Marie-Therese Bourgeois Chouteau

Who was Marie-Therese Bourgeois Chouteau?

Marie-Therese Bourgeois Chouteau is the matriarch of the Chouteau fur trading family which established communities throughout the Midwest.

She was born in New Orleans to a French father and Spanish mother.

When she was 15 an arranged marriage was made to tavern keeper and baker René Auguste Chouteau, Sr. on September 20, 1748.

According to commonly accepted histories, René deserted her after she gave birth to René Auguste Chouteau in 1749.

She began a relationship with Pierre Laclède around 1755 and was to bear four children with him including Jean Pierre Chouteau in 1758.

After Laclede established St. Louis, Missouri in 1764, he is said to have built her a house in 1767. The same year the elder René Chouteau demanded that authorities return her to New Orleans. In 1774 Louisiana Governor Luis de Unzaga ordered her to return. However she did not and the order was ignored until the elder Chouteau died in 1776. .

Laclède died in 1778. Upon the death of Madame Chouteau in 1814, she set her Indian slave free. She was buried on the grounds of the Basilica of St. Louis, King of France