Fort Osage National Historic Landmark
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Fort Osage
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Fort Osage from the west. The "factory" trading post is on the left.
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| Location | Sibley, Missouri |
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| Coordinates | 39°11′15″N 94°11′32″W / 39.187562°N 94.192121°WCoordinates: 39°11′15″N 94°11′32″W / 39.187562°N 94.192121°W |
| Built | 1808 |
| NRHP Reference # | 66000418 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | October 15, 1966 |
| Designated NHLD | November 5, 1961 |
Fort Osage (also known as Fort Clark or Fort Sibley) was an early 19th-century factory trading post system ran by the United States, being located in present-day Sibley, Missouri. The Treaty of Fort Clark was signed with certain members of the Osage Nation in 1808 calling for the creation of Fort Osage. It was one of three forts established by the U.S. Army to establish control over the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase territories. Fort Madison in SE Iowa 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. The fort ceased operations in the 1820s as the Osage in subsequent treaties ceded the rest of their land in Missouri. A replica of the fort was rebuilt on the site between 1948 and 1961. The Fort Osage school district (including Fort Osage High School), which serves northeast Independence and the surrounding area, was named after it.
During their famous ascent up the Missouri River to find the Northwest Passage, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark noted the 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 of the Chouteau fur trading family and an agent for the Osage took Osage chiefs to meet President Thomas Jefferson 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[ing] private traders" to make them withdraw from borderlands and "earn the good will of the Indians".
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Wikipedia