Episode 3

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.