Marie-Thérèse Bourgeois Chouteau (January 14, 1733 – August 14, 1814) was the matriarch of the Chouteau fur trading family, which founded communities throughout the

Midwest The Midwestern United States (also referred to as the Midwest, the Heartland or the American Midwest) is one of the four census regions defined by the United States Census Bureau. It occupies the northern central part of the United States. It ...

. She is considered the "Mother" of St. Louis, and was influential in its founding and development. She helped lead it to becoming an important American town and the Gateway to the West.

Early life

Born in

New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

on January 13, 1733, she had a French father (Nicolas Bourgeois) and

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

mother (Marie Joseph Tarare).Marie Therèse Bourgeois Chouteau (Madame Chouteau)
/ref> Shortly after she turned six years old, her father died, leaving her mother, her two siblings, and her. The following year, Marie-Therèse's mother remarried, to Nicholas Pierre Carco. Marie-Thérèse lived with her mother and stepfather until she married. They were unable to provide her with a dowry. It is thought that she returned to their household when her marriage fell apart four years later. At the age of 15, on September 20, 1748, Marie-Therèse married René Auguste Chouteau, Sr., an older tavern keeper and baker. Her family had arranged it, and believed it would be good, given their daughter's limited prospects. According to commonly accepted histories, René deserted her after she gave birth to René Auguste Chouteau, Jr., in 1749. Her husband returned to France. Neither the Catholic Church nor the state allowed divorce. Afterward, Marie-Therèse Chouteau referred to herself as a widow, as it gave her more legal and social rights. As a widow, she could own property and have custody over her children.

Relationship with Laclède

Chouteau began a relationship with fur trader Pierre Laclède around 1755. With him, she had four children: Jean Pierre in 1758, Marie Pelagie (1760), Marie Louise (1762), and Victoire Chouteau (1764). They were baptized in the cathedral in New Orleans, with Rene Chouteau recorded as the father for each child. A French merchant and official in New Orleans sponsored an expedition north on the Mississippi River to seek additional places for a trading post. He hired Laclède (who also took Auguste Chouteau, Junior, his stepson and Marie-Therese's legal son with Rene) to find a good site for another settlement. Laclede and Chouteau are largely credited with founding a post in 1764. It was called

St. Louis St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a populatio ...

in honor of France's patron saint. That year Marie-Therese traveled with her other four children to the new, developing colony. At first, she lived with most other settlers at the trading post. Laclède is said to have built her a stone house in 1767. During this time, she kept owned and marketed cattle, kept bees, and conducted business. A few years later, the elder René Chouteau returned to New Orleans and demanded that authorities make her join him. In 1774 Louisiana Governor

Luis de Unzaga Luis de Unzaga y Amézaga (1717–1793), also known as Louis Unzaga y Amezéga le Conciliateur, Luigi de Unzaga Panizza and Lewis de Onzaga, was governor of Spanish Louisiana from late 1769 to mid-1777, as well as a Captain General of Venezuela ...

ordered her to return. She delayed and the order was generally ignored by officials. The elder Chouteau died in New Orleans in 1776. Though now the legal widow could have married Laclède, she refrained from doing so. By this time, Laclède had fallen into a lot of debt. She did not want to be legally responsible for paying off his creditors, and he died in 1778.

Legacy and success in St. Louis

Laclède died in 1778. Marie-Therèse continued to live in the stone house Laclède had built for her. She continued to be an influential figure in the St. Louis colony. In addition, she helped her sons with controlling the fur trade; these sons later became leaders in St. Louis government and business for the years to follow. Her daughters as well were successful in their own rights. Given her large fortune made from her businesses, Chouteau helped them marry well by giving them large dowries. Also suitors wanted to be affiliated with the influential Chouteau family. Madame Chouteau died on August 14, 1814. She was buried on the grounds of the Basilica of St. Louis, King of France. (This is now within the grounds of the

Gateway Arch National Park Gateway Arch National Park is a List of national parks of the United States, national park of the United States located in St. Louis, Missouri, near the starting point of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. In its initial form as a List of nationa ...

). During the cholera epidemic of 1849, bodies were dug up from this area to reinter them at

Calvary Calvary ( or ) or Golgotha () was a site immediately outside Jerusalem's walls where, according to Christianity's four canonical gospels, Jesus was crucified. Since at least the early medieval period, it has been a destination for pilgrimage. ...

and Bellefontaine cemeteries. Chouteau's remains were not found or reinterred.

Challenges to the legend

Contemporary 21st-century histories of St. Louis attribute a founding role in the city to Auguste Chouteau , including ''The First Chouteaus: RIVER BARONS OF EARLY ST. LOUIS'' (2000) by William E Foley and C David Rice and ''Before Lewis and Clark: The Story of the Chouteaus, the French Dynasty That Ruled America's Frontier'' (2004) by Shirley Christian . Challenges have been made to elements of the matriarch's history, including by some descendants. Part of the challenges seemed to be efforts to show that Marie-Therese Chouteau did not have a relationship outside of marriage. Other challenges arose from conflicting documentation in formal records. Laclède and Marie Therese were said to have had a

common law Common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law primarily developed through judicial decisions rather than statutes. Although common law may incorporate certain statutes, it is largely based on prece ...

marriage. Laclède was thought to have assigned part of his property to her and their children to protect them financially. This was to enable her to maintain the appearance that she was in a proper civil law relationship with the elder Rene Chouteau. Records at the St. Louis Cathedral (New Orleans) indicate that all the Chouteau children were baptized there, with Rene Chouteau recorded as the father, even after he was documented elsewhere as having returned to France. According to a 1934 article, records in the colony did not affirm that Laclède left an inheritance to the Chouteaus. But the elder Rene Chouteau did leave an estate to his widow and children with his surname.''Chronicles of Oklahoma'', Volume 12, No. 2 June, 1934
/ref> Nicolas de Finiels, a French officer serving the Spaniards, notes no founding role for Auguste Chouteau in his 1790s account of the settlement. (His account was not published in English until decades later.) He noted that there was already a hamlet at the site of St. Louis before the official founding of the city. The first St. Louis city directory was published in 1820. Its historical introduction made no mention of Auguste Chouteau's having had a role in founding the settlement. By this time Anglo Americans had taken over dominance of the city. In 1847, when the city had its first celebration of its past, Chouteau's name was not mentioned at all. The earliest St. Louis historian, Wilson Primm, dismissed the story of Auguste Chouteau. According to him, Auguste Chouteau's role in the founding is based only on his testimony in an 1820s land dispute, and on an unsigned manuscript "Journal" attributed to him in 1857, when his surviving son, Gabriel Chouteau, announced finding it.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Chouteau, Marie People of Louisiana (New France) People from New Orleans People from St. Louis 1733 births 1814 deaths 18th-century American businesswomen 18th-century American businesspeople