{{short description|American politician and fur trader (1798–1860)}} {{infobox officeholder |name = Alexis Bailly |office = Member of the Minnesota Territorial House of Representatives |term_start = September 3, 1849 |term_end = December 31, 1850 |birth_date = December 14, 1798 |birth_place = Saint Joseph, Upper Canada |death_date = June 3, 1860 |death_place = unknown <!--if anybody has a reliable source, feel free to fill in--> |party = Democratic |spouse = Lucy Faribault |children = Henry G. Bailly |occupation = Fur trader }} '''Alexis Bailly''' (December 14, 1798 &ndash; June 3, 1860) was an American politician and fur trader.

== Early life == Bailly was born in Saint Joseph, Upper Canada, to one of the "mixed-blood" families that was active in the North American fur trade. His father, Joseph Bailly, came from a French Canadian family. His mother, Angelique McGulpin (Bead-Way-Way or Mecopemequa) was a daughter of Maketoquit (Black Cloud), the chief of a large band of Grand River Ottawa.<ref name=":1">Joseph Bailly, Trader of Lake Michigan; Chris Light; Fifth Annual George Rogers Clark Trans Appalachian Frontier History Conference; October 3, 1987, Vincennes University, Vincennes, Indiana,</ref> Alexis was one of three children. When his parents divorced, his older brother Francis remained with Maketoquit's band, while his younger sister Sophia was adopted by fur trader Magdelaine Laframboise, a close friend of the family. Alexis was sent to boarding school in Montreal.<ref name=":1" /> A native French speaker, Alexis Bailly also spoke and wrote flawless English, was fluent in several Native American languages, and had learned Latin.

In 1826, he married Lucy Faribault, the "mixed-blood" daughter of fur trader Jean-Baptiste Faribault, who had traded among the Dakota for years.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Gilman|first=Rhoda R.|date=Summer 1991|title=How Henry Sibley Took the Road to New Hope|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20187713|journal=Minnesota History|volume=52|issue=6|pages=223–229|jstor=20187713 }}</ref>

== Fur trade == From 1823 to 1835, with a brief hiatus in 1831, Bailly traded for the American Fur Company, working with Jean Joseph Rolette.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Fur Trade {{!}} Minnesota Historical Society |url=https://www.mnhs.org/fortsnelling/learn/fur-trade |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250620005126/https://www.mnhs.org/fortsnelling/learn/fur-trade |archive-date=2025-06-20 |access-date=2025-07-28 |website=MNHS |language=en}}</ref> One of his earliest jobs with the company was to drive a herd of cattle to the Red River Settlement.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |last=Barkwell |first=Lawrence |title=Alexis C. Bailly (1798-1861) |url=https://www.metismuseum.ca/media/document.php/11729.Alexis%20Bailly.pdf |access-date=2025-07-28 |website=Louis Riel Institute}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Staff |first=MNHS Reference |title=LibGuides: Metis Family History Research: Manuscript Collections |url=https://libguides.mnhs.org/metis/man |access-date=2025-07-28 |website=libguides.mnhs.org |language=en}}</ref> In 1834, as founder John Jacob Astor prepared to retire, the company was reorganized as a partnership with Ramsay Crooks as president and senior partner. Bailly was known as an "energetic and competent trader, whose string of posts along the upper Mississippi and up the Minnesota Valley had grossed some $20,000"<ref name=":0" /> in 1833. However, he had quarreled with Rolette and tried to set himself up as a competitor in 1831, causing Rolette and Crooks to mistrust him.<ref name=":0" /> Furthermore, Bailly had an ongoing feud with Indian agent Lawrence Taliaferro, which had culminated in a series of incidents involving confiscated whisky, lawsuits, and a threatened duel between the two men.<ref name=":0" />

In October 1834, Ramsay sent 23-year-old Henry Hastings Sibley to the AFC's Western Outfit headquarters in Prairie du Chien, with the intention of having Sibley replace Bailly. Bailly refused to give up his business until his contract expired the following summer, but agreed to take Sibley with him to the mouth of the Minnesota River and introduce him to "the people, the country, and the far-flung operations of the Dakota trade."<ref name=":0" /> Sibley appreciated Bailly's guidance and later recalled that Bailly had warned him that American Fur Company squeezed its small traders dry, and had left him in financial ruin, despite the fact that he had cleared an estimated $200,000 for the company over ten years.<ref name=":0" />

In September of 1837, Bailly was part of a delegation of traders who traveled to Washington D.C. with twenty Dakota leaders. In D.C., the Dakota signed a treaty with the U.S. government.<ref name=":2" />

Around this time, Bailly purchased an enslaved woman named Courtney and her son Joseph Godfrey. He sold Courney when Godfrey was five. At some point, Godfrey was taken to St. Paul by a man called Brunson.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Francois |first=Sherick |date=2015-02-24 |title=Caught between two worlds: Joseph Godfrey and the U.S.–Dakota War of 1862 |url=http://www.minnpost.com/mnopedia/2015/02/caught-between-two-worlds-joseph-godfrey-and-us-dakota-war-1862/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250407154255/http://www.minnpost.com/mnopedia/2015/02/caught-between-two-worlds-joseph-godfrey-and-us-dakota-war-1862/ |archive-date=2025-04-07 |access-date=2025-11-17 |website=MinnPost |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |title=Godfrey, Joseph (ca.1830–1909) {{!}} MNopedia |url=https://www3.mnhs.org/mnopedia/search/index/person/godfrey-joseph-ca1830-1909 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250714062601/https://www3.mnhs.org/mnopedia/search/index/person/godfrey-joseph-ca1830-1909 |archive-date=2025-07-14 |access-date=2025-11-17 |language=en}}</ref>

Bailly moved to Wabasha in 1842, where he continued to work as a fur trader until 1848. He served as a County county commissioner and justice of the peace for Wabasha County from 1854 to 1857.<ref name=":2" />

Bailly served in the House of Representatives of the 1st Minnesota Territorial Legislature in 1849. His son Henry G. Bailly also served in the Minnesota Territorial Legislature and in the Minnesota Senate.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Bailly, Alexis - Legislator Record - Minnesota Legislators Past & Present |url=https://www.lrl.mn.gov/legdb/fulldetail?ID=11113 |access-date=2025-07-28 |website=www.lrl.mn.gov}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=1837 Land Cession Treaties with the Ojibwe & Dakota |url=https://treatiesmatter.org/treaties/land/1837-ojibwe-dakota |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250607200234/https://treatiesmatter.org/treaties/land/1837-ojibwe-dakota |archive-date=2025-06-07 |access-date=2025-07-28 |website=Treaties Matter}}</ref>

==Notes== {{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bailly, Alexis}} Category:1798 births Category:1861 deaths Category:People from Algoma District Category:Emigrants from pre-Confederation Ontario to the United States Category:People from Michigan Territory Category:Minnesota Territory officials Category:Members of the Minnesota Territorial Legislature Category:American fur traders Category:Native American state legislators in Minnesota Category:Slave owners from Minnesota