| Peter Abadie Sarpy | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1804 New Orleans, Louisiana |
| Died | January 4, 1865 Plattsmouth, Nebraska |
| Occupation | Fur trader |
| Known for | Civic activities |
Peter Abadie Sarpy (1804–1865) was the French-American owner and operator of several fur trading posts, essential to the European-American development of the Nebraska Territory, and a thriving ferry business. A prominent businessman, he helped lay out the towns of Bellevue and Decatur, Nebraska. The legislature named Sarpy County after him in honor of his service to the state.
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Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, Sarpy moved with his parents and siblings to St. Louis, Missouri as a child. The family was French Creole, and joined other ethnic French in migrating to the growing town of St. Louis after the Louisiana Purchase by the United States. Its lucrative fur trade and much of the economy was originally dominated by ethnic French families.
In 1824 at the age of 19, Sarpy went to the upper Missouri River, in the Nebraska Territory, to work at the American Fur Company's trading post at Council Bluff, north of present-day Bellevue, Nebraska. That company was owned by renowned fur baron John Jacob Astor. Sarpy next worked for his brother's father-in-law, John Pierre Cabanné, who ran Cabanne's Trading Post.[1]
Cabanné's Post and Pilcher's Post, the latter established at Bellevue by the Missouri Fur Company, competed for the fur trade of area Indian tribes: the Siouan-speaking Omaha, Ponca, Otoe, and Pawnee. The Missouri Fur Company was founded by French Creole families in St. Louis. Some of their ancestors had migrated to the new settlement of St. Louis in the late eighteenth century from farms in Illinois. They left when the latter was transferred from French to British control after the Seven Years War. More migrated after the American Revolution, as they wanted to evade US Protestant rule in Illinois.
The fur trade in the region yielded such profits that for decades it was the most important driver of the St. Louis economy. In 1821 it represented $600,000 of the town's annual commerce of $2 million.[2]
Sarpy later established a trading post and supply point for white settlers and pioneers on the Iowa side of the upper Missouri River. It went by various names, including Sarpy's Point and the "Trader's Post".[3][4]
In 1832 Cabanné ordered Sarpy to head a group of American Fur Company employees to take over a keelboat and goods which belonged to a competing company. Because of its profits, the fur trade business had cutthroat competition. After they were caught, US authorities ordered Cabanné and Sarpy to leave the Indian Territory for a year. The company replaced Cabanné with Joshua Pilcher at Cabanné's Trading Post in North Omaha.[5] Sarpy operated the Council Bluff trading post during 1835.
Sarpy moved westward the next year, and in 1837 he established Fort Jackson on the upper South Platte River in present-day Colorado.
In 1838, Sarpy returned to the Bellevue area and built another trading post. After Sarpy returned, he became influential in community affairs. About 1846 Sarpy started a ferry business across the Missouri, between Bellevue and the Iowa side. Through the next year, he ferried Mormons across the river and supplied them for the rest of their westward trip. During the ensuing gold rush years, Sarpy's ferry boats hauled many of the would-be gold miners across the Missouri River.[6] Sarpy expanded his ferry business in two other locations: to cross the Elkhorn River at Elkhorn City, later called Elk City, and also at a fork of the Loup River near present-day Columbus. By the 1850s, his fleet included a steam ferry.[7]
Through his efforts, in 1849 an area post office, mark of a rising town, was established in Bellevue. Following the United States' negotiation in 1854 of a treaty by which the Omaha people ceded their land in Nebraska, that year Sarpy was among the group that laid out the town of Bellevue. In 1857 Sarpy joined Stephen Decatur and others in founding Decatur along the Missouri in northeastern Burt County.[8][9]
Sarpy and his family moved to Plattsmouth in 1862. He died there on January 4, 1865.
Sarpy married Ni-co-mi (also spelled Ni-co-ma), of the Iowa people. She brought her daughter Mary Gale to the marriage. Ni-co-mi had been the consort of the American surgeon John Gale, who had been stationed at Fort Atkinson. When it was closed in 1827 and he was reassigned, Gale left Ni-co-mi and Mary behind.[10] Sarpy and Ni-co-mi also had children together.
As an adult, Mary Gale (also known as Hinnuaganun, or One Woman) married Joseph LaFlesche, a Métis fur trader of Ponca and French descent. Adopted as a son by the chief Big Elk and designated his successor, LaFlesche became the last recognized principal chief of the Omaha and the only one to have had any European ancestry.[11]
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