USA > Louisiana > The province and the states, a history of the province of Louisiana under France and Spain, and of the territories and states of the United States formed therefrom, Vol. I > Part 37
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much beyond that stream, and hence the French Canadian was for a long time unmolested in his operations in the Missouri val- ley. This immunity from molestation continued until the cession of Louisiana Province to the United States in 1803, when all the western country was thrown open in an instant to the English colonist, or rather, the American colonist. This proved the death knell to the prestige of the old French Canadian voyageur so far as the Missouri country was concerned. Here and there they continued to linger, and at all times had more influence with the Indian tribes than the Americans. Nearly all of the interpreters of the earliest expeditions set on foot by the United States were French Canadian. Alexander McKenzie, of the Northwest Fur Company, went westward from Lake Superior and crossed the Rocky mountains to the Pacific in 1793; this was the first really important expedition through the western mountain system; but as it was done under business or private auspices, the details did not at once hecome known. Among the most important fur con- panies organized for private profit were the Mackinaw Fur Com- pany, which operated from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi ; the American Fur Company, which entered the Missouri river valley and that of the Columbia river ; the Missouri Fur Company, on the Missouri and in the Rocky mountains; the Southwestern Fur Company, an amalgamation by the Astors of the American and the Mackinaw companies ; and in Canada were Hudson's Bay Company, the Northwest Company, and the X Y Company. When all these organizations were in full operation, there were lively times in the mountains and on the prairie. Their rivalries, maneuvers, intrigues and battles would fill half a dozen volumes with incidents of thrilling interest.
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In 1739 two brothers named Mallet, accompanied by six con- panions, set out up the Missouri river, and when at the Arickaree villages learned that they should have gone west before coming so far north. They finally retraced their steps, ascended. the Platte, passed the Pawnee villages, continued to the mountainous country and at last arrived in Santa Fe. They had with them a small stock of goods-how much is not known. Theirs was the first commercial enterprise to go from the Mississippi to Santa Fe. Having disposed of their goods and learned considerable of the customs of the Spaniards, they started homeward, but divided into two parties, one returning down the Platte and the other down the Arkansas. It is I nown that another party of French traders took a stock of goods before 1763 to the Rocky mountain country and tried to sell it partly to the Indians and partly to the
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Spanish at Taos and Santa Fe. Before this could be accom- plished, they were arrested, their goods confiscated; but the affair was finally settled by the governments of France and Spain, and the men were released and sent to their homes on the Mississippi.
After the treaty of 1762-3, by which the English obtained all the territory east of the Mississippi, all of the country as far west as that river began to be overrun with English explorers, hunters and trappers. Jonathan Carver of Boston, wishing to serve his country, and at the same time gain a competence for himself, secured permission to explore and started for the West. In due time he arrived at Michillimackinac, and on September 18th, was at Green Bay. On the 25th he reached the villages of the Winnebagoes, October 7 arrived at the portage, and Octo- ber 15 reached the Mississippi. Here he left a number of traders, who had come this far with him, and continued on up the Mis- sissippi with some goods on the 19th. On November Ist, he reached Lake Pepin, and on the 17th arrived at the Fall's of St. Anthony. Three days later he reached the St. Francis river, which he ascended to the Sioux villages. Later he descended the rivers to the mouth of St. Peter's river, up which stream he went and arrived at the villages of the Nadissiou on December 7th. These villages were on the headwaters of St. Peter's river, and here Carver passed the winter. Although the Sioux were hostile, he managed to secure their favor and passed the winter without serious event. In April of the following year he started down the streams, and at the mouth of the Wisconsin obtained a supply of Indian goods, which had been sent him by the government, and without which no person then had any business in the Indian country. Carver was in the service of the British government, because these goods were obtained from that source. After securing his goods, he passed up the Chippewa river, trading as he went, and finally crossed over to Lake Superior, and coasted around the entire northern shore of that body of water to Sault Ste. Marie, where stood Cadot's fort. In 1768 he returned to Canada with much valuable information for his government.
It is well known that, while Louisiana was still a province of France, the traders of New Orleans began to penetrate the coun- try beyond the Mississippi for the purpose of trading, not only with the Indian, but with the Spanish of New Mexico, providing they could be reached. After 1763, at which date Spain secured the whole country west of the Mississippi, the trade beyond that river became wholly the possession of Spain; and as the policy of that country was commercial seclusion and exchision, much of
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what transpired thereafter is unknown to history. It is clear that, in 1762, Maxent, Laclede & Company were granted the right to the exclusive trade on the Missouri and on the Missis- sippi as far up as the mouth of the Minnesota, and that they and others under their directions conducted a large business. No doubt their fur trade and that of all others emanating from St. Louis aggregated a total of over one hundred thousand dol- lars by 1795. But in the meantime, undeterred by the French or the Spanish, the British fur companies of the Lake Supe- rior country, were steadily penetrating the territory as far south as the present states of lowa and Nebraska. These commer- cial encroachments were continued hy those companies long after the Louisiana Province had passed to the United States. St. Louis, soon after it was founded, became the center of the western fur trade. All her old merchants were thus engaged, sooner or later, and several of their names are famous in history-Choutean, Lisa, Ashley, Sublette, Campbell and many others. Manuel Lisa arrived at St. Louis about 1790, and ten , years later possessed the right to the exclusive trade with the Osages. Finally, when the province passed to the United States in 1803, St. Louis was the most remarkable of the many wonder- ful towns of the great West. It had a cosmopolitan population of French, Spanish, Dutch, English, French half-breeds, Indians, negroes ; and was alive with the peculiar flavor of the plains and the mountains. Everything was ripe for the opening of the province to the aggressiveness of the Americans.
The explorations of Lewis and Clark and of Lieutenant Pike were still unfinished when the trading parties began to stem the rapid current of the turbid Missouri. New partnerships and commercial combinations were formed to take advantage of the opportunity offered by the acquisition of the province. The rich- ness of the territory in valuable furs was already well known to the St. Louis traders. 'The fur company of Manuel Lisa, Francis M. Benoit, Gregoire Sarpy and Charles Sanguinet was doing business in St. Louis in 1802. Mannel Lisa, who had pre- viously formed a business connection with William Morrison and Pierre Menard of Kaskaskia, passed up in 1807. About - the same time Pierre B. Chouteau ascended the river with a large assortment of goods and a considerable force of trappers and hunters. The St. Louis Missouri Fur Company was organized in 1708 o, but is known to history as the Missouri Fur Company Among the first partners were the following men : Manuel Lisa, Pierre Chouteau, Sr., Benjamin Wilkinson, Auguste Chou-
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teau, Jr., Reuben Lewis, Sylvester Labadie, William Clark, William Morrison, Pierre Menard, Andrew Henry, and Dennis Fitzhugh. This company sent its first expedition up the Mis- souri in the spring of 1809. The design was to establish several trading posts, and about one hundred and fifty men were sent up to be distributed among them. Under the agreement by which the Missouri Company was formed all the posts, horses, men traps and other accoutrements of the Lisa partnership were turned over to the company. Thus the I,isa post on the Big Horn passed to the new management, and was occupied by members of the first expedition.
In the year 1804 the government agreed to provide the Osage Indians with a trading-house, and the promise was repeated in 1806 to another deputation that had gone to Washington. The promise was not carried out until November, 1808, when Pierre Chouteau, the United States agent for the Osages, held a treaty with them at Fort Clark, and made arrangements for the erection of the post. At this time, it has been claimed, a large tract was obtained from them by fraudulent methods; because they were given no alternative but either to surrender the lands wanted or suffer the enmity of the United States. Of course the chiefs present relinquished the lands wanted, particularly as the demand was accompanied by valuable gifts. Many of the chiefs of the tribe knew nothing of this treaty. The trading-house was kept up until 1813, when the war with Great Britain obliged the gov- ernment to abandon it. Neither were the annuities agreed upon by the treaty paid by the government according to agreement. But the land was retained.
In the spring of 1807, with Drouillard, one of Lewis and Clark's men, as a guide and interpreter, and with a force of about twenty experienced trappers and a large supply of provis- ions and Indian presents loaded in a strong keel-boat, Manuel Lisa started up the Missouri from St. Louis on a hunting and trapping expedition. With this party was the afterward famous Bijeau or Bissonette, who deserted at Fort Osage. On the trip up the river, they met John Colter in a small dug-out of his own manufacture, calmly floating down the streams, having come all the way from the mountains. He had been a member of the Lewis and Clark expedition, but had remained behind at his own request, and after hair-breadth escapes from the Indians, was on his way to civilization. This Colter was a remarkable man. Before the Lewis and Clark expedition, he had been up the river among the savage's, and after the expedition had returned
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he remained behind to hunt and trap. A trapper named Potts remained with him. One day they were captured by the Black- feet on the Jefferson fork of the Missouri in southwestern Mon- tana. Potts showed fear, tried to escape and was riddled with arrows. Colter did not flinch, and was given an opportunity to run for his life. He was taken out in front three hundred yards, the word was given, and away he went with six hundred yelling Blackfeet after him. Only one man out of that number gained on him. When within a few yards of Colter, the savage made ready to throw his spear. Colter stopped suddenly, turned and threw up his hands, which so disconcerted the Indian that he tripped and fell, breaking his spear handle. Colter instantly caught up the upper part, and plunged it through the body of the savage, whose only strong qualification seems to have been speed. The white man continued his desperate race, reached the river, plunged in, and succeeded in reaching some brushwood, where he so adroitly concealed himself that the Indians did not find him during the remainder of the day. When night came, he swam cautiously out in the middle of the stream, continued down the river and man- aged to get away ; but had to travel seven tlays before he reached a fort of the Missouri Fur Company on the Big Horn, and in the meantime subsisted wholly on roots and berries. When he told this story on his return to civilization, the trappers generally dis- credited it; but historians have generally regarded it as substan- tially true.
The party under Lisa continued up the Missouri and the Yel- lowstone to the mouth of the Big Horn, where they built a strong stockade among the Crows and were soon ready for business. In 1808 the keel-boat was sent down the river to St. Louis so heavily loaded with skins, that the astonishment and avarice of every merchant was kindled. The expedition had, in fact, secured the accumulations of the Crows for many previous years. The fort was located in the heart of the Crow country, where few if any trappers had ever before penetrated: The immense profit in this one boat load, stimulated to an intense degree the western fur trade. The Missouri Fur Company at once began very active operations. Their plan at first was to secure the services of all the best and most experienced trappers and Indian interpreters and bind them up with contracts so strong that they could not evade the iron rule of the company. Unscrupulous tactics were resorted to-anything in fact to crush rivals and win the fur trade. At the head of this company were many able men, who pushed the interest of the organization to the utmost. Within
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six months after their organization, the company had in their employ two hundred and fifty experienced trappers, among whom were fifty trained riflemen, kept for no other purpose than to pro- tect the trappers when at work; but in spite of this precaution thirty of the men were killed by the Indians during the first two years; not all, however, from the Lisa party. Other posts had been established, notably the one at the forks of the Missouri among the fierce Blackfeet. Drouillard was himself thus killed; and so venemously was he hated by the savages for having killed many of their number and so great was their respect for his cour- age, that when they finally succeeded in killing him, they tore him in pieces and ate his flesh, in order thereby, as they believed, to acquire his strength and courage.
The . American Fur Company, which also sprang into existence in 1808, succeeded in securing the interests of the Mackinaw Company's trade in the United States, and at once became a powerful rival of the Missouri Company for the northwestern trade. Many fierce conflicts and elaborate intrigues occurred between the trapping parties of these companies. Soon the Northwestern Fur Company was merged in the American Com- pany, and at the head of this strong organization was Mr. Astor. As elsewhere stated, Lisa did all in his power to prevent Captain Hunt of the Astor company from getting a foothold in the north- west. His first step was to buy the guides and interpreters as fast as they were hired by Hunt. But the latter succeeded by reason of having plenty of money and an abundance of courage . and persistence. The party under Andrew Henry, of the Mis- souri Company, in the country of the Blackfeet, were really com- pelled to retreat from the country by the hostility of those savages ; but was reinforced by a party of picked men sent out by Lisa. The Hudson's Bay Company cut an important figure, because they crossed into the United States and invaded the pre- serves of the other companies. They also gave arms, ammunition and encouragement to hostile bands within the United States, which, upon being pursued, could find safety by fleeing across the border into Canada. Fort Douglas and Fort Gibralter, posts respectively of the Hudson's Bay Company and of the Northwest- ern Company, were located on or near Lake Winnipeg; and here was the battle-ground between those two great rivals. When Lisa died in 1820 there were over three hundred trappers in the mountains who had been under his supervision. Pilcher, who succeeded hin, never gained the prestige acquired by the redoubt- able Lisa. In fact the Missouri Company began to wane with
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the death of Lisa, probably, however, not by reason of that event solely. More likely, the decadence was due to the active work of the free trappers, or in other words, to the great number of men who engaged on their own account in the fur trade.
When the expedition of Lewis and Clark was at the Mandan villages on the Missouri in the Dakotas, they induced the princi- pal chief, Big White, or Sha-ha-ka, to go to Washington with them. At first he declined, because on his return he would be compelled to pass through the country of the Sioux and would be certain to be killed. But he was promised escort back to his village, and accordingly accepted the invitation. In the spring of 1807, twenty men under the command of Capt. Ezekiel Will- iams started up the Missouri from St. Louis on an expedition of discovery, having in their company the Mandan chief. Each man in the party was well armed, had ammunition for two years, and carried six traps for operation on the head-waters of the Platte and elsewhere. They left the Mandan chief at the month of the Yellowstone, and returned to the Platte, up which they proceeded to advance. They marched about twenty-five miles per day, and at first had plenty to eat and a good time; but when the timber disappeared and the game became scarce, their real trials began. For a time they were obliged to use buffalo chips, bois de vache, for fuel. The most of the men were soldiers, who had seen no experience in the West, and upon whom the hard- ships fell with crushing force. Everything was to them a won- der-the treeless plains, the herds of buffalo and elk, the prairie storms, the fields of deep grass, the wolves and the Indians. One day all were invited to hunt the buffalo with the Indians, and many accepted the invitation; but while the Indians killed sev- eral dozen the whites did not "ground" a single animal. Even the horses of the whites were inexperienced-several stampeded, and one in his fright was gored to death by a wounded buffalo bull. A little later the expedition narrowly escaped being crushed to death by a stampede of buffaloes, and would have been so had it not been for the few leaders, who with all their force advanced to meet the herd. waving their arms and firing, which split the line of advancing, frightened and maddened ani- mals. This occurred far up the river, where the buffaloes roamed in immense herds. Near the junction of the North and the South forks, the expedition crossed the main stream to the south side, and soon began to meet troublesome bands of Indians. They escaped one hostile band of Pawnees by secretly deserting their camp in the carly part of the night and marching westward till
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daylight. In fact, this tactic was repeated more than once. Fin- ally the mountains were reached, and here for a time they led an ideal hunter's life, hunting, trapping, exploring and feasting on game of all sorts. At last, one day, ten men engaged in a buffalo hunt, and advanced several miles from camp, and were there surprised by about one hundred Blackfeet, who killed and scalped five of them, the others succeeding in reaching camp. They had been for several days dogged by the Indians, who, down on all fours, and dressed like wolves, had observed all their motions without arousing their suspicions. A little later they encountered the Crows, but they professed friendship. Here one of the experienced men of the expedition left and went to live with the Indians. His name was Rose, and he had previously been a pirate on the Mississippi. He married an Indian girl, and became a chief among the tribe. Of all the men in this expe- dition, he was the strongest, standing over six feet in height. Hle led many a successful attack against the Blackfeet, but was finally killed by then. On one occasion he shot one and struck down four others with an Indian war-club. For this act they called him Che-ku-kats, or The Man Who Killed Five.
But the inexperienced men of this expedition were destined to pass through still more trying experiences. The crafty Crows soon revealed their covert hostility. Their chief at this time was Ara-poo-ish, but later he was succeeded by the famous James Beckworth, who soon made the Crows a terror to all the other mountain tribes. The first hostile act of the Crows was to steal the horses of the whites. When they were pursued, they formed an ambush to capture their pursuers; but the seven whites ran and took refuge in a dense thicket, though five of them were killed before this retreat was reached. The camp was ronsed by the firing, and the remainder of the men came to the rescue, and all barricaded themselves in the timber, and kept up a constant fire on the Indians who were in the open. Nineteen of the Indians were killed of the approximate sixty which were in the party. They were finally repelled, and the ten whites remaining moved away, but were now wholly without horses, and so reduced in numbers that they could be annihilated at the will of any. large band. They gathered up all their traps, and having packed and cached their valuables, departed ; but were slowly cut away, until Williams and two others were the only ones left to tell the tale. The two tried to reach St. Louis and may have done so; but Will- iams went to the valley of the Arkansas, where he found succor and managed to save both his hair and his life.
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The American Fur Company was organized in New York in 1808, with the following members: John J. Astor, Wallace P. . Hunt, Alexander McKay, Duncan McDougal, Donald McKenzie, Ramsay Crooks, Robert Mclellan, Joseph Miller, David Stuart, Robert Stuart, and John Clarke. This company immediately formed the design of occupying the Pacific region, particularly the valley of the Columbia river, with the view of monopolizing the fur trade of the whole western coast. Two expeditions were planned : One to go by water around Cape Horn to the mouth of the Columbia ; and the other to go overland across the Rocky mountains to the same destination. Mr. Hunt was selected to conduct the overland party. From the start he was strenuously opposed in all his operations by the Missouri Fur Company, in fact by every company of St. Louis. The Missouri Company bought up his guides and interpreters as fast as they were hired. When that course failed, they attached the body of his principal guide, claiming that he owed the company for goods advanced. It is clear that such debts were intentionally permitted to accu- mulate in order that the trappers and guides might be retained. Such men were absolutely necessary in the upper country for the purpose of holding communication with the Indians and of find- ing the best beaver fields. However, in October, 1810, he managed to start, but it was too late to reach the mountains before winter set in. He accordingly wintered on the Nodawa river ; and during the winter returned to St. Louis still further to con- plete his party and its equipment. In April, 1811, the party left its winter quarters, sailed up the Missouri, passing the mouth of the Platte on the 28th, the Omaha villages May 10, and arriving at the Arickaree villages about a week and a half later.
In the meantime, Mr. Lisa and a party of about twenty men endeavored to overhaul the Hunt party before it should pass the Sioux and the Arickaree villages. His object seems to have been to secure protection against those hostiles. When well up the river, seeing that he was likely to fail in this object, he sent a messenger by land to ask Hunt to wait until his arrival. Mr. Hunt agreed to do so, but immediately set out up the river regardless of this agreement. However, by going day and night, Lisa managed to catch him near the Sioux villages, from which point they sailed together to the villages of the Arickarees. Tunt seems to have been justified in his failure to meet his agrec- ment by the opposition that had been offered to his expedition by Lisa and his friends, although it was known to the latter that the Hunt party was destined for the mouth of the Columbia, and
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would not likely interfere with the operations of the Missouri Company.
Hearing of the further hostility of the Blackfeet along the Upper Missouri and the Yellowstone, Hunt determined to aban- don his boats and, after procuring horses, to march westward across the open country south of those rivers. After about a month spent in equipping his party, they all set forth on nearly a westward course from the Arickarees, sixty-four men in all, with eighty-two horses, of which seventy-six were loaded with merchandise. On the 30th of August, they were at the foot of the Big Horn mountains, on September 9th at Wind river, and on the 15th crossed the continental divide. Small parties of trappers were left in the mountains to begin operations. Of the party only fifty-four succeeded in reaching Astoria.
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