Historical June 1986 report or notice. Original dates, prices and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821. That victory allowed the mercantilist and trading interests of St. Louis to venture into the Santa Fe trade. Previously, Auguste P. Chouteau and Jules DeMun had been imprisoned in 1817 when they tried to trade in the Santa Fe market.
The Spanish stopped them and one of the McKnight boys, either Robert or John, on their way to Chihuahua from Santa Fe and put them in prison for nearly two years.
The trade with the Southwest out of St. Louis only began in earnest after Mexican independence in 1821.
The Santa Fe Trail begins in Independence, but its source is St. Louis.
When the Bent brothers, William and Charles, built Bents’ Fort on the Arkansas River in Colorado, they brought St. Louis trading expertise to the edge of United States Territory.
At that point, the trail crossed the Arkansas into Mexican lands. Santa Fe was the focal point of the Southwest trading area.
The profits were enormous, and so were the risks. Both Bents died violently. Yet, through Santa Fe went most of the trade to Texas until after that country won independence in 1836 and voted to become a part of the United States in 1845.
The year of Mexican independence was also the year the Bank of Missouri failed. That event so disappointed Moses Austin, one of the major stock holders of the bank, that he gave up his United States citizenship, went to Mexico, and took title to the lagging land grant known as Tejas or Texas. Taking his family, including his son, Stephen, he moved to Texas.
He returned to Missouri annually to inspect his mining properties near Iron Mountain and Old Mines in the St. Francois Mountains.
In 1823, he died in Potosi.
His Texas land grant became the property of his son as did the mining interests in Missouri. Texans have tried for years to have Moses Austin’s body reburied in Austin, Texas, the state capitol. Three attempts have been made to steal the body.
It still remains in Potosi.
A great number of Missourians moved into the Southwest due to the trading and land possibilities. Like the Spanish, the Mexican government saw settlement along the Rio Grande — from Taos to the Gulf — as a means of controlling the expansionist tendencies of the United States.
In fact, the opposite emerged as Americans settled into the lands south of the Arkansas River and between the Rio Grande and the Mississippi.
The period from 1836 to 1845, when Texas was an independent country, saw a large movement of Americans to Texas.
The influence of the original Missouri settlers waned as the Roy Beans replaced the DeMuns and the Chouteaus. Large ranches were established during this period which lasted into the present day.
After the Civil War, cattle drives from Texas first came to Sedalia, Missouri, testifying to the hold the St. Louis region had on trade into the Southwest. Missourians generally are largely unaware of the impact of the state on the Southwest. Texans as well do not know the story of Moses Austin who first came to Missouri in the 1790’s, founding Herculaneum in 1797 to be the Mississippi base of his mining activities.
After 1840, particularly after the discovery of gold in 1849, the interest of Missourians shifted to California.
The Southwest, including Texas, lost its gleam.
Yet anyone from Missouri traveling in the Southwest can find numerous examples of the past relationship between the leading emporium of the Mississippi, St. Louis, and the original settlement of Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona.
In addition to the historical element, the lands from the Sangre de Christo Mountains to the Llano Estacado are of great visual interest and beauty.
The rift valley of the Rio Grande is the complement to the alluvial valley of the Mississippi.
The variety of land forms, fauna, and temperments is almost with parallel.
And all of this was opened to the United States by traders and merchants from St. Louis in the first quarter of the nineteenth century.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, June 1986.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Archival transcription note: Source historical chronology concerning Moses Austin, his death and the Bank of Missouri is retained as printed; requires independent historical checking, not silent alteration.
Original source: SD_Times1986_06.pdf, printed page(s) 5; PDF page(s) 5.
