Fort Osage (also known as Fort Clark or Fort Sibley) was an early 19th-century

factory A factory, manufacturing plant or production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. Th ...

trading post A trading post, trading station, or trading house, also known as a factory in European and colonial contexts, is an establishment or settlement where goods and services could be traded. Typically a trading post allows people from one geogr ...

run by the

United States Government The Federal Government of the United States of America (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the Federation#Federal governments, national government of the United States. The U.S. federal government is composed of three distinct ...

in western Missouri on the

American frontier The American frontier, also known as the Old West, and popularly known as the Wild West, encompasses the Geography of the United States, geography, History of the United States, history, Folklore of the United States, folklore, and Cultur ...

; it was located in present-day Sibley, Missouri. The Treaty of Fort Clark, signed with certain members of the

Osage Nation The Osage Nation ( ) () is a Midwestern Native American nation of the Great Plains. The tribe began in the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys around 1620 A.D along with other groups of its language family, then migrated west in the 17th cen ...

in 1808, called for the United States to establish Fort Osage as a trading post and to protect the Osage from tribal enemies. It was one of three forts established by the U.S. Army to establish control over the newly acquired

Louisiana Purchase The Louisiana Purchase () was the acquisition of the Louisiana (New France), territory of Louisiana by the United States from the French First Republic in 1803. This consisted of most of the land in the Mississippi River#Watershed, Mississipp ...

territories west of the Mississippi River.

Fort Madison Fort Madison is a city in and a county seat of Lee County, Iowa, Lee County, Iowa, United States along with Keokuk, Iowa, Keokuk. Of Iowa's 99 counties, Lee County is the only one with two county seats. The population was 10,270 at the time of ...

in SE

Iowa Iowa ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the upper Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west; Wisconsin to the northeast, Ill ...

was built to control trade and pacify Native Americans in the Upper Mississippi River region. Fort Belle Fontaine, near St. Louis, controlled the mouth of the Missouri at the Mississippi. Fort Osage ceased operations in the 1820s as the Osage in subsequent treaties had ceded the rest of their land in Missouri to the US. A replica of the fort was constructed on the site between 1948 and 1961. The Fort Osage school district (including Fort Osage High School), which serves northeast

Independence Independence is a condition of a nation, country, or state, in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the status of ...

and the surrounding area, was named after it.

Background

During their famous expedition up the

Missouri River The Missouri River is a river in the Central United States, Central and Mountain states, Mountain West regions of the United States. The nation's longest, it rises in the eastern Centennial Mountains of the Bitterroot Range of the Rocky Moun ...

in seeking the Northwest Passage to the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

, Americans

Meriwether Lewis Meriwether Lewis (August 18, 1774 – October 11, 1809) was an American explorer, soldier, politician, and public administrator, best known for his role as the leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery, with ...

and William Clark noted this spot in June 1804, as they camped for the night just across the river:

high commanding position, more than 70 feet above high-water mark, and overlooking the river, which is here but of little depth...

In the same year Pierre Chouteau, part of the Chouteau fur trading family and an agent for the Osage, took Osage chiefs to Washington, DC to meet President

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (, 1743July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was the primary author of the United States Declaration of Indepe ...

who promised to build them a trading post. Previously Jefferson promoted his plan of expanding Federal trading posts on the frontier as means to remove the harmful influence of individual merchants by "undersell ngprivate traders" to make them withdraw from borderlands and "earn the good will of the Indians".

Foundation

William Clark led a team in September 1808 back to the site to begin construction of Fort Osage. In November 1808 Pierre Chouteau negotiated the Treaty of Fort Clark with certain members of the

, for the fort to be built for the protection of the Osage. The specific terms of the deal noted:

The United States being anxious to promote peace, friendship and intercourse with the Osage tribes, to afford them every assistance in their power, and to protect them from the insults and injuries of other tribes of Indians, situated near the settlements of the white people, have thought proper to build a fort on the right bank of the Missouri, a few miles above the Fire Prairie, and do agree to garrison the same with as many regular troops as the President of the United States may, from time to time, deem necessary for the protection of all orderly, friendly and well disposed Indians of the Great and Little Osage nations, who reside at this place, and who do strictly conform to, and pursue the counsels or admonitions of the President of the United States through his subordinate officers.

In exchange for access to the trading post, the attending Osage agreed to cede all of their lands east of the fort in

Louisiana Territory The Territory of Louisiana or Louisiana Territory was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from July 4, 1805, until June 4, 1812, when it was renamed the Missouri Territory. The territory was formed out of t ...

to the US. This effectively left them with a small band of territory on the extreme western border of what is now the state of Missouri. The Great Osage were to receive $1,000 and the Little Osage were to get $500. The government trading post was established in 1808 and removed to Arrow Rock in 1813.

Operations

The fort was officially christened "Fort Osage" by Captain Eli Clemson; he commanded the military garrison at Fort Osage from 1808 until it was evacuated in 1813. It has also been informally referred to as "Fort Clark" in honor of William Clark, who was in charge of Indian Affairs. It was one of the first United States military installations in Louisiana Territory and became a major stopping point for visitors traveling the Missouri.

Daniel Boone Daniel Boone (, 1734September 26, 1820) was an American pioneer and frontiersman whose exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. He became famous for his exploration and settlement of Kentucky, which was then beyo ...

visited it in 1816, at the age of 82, while on one of his last hunting trips. Sacagawea and her husband, Toussaint Charbonneau, who had accompanied the

Lewis and Clark Expedition The Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery Expedition, was the United States expedition to cross the newly acquired western portion of the country after the Louisiana Purchase. The Corps of Discovery was a select gro ...

, also stayed at the fort on their way back north to Dakota Territory after time in St. Louis. Fort Osage was abandoned in June 1813 during the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 was fought by the United States and its allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom and its allies in North America. It began when the United States United States declaration of war on the Uni ...

because it was not considered to be under threat. Since most of the war's fighting was further east and north, the soldiers there were transferred to different locations. After the war the fort was reoccupied in 1815. Fort Osage was for many years a productive trading location, with the first Factor George C. Sibley reporting prosperous trade with the Osage due to goods being sold "at prices less than half what the traders extort from them..."Isenberg, Andrew C. "''The Market Revolution in the Borderlands: George Champlin Sibley in Missouri and New Mexico, 1808-1826.''" Journal of the Early Republic 21, No. 3 (2001), pp. 445-465.

Abandonment

The end of the War of 1812 and the

Adams–Onís Treaty The Adams–Onís Treaty () of 1819, also known as the Transcontinental Treaty, the Spanish Cession, the Florida Purchase Treaty, or the Florida Treaty,Weeks, p. 168. was a treaty between the United States and Spain in 1819 that ceded Florida to ...

removed the threat of Spanish or British-backed Indigenous campaigns against the United States throughout the Louisiana Purchase. As the Osage ceded more and more of their land, the US established a new trading post at

Fort Scott, Kansas Fort Scott is a city in and the county seat of Bourbon County, Kansas, Bourbon County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population of the city was 7,552. It is named for Gen. Winfield Scott. The cit ...

, closer to the ancestral villages near the headwaters of the Osage River near

Nevada, Missouri Nevada ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Vernon County, Missouri, Vernon County, Missouri, United States. The population was 8,386 at the 2010 census, and 8,254 in the 2018 estimate. The local government has a council-manager model. Histo ...

. Fort Osage formally was closed in 1822, but remained a landmark on the

Santa Fe Trail The Santa Fe Trail was a 19th-century route through central North America that connected Franklin, Missouri, with Santa Fe, New Mexico. Pioneered in 1821 by William Becknell, who departed from the Boonslick region along the Missouri River, the ...

and a transit point for supplies going north. By 1836 it had been obliterated; local settlers took its pre-cut wood to use for building houses and barns. The factory house was the last remaining structure, but it burned to the ground, leaving only the rock foundation.

Fort Osage National Historic Landmark

Archaeologists rediscovered the foundations of Fort Osage in the 1940s. The station was reconstructed to portray Fort Osage as it was in 1812 by using the preserved surveys created by William Clark and others. This made restoration to exact specifications possible. The rebuilt post has been designated as Fort Osage National Historic Landmark and is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

. It is owned and operated by Jackson County Parks and Recreation of Missouri. It is open to the public Tuesday through Sunday from 9:00am to 4:30pm year round. The Fort Osage Education Center, opened in November 2007, contains exhibits about the site's geology, 19th century

natural history Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

, the Hopewell and Osage native cultures,

Lewis and Clark Lewis may refer to: Names * Lewis (given name), including a list of people with the given name * Lewis (surname), including a list of people with the surname Music * Lewis (musician), Canadian singer * " Lewis (Mistreated)", a song by Radiohe ...

, Fort Osage, and the

. In addition, the location has living history demonstrations about early 19th-century military and civilian life.

References

External links

Fort Osage National Historic Landmark

Santa Fe Trail Research
{{authority control Osage History of the Osage Nation 1808 establishments in the United States National Historic Landmarks in Missouri Kansas City metropolitan area Native American history of Missouri Natural history museums in Missouri Museums in Jackson County, Missouri Military and war museums in Missouri Osage Pre-statehood history of Missouri Trading posts in the United States Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Missouri National Register of Historic Places in Jackson County, Missouri