ten laden vessels were sent out from New Orleans for Illinois. Cargoes valued at 200,000 piastres were entirely consumed in the country, and the returns were all made in furs. From
that time to the time of exclusion, the commerce drew annually a value of 150,000 to 180,000 piastres. What is the value which the commerce is drawing today from the Metropole? Setting aside what is drawn for the exclusive privilege, it does not amount here to the value of 30,000 piastres annually. The merchant is forced to abandon the commerce of this Metropole because he cannot promise returns in the sole value which may have a market price.” The arguments in the letter focused directly on Clamorgan, and Joseph II solicited help to accomplish what he could not do on his own.42
Oddly enough, Robidoux seemed to be unable to move the governor in New Orleans, but one of the men who signed his letter, Jacques Chauvin, did get relief. In late February 1801, Chauvin received word from another new governor, Casa Calvo, “I have conceded the trade with the Panis nations to Don Santiago Chauvin in view of the solicitude which he gave to me and the large family which he has.”43 Between 1801 and 1803, several merchants whom Robidoux had done business with in the past were granted license to trade on the Missouri, among them, Lisa, Sanguinet, Chauvin, and Sarpy. It is entirely likely that Robidoux continued to buy in, sharing in the outfits for the Indian trade.
The Brothers Robidoux and the Opening of the American West Page 3