The Mammoth Book of the West (8 page)

Ashley and Henry were thus the first merchants to rely on the free trapper or Mountain Man who, instead of trading with Indians for pelts and receiving a fixed salary, set his own traps, lived off the land, and could sell his furs to the highest bidder.

George Frederick Ruxton, the chronicler of the far West, recorded his impressions of these free men in his
Adventures in Mexico and the Rocky Mountains
(1849). The equipment of the trapper comprised, as the necessary minimum:

. . . two or three horses or mules – one for saddle, the others for packs – and six traps, which are carried in a bag of leather called a trap-sack. Ammunition, a few pounds of tobacco, dressed deer-skins for mocassins &c. are carried in a wallet of dressed buffalo-skin, called a possible-sack. [His dress consisted of] a hunting-shirt of dressed buckskin, ornamented with long fringes; pantaloons of the same material, and decorated with porcupine-quills and long fringes down the outside of the leg. A flexible felt hat and mocassins clothe his extremities. Over his left shoulder and under his right arm hang his powder-horn and bullet pouch, in which he carries his balls, flint and steel, and odds and ends of all kinds. Round the waist is a belt, in which is stuck a large butcher-knife in a sheath of
buffalo-hide, made fast to the belt by a chain or guard of steel; which also supports a little buckskin case containing a whetstone. A tomahawk is also often added, a long heavy rifle is part and parcel of his equipment.

Almost half of the American trappers bought an Indian wife to help them in their work (and ease the loneliness of the wild), paying as much as $2,000-worth of furs for a chief’s daughter. Only the entrepreneurial mountain man could afford such a price; the “hired hand” or engaged trapper, who was attached to a company, had to find someone altogether cheaper. African-American trappers were readier than Whites to marry Indian women and maintain close relationships with the tribes. The eminent Bongas, slaves of the British commandant at Fort Michilimackinac before they became fur traders, intermarried with the Chippewa. Jim Beckwourth, born in 1798 of Black-White parentage, was adopted by the Crow and rose to tribal chieftainship. Called “Morning Star”, he led them in many raids against their long-time adversary, the Blackfeet. “My faithful battle-axe was red with the blood of the enemy,” he proudly remarked. The Crow agreed, and changed his name again, to “Bloody Arm”. Having survived numerous wilderness adventures, Beckwourth died of food poisoning in 1866.

While the trapper set his $14 metal beaver traps in the water of nearby streams (to which the attractant was judiciously placed drops of oil from beaver castoreum glands) and collected the previous day’s catch, the Indian wife prepared skins and cooked food. Roast or stewed buffalo was the trapper’s delight, but his basic foodstuff was the pemmican prepared by his squaw, a mixture of buffalo meat, fat and berries which was pounded into cakes.

In 1830 Astor scored a major coup in the fur trade war
by reaching a deal with hostile Blackfeet by which they opened their pristine beaver country to him. Four years later, the Rocky Mountain Fur Company accepted the inevitable and sold out to Astor, who then astutely sold his shares in the American Fur Company and retired to enjoy his $20 million profit. As Astor had noticed, silk had begun to replace beaver on the fashionable heads of Europe and America. The price of beaver pelts dropped by 500 per cent in the 1830s. The trade was largely ended by 1840, when the American Fur Company announced it would not organize another rendezvous.

Probably the last great rendezvous was in June 1837, at Wyoming’s Green River, which was attended by a motley crowd of fur company agents, over 1,500 Shoshoni, and more than a hundred trappers. Jim Bridger was there; so too were the independents, Joe Meek and Christopher Houston “Kit” Carson, who worked the Southern Rockies. Recording the scene was the Baltimore artist Alfred Jacob Miller, who penned a vivid eye-witness sketch of the major social date in the “Mountain Man” calendar:

At certain specified times . . . the American Fur Company appoint a “Rendezvous” . . . for . . . trading with Indian and Trappers, and here they congregate from all quarters. The first day is devoted to “High Jinks”, in which feasting, drinking, and gambling form prominent parts. Sometimes an Indian becomes so excited with “Fire Water” that he commences “running a muck” – he is pursued . . . and secured . . . “Affairs of honour” are adjusted between rival Trappers – one . . . of course, receiving a complete drubbing; – all caused evidently from mixing too much Alcohol with water. Night closes this scene of revelry and confusion. The following days exhibit the strongest contrast . . . The Company’s great tent is raised; the Indians erect their picturesque white lodges; – the accumulated
furs . . . are brought forth, and the Company’s tent is a besieged and busy place. Now the women come in for their share of ornaments and finery. (Alfred Jacob Miller,
The West of Alfred Jacob Miller
)

With the decline of the beaver trade, most trappers took up other occupations. Tom “Broken Hand” Fitzpatrick and Kit Carson became wilderness scouts, both helping the flamboyant government explorer John Charles Frémont on his much fanfared journey through the far West in the 1840s. Jim Bridger scouted for the army, and would appear numerous times in the future history of the frontier. Caleb Greenwood led the first wagon train through the Sierras, at the age of 81. A number of beaver trappers turned to hunting another fur-bearer doomed to wholesale butchery, the buffalo. Some trappers retired east, but found their Indian wives aroused loathing.

Few mountain men, when they looked in their buckskin pouches, had made any money; the profits in the fur trade were made by the John Jacob Astors, not the trappers. But no one had done more to open up the West.

Only one other group of men made even a comparable contribution. These were the traders who blazed the trail to Santa Fe and the Spanish-speaking Southwest. For years American traders had tried to reach the thriving New Mexico town of Santa Fe, but had been turned back – even imprisoned – by isolationist Spanish officials. In 1820, however, the Mexicans threw off Spanish rule and became eager for commercial contact with the US. The first to benefit from this changed situation was a Missouri Indian trader called William Becknell. In September 1821, as Becknell laboured his way along the Arkansas River towards the Rockies, he encountered in the rugged Raton Pass a party of Mexican soldiers, who told him that he would be welcome in Santa Fe. Hardly able to believe his
luck, Becknell hastened to the New Mexican capital, where the commodity-lacking citizenry gave him a warm – and profitable – welcome. Becknell, “The Father of the Santa Fe Trade,” returned to Franklin, Missouri, his saddlebags heavy with silver.

The following spring, Becknell led another expedition to Santa Fe, this time with three heavily loaded wagons. To avoid the precipitous Raton Pass, Becknell pioneered a short cut through the searing Cimarron Desert, once becoming so low on water that he and his men were reduced to drinking the stomach contents of a buffalo they had shot. They were also dogged by Indian attacks. Yet they made it to Santa Fe, and their route would become the famed Santa Fe Trail.

By 1824 the Santa Fe trade was thoroughly established. That spring, for their better protection, traders travelled together in a mighty, lumbering caravan of 25 wagons. They took goods worth $35,000; they returned with $190,000 in gold, silver and furs.

The style of the Santa Fe trade was thus set. A decade later, up to a hundred caravans undertook the gruelling but lucrative annual journey to New Mexico, typically returning with profits of between 10 and 40 per cent.

The Santa Fe trade had notable spin-offs. It encouraged other entrepreneurs, such as brothers Charles and William Bent and their partner Ceran St Vrain, to begin trade with the Indians of New Mexico and its borders. In 1832, the Bents and St Vrain built a massive adobe trading post, with walls 14 feet high and four feet thick, on the upper Arkansas River. The Bents married into prominent Cheyenne families and this, plus the partners’ industry and rare financial honesty, ensured that Bent’s Fort dominated the commerce of the Colorado region for nearly 15 years.

The other consequence of the Santa Fe trade was more
notable, if less tangible. The Mexicans proved incapable of enforcing their tariffs and their laws on the American traders. Along its northern borders, Mexico was weak, its land there for the taking.

There were Americans in Texas from about 1803, intruders who settled around Nacogdoches, one of the fortified outposts on the northern frontier of New Spain, which spanned a 2,000-mile arc from Texas to California. These Anglos were barely tolerated, but then in 1821 Mexico won her independence from Spain, and the new republic decided to swing open the doors of its Texas province to American immigrants, mostly to strengthen the local population base against Indian attacks.

A sheet-lead manufacturer by the name of Moses Austin was among the first to consider settlement. Born in 1761 in Connecticut, Austin had drifted into Missouri when it was still part of Spanish Louisiana, and begun business. After a severe financial reverse, Austin decided to move on to Texas, petitioning the governor to allow him to build a colony there. His petition was granted, mostly because he was a Spanish citizen by virtue of his residency in Missouri.

Exhausted by the journey to Texas, Moses Austin fell ill and died of pneumonia. His last request would be the inheritance and destiny of his eldest son, Stephen Fuller Austin, whom he asked “to go on with the business in the
same way.” Although hardly in the classic mould of pioneer leader, the diminutive 27-year-old journalist and banker left at once for the far frontier.

Stephen Austin began his mission by exploring the central regions of Texas, eventually hitting on the deep, alluvial land between the Brazos and the Colorado rivers for the site of the American colony. Settlers proved easy to recruit; the hard times following the financial Great Panic of 1819 made many US citizens eager for free Texan land. Austin was able to pick and choose the founding members of his father’s colony.

As with many new settlements, the colony suffered initial hunger and hardship, also drought and Indian attacks. Much the worst setback, though, was when Austin was informed by the Mexican government that the settlement needed the authorization of the republic’s Congress. The almost destitute Austin was obliged to travel to Mexico City and plead his case. It took nearly a year to be heard, but his diplomacy eventually gained him the land grant he wanted. Under the terms of the Congressional approval, each family in the colony was allowed one
labor
(177 acres) of land for farming and 74
labors
for stockraising. Austin was allowed to collect 12½ cents an acre for his services, and was promised a bonus of 65,000 acres on the arrival of the 200th family. There were a number of other clauses in the contract. The settlers had to accept the Roman Catholic faith; they had to be of good moral character; and they were allowed to bring in slaves, but not to buy or sell them within the state.

While Austin was absent in Mexico City, the colony was welcoming a steady trickle of newcomers. A town, St Felipe de Austin, began to take shape on the lower crossing of the Brazos. “It does not appear possible,” one “Texian” pioneer wrote home, “that there can be a land more lovely.” By 1823 the original 300 families (known to
Texas history as the Old 300) had arrived, and Austin was permitted to recruit another 500.

The success of the Austin colony as a bulwark against both the tribes and unofficial American landgrabbers led the Mexican government to encourage further immigration. The 1824 National Colonization Law joined Texas to its neighbouring state of Coahuila (so ensuring a Spanish-speaking majority), while allowing land-contractors or empresarios in rivalry with Austin to settle another 2,400 families. The number of US-born Texans grew dramatically. In 1827 they numbered 10,000; three years later, 20,000.

Friction with the Mexican authorities also grew steadily. It was at its worst in the eastern part of the province, where hardscrabble farmers, squatters and fugitives from US justice were staking claims to land. Few had legal titles, fewer still were inclined to follow the laws of far-off Mexico City.

Official settlers also had complaints. Few, with free land before their eyes, had paused to muse on their loss of religious freedom, and the small say in their own affairs that a Mexican feudal system of government would allow.

For their part Mexicans found the newcomers ill-mannered and bent on taking Texas over. Their fear was only confirmed by the “Fredonia Revolt” of 1826, when an empresario named Haden Edwards tried to remove squatters from his land grant at Nacogdoches. The Mexican authorities upheld the rights of the squatters and expelled Edwards from the province. Angered at the “injustice” done to his brother, Benjamin Edwards led a small band of men into Nacogdoches, unfurled a flag, seized the old fort and proclaimed the birth of the Republic of Fredonia. Edwards called on Austin for help. The father of Texan colonization, however, called out his own militia and helped the Mexicans put the revolt down.

The Fredonia Revolt was a risible affair but, already fearful over the intentions of the Anglos, Mexico interpreted it as positive proof that America was determined to appropriate Texas. The noisy Anglo resentment over the 1819 Adams–Onis Treaty (the US–Mexico boundary settlement), and the offer of expansionist President Andrew Jackson to buy Texas for $10,000, provided additional evidence.

Matters inched slowly but surely towards war. Mexican general Manuel de Miery y Teran, sent to report on the state of Texas in 1828, was appalled by the influence of the Anglo-Americans, and concluded: “Either the government occupies Texas now, or it is lost forever.” Teran’s gloomy prediction fitted well with the prejudices of the conservative, anti-American Centralist government which had just seized power in Mexico City. Customs duties were imposed, Mexican troops were garrisoned in Texas and a Colonization Law passed prohibiting American immigration. The result was the opposite of what its authors intended. The ban only kept out law-abiding Americans. Hot-headed squatters continued to cross the border, with the US population in the province leaping from 20,000 in 1830 to 30,000 in 1835. Among the illegals were frontiersmen Sam Houston and William B. Travis, both of whom would play major roles in days to come.