Auguste Pierre Chouteau

August Pierre Chouteau (9 May 1786 – 25 December 1838) was a member of the Chouteau fur trading family who established posts in Oklahoma.

Chouteau was born in St. Louis, Missouri. His father was Jean Pierre Chouteau, one of the first settlers in St. Louis. His mother was Pelagie Kiersereau (1767-1793)

One of his brothers was Pierre Chouteau, Jr. (who founded Fort Pierre in South Dakota). A half-brother (born after his father married Brigitte Saucier) was Francois Gessau Chouteau, who established a trading post and was one of the first settlers of Kansas City, Missouri.

Auguste Chouteau was among the first young men from Missouri to be appointed to West Point by Thomas Jefferson. After graduating in 1806, he resigned the Army in 1807. He entered the family fur trading business, but he later served as captain of the territorial militia during the War of 1812.

After the war, Chouteau was arrested in 1817 by the Spanish during a trading expedition on the upper Arkansas River, as they considered that area under their control and excluded others from its lucrative trading. He was imprisoned in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

After being released, Chouteau continued the family trade among the Osage. He established his home in present-day Salina, Oklahoma, part of the western extent of their territory. In 1832 Washington Irving visited the post and described it in Tour of the Prairies.

Choteau had children by at least four women who were at least partly Osage, and at least seven children by these women. He also married Sophie Labbadie, a cousin of French descent, who he kept in St. Louis while he kepts the other women on the frontier. He had at least nine children with Sophie. The two women he was most closely associated with were Rosalie Lambert, who he had two children by, and her sister Masina, with whom he had three children. The Lambert's mother was Osage and their father was a Metis. Rosalie was born in 1809, was living with Chouteau by 1825 and continued to do so until his death at Fort Gibson, AR, in 1838.

Legacy and honors

 * Chouteau, Oklahoma is named for him.