The Missouri River is more than a body of water. It is a great and well-traveled road, a highway to adventure. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, French and American explorers and traders, in their quest for new lands and new wealth, traveled up the Missouri River. Invariably, they passed the future site of Fort Leavenworth.
Furs were the currency of the early American West, and two nations struggled over the fur trade and control of the land where it took place. Spain centered her trade in Santa Fe, New Mexico, while France pushed north from Louisiana (which was founded in 1699) and west from the Illinois country. In 1673 French explorers became the first white men to see the Missouri River. Another French expedition was the first of many to travel up the Missouri.
A young French officer, Etienne Veniard de Bourgmont, ascended the Missouri in 1714 to the mouth of the Platte River, thus becoming the first white man to travel past the future site of Fort Leavenworth. Bourgmont observed Indians along its banks and noted the fine fur skins of all kinds that they were willing to trade. Word of French travel on the Missouri reached the Spanish, and they hastened to prevent further incursions. A Spanish expedition left Santa Fe in 1720 and headed for the Missouri. Indians attacked the expedition in western Kansas; few Spaniards survived.
In 1723 Bourgmont and a party of forty Frenchmen left the Illinois country, journeyed along the Missouri, and erected a small fort in present-day western Missouri. Accompanied by over 100 Indians, Bourgmont left the fort in July 1724 to trade with the Kansa Indians. A skilled frontiersman and trader, Bourgmont held councils with Indian chiefs and, though words and gifts, encouraged their loyalty to France. The Kansa Indians lived in a village located in what is now Doniphan County, Kansas, although sometime between 1724 and 1744, they moved downstream to a site in the Salt and Plum Creed valleys, near present-day Fort Leavenworth.
The lure of profits and adventure encouraged others to take the route Bourgmont had pioneered. Some went farther. The Mallet brothers, Pierre and Paul, went up the Missouri in 1739, then headed west along the Platte River and southward until they reached Santa Fe, New Mexico. French frontiersmen were eager to trade with the Spanish, and the Mallet brothers proved the value of such trade, even though the Spanish government officially forbade it. The French exchanged brandy, guns, and knives for Indian furs and Spanish silver. Desire for trade with both the Spanish and the Indians prompted the French to establish a base along the Missouri. The French governor of Louisiana sent a special envoy to choose the new post's location.
In the
spring of 1744, a French engineer, the Chevalier Pierre Rene' Harpin de la
Gautrais, traveled up the Missouri and selected the site for a
military
post. Located on rising ground overlooking the village of the Kansa Indians
on Salt Creek, Fort de Cavagnial, as the fortified trading post was called,
remained the outpost of imperial France in Kansas for twenty years. Named
after the French governor of Louisiana, Francois-Pierre Rigaud baron de
Cavagnial, marquis de Vardreuil, the fort was constructed in the spring and
summer of 1744 and officially chartered on August 8, 1744. De Cavagnial
never saw the fort which commemorated his name.
The fort's precise location remains a mystery. Presumably it was northwest of the present Fort Leavenworth. The inscription on a marker, located along Sheridan Drive above the cemetery, states that the site is within view of the visitor. It is difficult to be more specific. Recent archeological explorations have failed to locate remains of the fort. Visitors to the Fort de Cavagnial marker may want to estimate for themselves where Leavenworth's first fort may have been.
What did the fort look like and who lived there are questions that can be answered. The fort was constructed of stout piles, eighty feet on the square, with bastions at each corner. Inside the fort were a commandant's house, a guard house, a powder house-all two stories tall-a trader's house, and a house for employees of the traders. These were log buildings, most covered with mud, and even the chimneys were made of mud-covered logs. The post's garrison consisted of a commandant, eight to ten soldiers, and several traders. If the French wives of a few soldiers, the Indian wives of the traders, and the children were counted, the post's population was close to forty.
The commandants controlled activities at this trading post. The fort's commandant regulated the fur trade between the French traders and the Indians. He also encouraged exploration and trade with the Spanish at Santa Fe. The commandants worked with limited manpower and material. Sometimes their duty could be hazardous-a drunken soldier murdered the post's second commandant, Lieutenant Augustin-Antoine de la Barre.
The next commandant, Louis Robineau de Portneuf, assiduously encouraged fur trade, both to benefit France and to further good relations with the Kansa Indians. But Portneuf and his men did so at some risk. For example, after spending the winter of 17851-1752 at Cavagnial, a ten-man trading expedition left in mid-March for Santa Fe. In Comanche country eight men turned back. The expedition's two leaders reached New Mexico, only to be arrested for spying. They were sent to Spain after narrowly escaping the death penalty. The Spanish now knew of Fort de Cavagnial's existence.
For the French, 1752 was not a good year at Fort de Cavagnial. The Kansa Indians moved away from the fort, limiting the commandant's authority over both the fur trade and the rowdy French voyageurs who were eager to acquire beaver pelts. The fort fell in disrepair because of age and storm damage. The commandant was ordered to repair the fort and charge the cost to the traders, but this was not feasible. Hostile Indians were also troublesome. In one case, Missouri Indians attempted to steal horses from the fort, but two were killed by soldiers. So far as is known, these were the only shots fired in anger at Fort de Cavagnial. In 1753 Indians killed four French soldiers who deserted from post.
This isolated frontier outpost became a casualty of the widening conflict between France and Great Britain. Commandant Portneuf left his post in 1753 and later led troops against the British during the French and Indian War. His replacement, Captain de Moncharvaux, apparently was unable to rebuild the fort that had been damaged by hostile weather and neglect. By 1758 the fort was nothing more than a circle of piles enclosing some bad cabins and rude huts. By a secret treaty of 1762, France ceded Louisiana west of the Mississippi River to Spain. Two years later the small French garrison abandoned Fort de Cavagnial. The Royal French flag no longer flew at this site along the Missouri. Sometime around 1777 the Kansa Indians abandoned their village near the fort.