Read Online The Mammoth Book of the West by Jon E. Lewis - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jon E. Lewis
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. . . 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 ofbuffalo-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 warby 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
. . . 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 ofbuffalo-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 warby 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
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