CHOUTEAU, Auguste Pierre, American. fur trader and pioneer: b. Saint Louis, Mo., 9 May 1786; d. Fort Gibson, 25 Dec. 1838. He entered the United States Military Academy in 1804 and was appointed an ensign in the 2d United States Infantry, in June 1806. He served on the Southwestern frontier as an aide de-camp on the' staff of Gen.' James Wilkinson for a brief term, resigning from the service in January 1807. During the following season he commanded a trading expedition up the Mis souri River, which was accompanied by a mili tary detachment under the command of En sign Nathaniel Pryor, which had been detailed to escort the Mandan chief, Shehaka, back to his people in Dakota. The expedition was at tacked by the Arikara Indians and driven back down the river with the loss of a number of men killed and wounded. In 1809' he ascended the Missouri River to the Rocky Mountains with a trading expedition, returning the follow ing year. During the War of 1812, when a general Indian uprising throughout the Mis sissippi Valley seemed imminent, he served as captain of militia. In 1815, he formed a part nership with Jules de Mun for the purpose of engaging in the Indian trade in the upper valleys of the Arkansas and Platte rivers. The expe dition met with disaster, first having to fight the Comanche Indians, at a place always after ward known as Chouteau's Island in the Ar kansas River, and subsequently being imprisoned by the Spanish authorities at' Santa Fe, where their goods were confiscated, and whence they were expelled. About 1819 or 1820, Auguste P.
Chouteau took charge' of the Chouteau trading post on the Grand, or Neosho, River, where he made his home during the rest of his life, and where he entertained Irving and Latrobe en route to their otour on the prairies," in 1832. At that time he also had another trading post near the lower falls of the Verdigris River, to which Irving referred as the Osage Agency. In 1834, he accompanied the Leavenworth Dodge expedition to the Red River country to visit the Wichita, Kiowa and Comanche tribes of Indians. In 1835 he established another trading post at Camp Holmes, on the Canadian River. Two years later he transferred the busi ness of this post to a new one which was built near the present town of Lexington, Okla. He served as a commissioner in negotiating a treaty with the Wichita and other tribes of Indians in council at Camp Holmes that same year. Con sult Latrobe, Charles J., 'The Rambler in North America in 1832 and 1833' • 'Three Years among the Indians and Mexicans' (Missouri Historical Society, edited by Walter B. Douglas 1916); Mooney, James, 'Calendar History of the Kiowa) (17th Annual Report, Bureau of American Ethnology, part 2, pp. 170-72) • Catlin, George, 'Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs and Condition of the American Indians' ; Gregg, Josiah, 'Commerce of the