Toussaint Charbonneau - After The Expedition

After The Expedition

Charbonneau initially declined Clark's offer to relocate to St. Louis, as he preferred life with the Mandan and Hidatsa. He was paid $503.03 for his nineteen months with the expedition, and remained in the upper Missouri area for some time. However, by 1809, the family had indeed relocated to St. Louis. Charbonneau briefly took up farming for a living. He gave it up after a few months, leaving with Sacagawea and entrusting the care of Jean-Baptiste to William Clark. He sold Clark his 320-acre (1.3 km²) grant for $100.

He then took a job with Manuel Lisa's Missouri Fur Company, and was stationed at Fort Manuel Lisa Trading Post in present-day North Dakota. Evidence suggests that, while Charbonneau was on an expedition with the company in 1812, Sacagawea died at the fort. The following year Charbonneau signed over formal custody of his son Jean Baptiste and daughter Lisette to William Clark.

During the period of 1811-1838, Charbonneau also worked for the Upper Missouri Agency's Indian Bureau (a federal agency) as a translator. He earned from $300 to $400 per year from the government. He may have gained this position by the patronage of William Clark, who was from 1813 the governor of the Missouri Territory; upon Clark's death, Charbonneau's employment with the government came to an abrupt halt.

Surviving records show that Charbonneau was widely disliked by others in the Missouri Territory. Part of the reason for this may be his casual attitude toward employment: he was variously hired by Lisa's Missouri Fur Company and by John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company, bitter rivals. He is also said to have abandoned another employer, James Kipp, while on a fur expedition in 1834. Perhaps because of this, Charbonneau gained much of his work as a guide for people from outside the area, among whom were Karl Bodmer and Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied. For them he played up his experience with Lewis and Clark to its best advantage.

Charbonneau is known to have had a total of five wives, all young Native American women whom he married when they were sixteen years old or younger, which was not unusual for the time. He may have had more wives who have been lost to the record. His last known wife, an Assiniboine girl, was 14 when she married him in 1837; he was more than 70 years old.

He is said to have died at Fort Mandan. His interment was on Mandan, North Dakota's reservation.