Étienne de Veniard, Sieur de Bourgmont
Étienne de Veniard, Sieur de Bourgmont was a French explorer who documented his travels on the Missouri and Platte rivers in North America and made the first European maps of these areas in the early 18th century. He wrote two accounts of his travels, which included descriptions of the Native American tribes he encountered. In 1723, he established Fort Orleans, the first European fort on the Missouri River, near the mouth of the Grand River, and present-day Brunswick, Missouri. In 1724, he led an expedition to the Great Plains of Kansas to establish trading relations with the Padouca.
Bourgmont, a fugitive from justice, became a coureur des bois for several years during his early career.
The abbey at Cerisy, where Bourgmont was convicted of poaching and fined 100 livres. He fled to North America rather than pay the fine.
Bourgmont's Missouria wife is pictured here on her return from France in 1725.
Missouria, Otoe, and Ponca Indians.
The Missouri River is a river in the Central and Mountain West regions of the United States. The nation's longest, it rises in the eastern Centennial Mountains of the Bitterroot Range of the Rocky Mountains of southwestern Montana, then flows east and south for 2,341 miles (3,767 km) before entering the Mississippi River north of St. Louis, Missouri. The river drains semi-arid watershed of more than 500,000 square miles (1,300,000 km2), which includes parts of ten U.S. states and two Canadian provinces. Although a tributary of the Mississippi, the Missouri River is slightly longer and carries a comparable volume of water. When combined with the lower Mississippi River, it forms the world's fourth-longest river system.
The Missouri River in Montana
Holter Lake, a reservoir on the upper Missouri River
The Missouri in North Dakota, which was the furthest upstream that French explorers traveled on the river
The Yellowstone River, the fifth longest tributary of the Missouri, which it joins in North Dakota