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100 CHAPTER 6 The Blacksnake Hills Post Joseph Robidoux retired, if only temporarily, to St. Louis and operated what remained of the family businesses located there, primarily a bakery. He apparently was neither very happy nor very good at doing it. His involvement with the Fontenelle and Drips expedition to the Green River in 1830 is certain, if only that he invested some of his money and the energy of his little brother Michel. Early in his first year of exile from the Missouri trade Robidoux wrote Pierre Chouteau, who traveled to Louisville.“As I still nourish the plan of establishing a bakery, I would be flattered if, on your way to Louisville, [you would] buy me 50 to 60 barrels of flour. As for price, I do not know what it is worth; I rely on you however to do your best and I will always be satisfied.”1 Later that summer, still not sure how he would make a living as a baker, Robidoux tried to convince Chouteau, as an agent of the American Fur Company , to buy some of his excess bake goods.“I am sending you eighteen barrels of biscuits made of very fine flour for the very good reason that I could not get any made of common flour. Therefore they are very white, as you will see by the sample. You asked for only three barrels of the white but I am sending you six at the risk of you sending them back. But I think that Mr. Cabanne will need them in the course of his wintering. I still have five barrels of white—see whether you want them. But I assure that when I make common biscuits I will try to buy different flour—that is, flour that is the cheapest, for I am losing on this. I have no cake at present, but what Messrs. Sarpy and Rainchau ordered will be for some other time.”2 Francois, long the closest of Joseph’s brothers in a business relation, continued his own financial dealings in St. Louis, despite his ongoing residency in Taos, floating in and out of debt, putting together outfits for New Mexico, buying and selling property, not always successfully. In March 1830, one Levi Piggot complained to Baril Sarpy, a family member of a longtime business acquaintance of the Robidouxs, about collecting a debt. Francois had been assigned a note by one Alexander Dumont, rising from a judgment over a piece The Blacksnake Hills Post 101 of property, and Piggot wanted Sarpy to intervene, but only under specific circumstances . “If therefore you will be so good as to not pay the note above alluded to until the object is effected you will much favor the cause of justice.” Apparently Piggot wanted the property held by Francois and not just the cash. Such were the sometimes complicated dealings within the French community of St. Louis.3 With money tight, Joseph committed elsewhere, and no real financing available to Francois in the short term, he signed a one-year contract with Pierre Chouteau Jr. on February 10, 1832, to work for the American Fur Company as a voyageur on the upper Missouri. He would be paid 220 piastres according to the contract, to carry “merchandises, pelleteries, vivres, utensils,” and other necessaries to the posts, villages, and campagnes, of the sauvages. As Chouteau and the American Fur Company backed the Fontenelle and Drips foray into the Rocky Mountains in direct competition with the Rocky Mountain Fur Company , it is entirely possible Francois worked as a supplier to that operation, which included his brother Michel.4 Angelique either showed no interest in moving the family to the wilderness of western Missouri, or Joseph convinced her of the dangerous nature of the frontier and that it was better to keep the brood in St. Louis, while he returned to the wilds to make a living and continue producing his métis progeny. Did Angelique know? Did Joseph ever tell her? His brothers continued to use the area around the Blacksnake Hills, particularly the landing spots on the riverbank at Roy’s Branch (a creek that flowed into the Missouri River named for Baptiste Roy) or Blacksnake Creek, as trading bases with the neighboring Indian tribes. A government Indian agency had been established just a few miles southeast of the Blacksnake Hills in 1825, which increased the number of Indians passing through the area. A potentially viable Indian trade there contributed to Robidoux’s decision...

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