Washington Irving's The Adventures of Captain Bonneville Introductory Notice WHILE ENGAGED in writing an account of the grand enterprise of Astoria, it was my practice to seek all kinds of oral information connected with the subject. Nowhere did I pick up more interesting particulars than at the table of Mr. John Jacob Astor; who, being the patriarch of the fur trade in the United States, was accustomed to have at his board various persons of adventurous turn, some of whom had been engaged in his own great undertaking; others, on their own account, had made expeditions to the Rocky Mountains and the waters of the Columbia.

Among these personages, one who peculiarly took my fancy was Captain Bonneville, of the United States army; who, in a rambling kind of enterprise, had strangely ingrafted the trapper and hunter upon the soldier. As his expeditions and adventures will form the leading theme of the following pages, a few biographical particulars concerning him may not be unacceptable.

Captain Bonneville is of French parentage. His father was a worthy old emigrant, who came to this country many years since, and took up his abode in New-York. He is represented as a man not much calculated for the sordid struggle of a money-making world, but possessed of a happy temperament, a festivity of imagination, and a simplicity of heart, that made him proof against its rubs and trials. He was an excellent scholar; well acquainted with Latin and Greek, and fond of the modern classics. His book was his elysium; once immersed in the pages of Voltaire, Corneille, or Racine, or of his favorite English author, Shakespeare, he forgot the world and all its concerns. Often would he be seen in summer weather, seated under one of the trees on the Battery, or the portico of St. Paul's church in Broadway, his bald head uncovered, his hat lying by his side, his eyes riveted to the page of his book, and his whole soul so engaged, as to lose all consciousness of the passing throng or the passing hour.

Captain Bonneville, it will be found, inherited something of his father's bonhommie , and his excitable imagination; though the latter was somewhat disciplined in early years, by mathematical studies. He was educated at our national Military Academy at West Point, where he acquitted himself very creditably; thence, he entered the army, in which he has ever since continued.

The nature of our military service took him to the frontier, where, for a number of years, he was stationed at various posts in the Far West. Here he was brought into frequent intercourse with Indian traders, mountain trappers, and other pioneers of the wilderness; and became so excited by their tales of wild scenes and wild adventures, and their accounts of vast and magnificent regions as yet unexplored, that an expedition to the Rocky Mountains became the ardent desire of his heart, and an enterprise to explore untrodden tracts, the leading object of his ambition.

By degrees he shaped his vague day-dream into a practical reality. Having made himself acquainted with all the requisites for a trading enterprise beyond the mountains, he determined to undertake it. A leave of absence, and a sanction of his expedition, was obtained from the major general in chief, on his offering to combine public utility with his private projects, and to collect statistical information for the War Department concerning the wild countries and wild tribes he might visit in the course of his journeyings.

Nothing now was wanting to the darling project of the captain, but the ways and means. The expedition would require an outfit of many thousand dollars; a staggering obstacle to a soldier, whose capital is seldom any thing more than his sword. Full of that buoyant hope, however, which belongs to the sanguine temperament, he repaired to New-York, the great focus of American enterprise, where there are always funds ready for any scheme, however chimerical or romantic. Here he had the good fortune to meet with a gentleman of high respectability and influence, who had been his associate in boyhood, and who cherished a schoolfellow friendship for him. He took a general interest in the scheme of the captain; introduced him to commercial men of his acquaintance, and in a little while an association was formed, and the necessary funds were raised to carry the proposed measure into effect. One of the most efficient persons in this association was Mr. Alfred Seton, who, when quite a youth, had accompanied one of the expeditions sent out by Mr. Astor to his commercial establishments on the Columbia, and had distinguished himself by his activity and courage at one of the interior posts. Mr. Seton was one of the American youths who were at Astoria at the time of its surrender to the British, and who manifested such grief and indignation at seeing the flag of their country hauled down. The hope of seeing that flag once more planted on the shores of the Columbia, may have entered into his motives for engaging in the present enterprise.

Thus backed and provided, Captain Bonneville undertook his expedition into the Far West, and was soon beyond the Rocky Mountains. Year after year elapsed without his return. The term of his leave of absence expired, yet no report was made of him at head quarters at Washington. He was considered virtually dead or lost and his name was stricken from the army list.

It was in the autumn of 1835 at the country seat of Mr. John Jacob Astor, at Hellgate, that Ifirst met with Captain Bonneville He was then just returned from a residence of upwards of three years among the mountains, and was on his way to report himself at head quarters, in the hopes of being reinstated in the service. From all that I could learn, his wanderings in the wilderness though they had gratified his curiosity and his love of adventure had not much benefited his fortunes. Like Corporal Trim in his campaigns, he had "satisfied the sentiment,"and that was all. In fact, he was too much of the frank, freehearted soldier, and had inherited too much of his father's temperament, to make a scheming trapper, or a thrifty bargainer.

There was something in the whole appearance of the captain that prepossessed me in his favor. He was of the middle size, well made and well set; and a military frock of foreign cut, that had seen service, gave him a look of compactness. His countenance was frank, open, and engaging; well browned by the sun, and had something of a French expression. He had a pleasant black eye, a high forehead, and, while he kept his hat on, the look of a man in the jocund prime of his days; but the moment his head was uncovered, a bald crown gained him credit for a few more years than he was really entitled to.

Being extremely curious, at the time, about every thing connected with the Far West, Iaddressed numerous questions to him. They drew from him a number of extremely striking details, which were given with mingled modesty and frankness; and in a gentleness of manner, and a soft tone of voice, contrasting singularly with the wild and often startling nature of his themes. It was difficult to conceive the mild, quiet-looking personage before you, the actual hero of the stirring scenes related.

In the course of three or four months, happening to be at the city of Washington, I again came upon the captain, who was attending the slow adjustment of his affairs with the War Department. I found him quartered with a worthy brother in arms, a major in the army. Here he was writing at a table, covered with maps and papers, in the centre of a large barrack room, fancifully decorated with Indian arms, and trophies, and war dresses, and the skins of various wild animals, and hung round with pictures of Indian games and ceremonies, and scenes of war and hunting. In a word, the captain was beguiling the tediousness of attendance at court, by an attempt at authorship; and was rewriting and extending his travelling notes, and making maps of the regions he had explored. As he sat at the table, in this curious apartment, with his high bald head of somewhat foreign cast, he reminded me of some of those antique pictures of authors that I have seen in old Spanish volumes.

The result of his labors was a mass of manuscript, which he subsequently put at my disposal, to fit it for publication and bring it before the world. I found it full of interesting details of life among the mountains, and of the singular castes and races, both white men and red men, among whom he had sojourned. It bore, too, throughout, the impress of his character, his bonhommie , his kindliness of spirit, and his susceptibility to the grand and beautiful.

That manuscript has formed the staple of the following work. I have occasionally interwoven facts and details, gathered from various sources, especially from the conversations and journals of some of the captain's contemporaries, who were actors in the scenes he describes.

I have also given it a tone and coloring drawn from my own observation, during an excursion into the Indian country beyond the bounds of civilization; as I before observed, however, the work is substantially the narrative of the worthy captain, and many of its most graphic passages are but little varied from his own language.

I shall conclude this notice by a dedication which he had made of his manuscript to his hospitable brother in arms, in whose quarters I found him occupied in his literary labors; it is a dedication which, I believe, possesses the qualities, not always found in complimentary documents of the kind, of being sincere, and being merited.

To JAMES HARVEY HOOK, Major, U. S. A., whose jealousy of its honor, whose anxiety for its interests, and whose sensibility for its wants, have endeared him to the service as The Soldier's Friend;and whose general amenity, constant cheerfulness. disinterested hospitality, and unwearied benevolence, entitle him to the still loftier title of The Friend of Man, this work is inscribed, etc.

WASHINGTON IRVING [Return to Contents].

State of the fur trade of the Rocky Mountains-- American enterprises--General Ashleyand his associates--Sublette, a famous leader--Yearly rendezvous among themountains--Stratagems and dangers of the trade--Bands of trappers--Indianbanditti--Crows and Blackfeet--Mountaineers-- Traders of the Far West--Characterand habits of the trapper IN A RECENT WORK we have given an account of the grand enterprise of Mr. JohnJacob Astor to establish an American emporium for the fur trade at the mouth of theColumbia, or Oregon River; of the failure of that enterprise through the capture ofAstoria by the British, in 1814; and of the way in which the control of the trade of theColumbia and its dependencies fell into the hands of the Northwest Company. We havestated, likewise, the unfortunate supineness of the American government in neglectingthe application of Mr. Astor for the protection of the American flag, and a small militaryforce, to enable him to reinstate himself in the possession of Astoria at the return ofpeace; when the post was formally given up by the British government, though stilloccupied by the Northwest Company. By that supineness the sovereignty in the countryhas been virtually lost to the United States; and it will cost both governments muchtrouble and difficulty to settle matters on that just and rightful footing on which theywould readily have been placed had the proposition of Mr. Astor been attended to. Weshall now state a few particulars of subsequent events, so as to lead the reader up tothe period of which we are about to treat, and to prepare him for the circumstances ofour narrative.

In consequence of the apathy and neglect of the American government, Mr. Astorabandoned all thoughts of regaining Astoria, and made no further attempt to extend hisenterprises beyond the Rocky Mountains; and the Northwest Company consideredthemselves the lords of the country. They did not long enjoy unmolested the swaywhich they had somewhat surreptitiously attained. A fierce competition ensued betweenthem and their old rivals, the Hudson's Bay Company; which was carried on at greatcost and sacrifice, and occasionally with the loss of life. It ended in the ruin of most ofthe partners of the Northwest Company; and the merging of the relics of thatestablishment, in 1821, in the rival association. From that time, the Hudson's BayCompany enjoyed a monopoly of the Indian trade from the coast of the Pacific to theRocky Mountains, and for a considerable extent north and south. They removed theiremporium from Astoria to Fort Vancouver, a strong post on the left bank of theColumbia River, about sixty miles from its mouth; whence they furnished their interiorposts, and sent forth their brigades of trappers.

The Rocky Mountains formed a vast barrier between them and the United States, andtheir stern and awful defiles, their rugged valleys, and the great western plains wateredby their rivers, remained almost a terra incognita to the American trapper. Thedifficulties experienced in 1808, by Mr. Henry of the Missouri Company, the firstAmerican who trapped upon the head-waters of the Columbia; and the frightfulhardships sustained by Wilson P. Hunt, Ramsay Crooks, Robert Stuart, and otherintrepid Astorians, in their ill-fated expeditions across the mountains, appeared for atime to check all further enterprise in that direction. The American traders contentedthemselves with following up the head branches of the Missouri, the Yellowstone, andother rivers and streams on the Atlantic side of the mountains, but forbore to attemptthose great snow-crowned sierras.

One of the first to revive these tramontane expeditions was General Ashley, of Missouri,a man whose courage and achievements in the prosecution of his enterprises haverendered him famous in the Far West. In conjunction with Mr. Henry, alreadymentioned, he established a post on the banks of the Yellowstone River in 1822, and inthe following year pushed a resolute band of trappers across the mountains to thebanks of the Green River or Colorado of the West, often known by the Indian name ofthe Seeds-ke-dee Agie. This attempt was followed up and sustained by others, until in1825 a footing was secured, and a complete system of trapping organized beyond themountains.

It is difficult to do justice to the courage, fortitude, and perseverance of the pioneers ofthe fur trade, who conducted these early expeditions, and first broke their way through awilderness where everything was calculated to deter and dismay them. They had totraverse the most dreary and desolate mountains, and barren and trackless wastes,uninhabited by man, or occasionally infested by predatory and cruel savages. Theyknew nothing of the country beyond the verge of their horizon, and had to gatherinformation as they wandered. They beheld volcanic plains stretching around them, andranges of mountains piled up to the clouds, and glistening with eternal frost: but knewnothing of their defiles, nor how they were to be penetrated or traversed. They launchedthemselves in frail canoes on rivers, without knowing whither their swift currents wouldcarry them, or what rocks and shoals and rapids they might encounter in their course.

They had to be continually on the alert, too, against the mountain tribes, who besetevery defile, laid ambuscades in their path, or attacked them in their nightencampments; so that, of the hardy bands of trappers that first entered into theseregions, three-fifths are said to have fallen by the hands of savage foes.