A Majority of Scountrels - Don Berry

by Don Berry

  This is now the base situation of American Fur: Fort Union, at the mouth of the Yellowstone; principal headquarters for mountain operations, depot, supplier, trader. Fort McKenzie, near the mouth of the Marias; center for the Blackfoot trade. Fort Cass, at the mouth of the Bighorn, center of the Crow trade. In addition to the fixed posts, of course, were the mountain brigades. Ideally, these trapping parties would cover the country not easily available from the Company forts; which is to say the west side of the divide, the Snake country.

  McKenzie has one more innovation to his credit this summer of 1832: the first use of a steamboat on the upper Missouri. Largely through the urging of McKenzie, the Company had a steamboat built to their specifications which was called the Yellowstone. McKenzie was convinced—and managed to convince the other senior members of the Company—that the steamboat would be an enormous improvement over the customary keelboat travel up the Missouri.

  In the spring of 1832 the Yellowstone made her first trip to the river she was named for1 and demonstrated the "practicability of conquering the obstructions of the Missouri considered till almost the present day insurmountable to steamboats."

  She carried as/her principal passenger no less a personage than Pierre Chouteau, Jr., head of American’s Western Department. Also on this trip was the famous painter of Indians, George Catlin.2 to The voyage of the Yellowstone was very rightly hailed as an epochal achievement, and the enormous enthusiasm which greeted it was by no means restricted to the United States.

  Writing from France, John Jacob Astor "noted (to Chouteau): "Your voyage in the ellowstone attracted much attention in Europe,. and has been noted in all the papers here."

  (Mr. Astor was also making other observations in Europe during the summer of 1832; from London he comments almost casually: "I very much fear beaver will not sell well very soon unless very fine. It appears that they make hats of silk in place of beaver.)

  II

  There is a lovely sort of irony in the fact that the Company post on the Bighorn was named Fort Cass. Because in the fall of 1832, when the post was built, Lewis Cass was one of the worst enemies the Company had.

  This odd situation came about as the result of the unceasing warfare waged by Congress against the fur trade. So it appeared to the trade, at any rate, though other eyes might see the situation in a less gloomy light.

  The problem was liquor. Liquor had always been one of the major points of difference between the government and the fur trade, and in 1832 it came to a head again.

  Very briefly, this was the situation: Congress was deeply and profoundly concerned with the degradation of the Indian that resulted from the use of liquor in trade. One of the principal reasons for the original establishment of the government factory system was to eliminate the tragic impact of liquor on the native races. (This self-imposed prohibition was a major factor in the eventual destruction of the factory system.)

  With the overthrow of the factory system in 1822, the government imposed the strictest sort of control on private traders, fiatly forbidding the sale of liquor to Indians. It is one thing to forbid, of course, and quite another to enforce such an order. And enforcement was impossible. None of the traders paid any attention whatever. Some, perhaps, did go along with the government to the extent of not selling their liquor; they gave it away instead. This muniticent gesture—performed just before trading sessions opened—was not a total loss to the trader.

  Liquor thus destined for the Indian trade was nominally for the use of the traveling party. All right, this privilege was being misused, and the govemment cracked down a little tighter. . .

  No liquor shall be imported into the Indian country at all, except for the specific ration granted boatmen, in recognition of their fantastic labors.

  Wonderful. The race of boatmen proliferated at a rate quite amazing. It must have seemed that the world had been full of latent boatmen, only waiting an auspicious time to emerge from their cocoons. And in odd places, for boatmen.

  Remember Bill Sublette’s supply caravan to Pierre’s Hole, Rendezvous l832? Eighty-six men and three hundred animals? Boatmen all. Not one mile of the journey was made by water. Perhaps the animals were regarded as an experimental form of keelboat, however. On April 25, 1832, when Sublette took out his trading licenses, General Clark authorized him to take along 450 gallons of whiskey:

  Under authority vested in me by the Secretary of War to grant permission to Traders to take whiskey for the boatmen, limiting the quantity according to the time they are to be absent and taking bond that it is not to be used in trade, or barter, or to be given to the indians. . .. for the specific use of his boatmen, when employed in the trade with the indians under the licenses granted him this day.

  (This was not, strictly speaking, whiskey, but pure alcohol, later to be cut with water 3:1 (at first) making 1,350 gallons of "whiskey." The increase of dilution as the recipients got drunker increased the effective supply even more.)

  Obviously, there was no difficulty in obtaining liquor for the trade regardless of government restrictions. General Clark was not deceived; but he was sympathetic to the traders, whose complaints he had to listen to. A few scattered references will show the attitude of the trade:

  .So violent is the attachment of the Indian for it that he who gives most is sure to obtain the furs . . .

  No bargain is ever made without it.

  (Without liquor) we are sure to lose the trade. . . .at all events we must have it.

  Without it, competition is hopeless.

  We must either abandon the trade or be permitted to use it.

  Liquor I must have or quit any pretension to trade.

  The more I think of it the clearer I see the injury we are going to sustain by being deprived of that article.

  The point is suficiently made. But in spite of the determined opposition of the trade through its lobbyists, Congress, in an act of July 9, 1832, prohibited the importation of liquor into Indian country under any pretext whatever. The "boatmen" would have to go dry. Further, steps were taken to implement the act by setting up, inspection posts at Fort Leavenworth and Bellevue. Every boat going upriver had to stop for this liquor inspection.

  This act, naturally, threw the trade into a panic. The greatest sufferers were the men of American Fur, inasmuch as they were much more dependent on river transportation (to Fort Union) than the competition. While this act was before Congress, every possible argument was advanced to block it, including the old stand by of the American trade: the British Menace. Astor wrote in the spring of 1832, before this aci was passed:

  Wherever the trade is exclusively inthe hands of our own citizens, there can be no doubt that the uniform and complete enforcement of such a law will be beneficial both to the Indians and the traders; but at those points where we come in contact with the Hudson’s Bay Cornpanywe must either abandon the trade or be permitted to use it, to a limited extent at least, in order to counteract . .. the influence of our rivals.

  Our new posts . . . must yield to the superior attractions of our opponents, unless the government will permit us like them to use spirituous liquors; and the friendly relations we have at last succeeded in establishing with the Blackfeet (those inveterate enemies of the Americans) at so much expense and personal hazard, must inevitably be destroyed, and the British be restored to the unlimited control they have heretofore exercised over these Indians. · '

  If the Hudson‘s Bay Company did not employ ardent spirits against us, we would not ask for a single drop.

  Interestingly enough, Astor was writing to our old friend, Congressman Ashley, appealing to him as a friend of the trade to throw his weight against passage of the prohibitory act. Ashley certainly had a soft spot in his heart for that good old trade (where he was still making money). But warmer still were his feelings for his political career; and political expediency dictated his enthusiastic acceptance of Administration measures. After the fact, Ramsay Crooks of the Company commented on this rather bitterly:


  Had Ashley opposed the bill, his presumed knowledge of Indian trade would probably have been more than a match for the influence of the Secretary of War. But it was got up as one of the government measures of the session, and your representative, as a good Jackson man, gave it his unqualified support, and secured its passage.

  After prohibition had gone into effect (in theory—General Clark issued several permits after this, on the grounds he had not been officially notified of the new law) Crooks and Astor still did not give up. Crooks himself went to Washington to present their ease before Cass, the moving force behind the act: "I explained fully to Govenor Cass .... I pointed out the pernicious tendency . . . I also placed before the secretary . . . I pressed upon his attention . . . I showed him. . . .”

  Showed him nothing, really, but it was a terribly sad story he had to tell. As Crooks phrased it, the whole thing seemed to become a question of the honor of the United States:

  . . . our sole and only wish for a partial supply was to enable us to cope with our Hudson Bay opponents . . .relinquishing it voluntarily everywhere else .... I pointed out the pemicious tendency of its exclusion on our side, while they enjoyed the privilege to an unlimited extent; and the absolute certainty of the country being deluged by a larger supply than usual, purposely to show their superiority over us, degrading us, and with us the government, in the eyes of the Indians, by our withholding from them a gratification which was abundantly and cheerfully furnished by the British. I also placed betbre the secretary the dangers. . . fowing from this source, when stimulated by disappointment, and excited by our rivals to institute comparisons between themselves and us, which inevitably must lead to conclusions altogether unfavorable to the Americans . . . and lastly, the loss of influence which the govemment must sustain when contrasted with the affluence and liberality of the British, who supplied every want, while we denied them [the Indians] the greatest of all gratifications. I showed him the entire prostration of all the philanthropic hopes of the government in enacting the late law, and tried to convince him that it would do infinitely more harm than good.

  This concern for the national prestige and the philanthropic hopes of the government is really very touching, I think. And Secretary Cass was not unmoved by this appeal to his nobler instincts. It was, said Cass, entirely different if they just wanted to use the liquor in defense.

  He would speak to the President and the Secretary of State about the matter at once. They would, he was certain, immediately enter into a correspondence with Great Britain, "and do all in their power to induce that government to exclude from the trade . .. spirituous liquors, as effectually, as by law we have done on our side."

  Crooks went home.

  "Gov. Cass," he wrote gloomily to Pierre Chouteau,. "is 2,

  temperance society man in every sense of the word."

  ***

  Thus, with the act of July 9, 1832, began the craft, art, trade, and practice of smuggling liquor up the Missouri. This brought out the best of the American spirit: our ingenuity. The history of smuggling in succeeding years is fascinating in itself; I must—reluctantly—restrict myself here to very brief notice, since it is legitimately beyond the scope of this narrative. However, one episode I can’t forbear. (This is stolen in toto from Chittenden’s account.)

  1843: the Company outfit for the year; steamboat Omega, Captain Joseph A. Sire, master. The Omega carried a distinguished passenger, the famous John James Audubon, prodigious naturalist and painter, whose reputation was already enviable. She also carried the usual stock of liquor.

  The Omega safely ran past the inspection at Leavenworth, circumstances not noted, and approached the more critical scrutiny at Bellevue. When they reached there, Captain Sire discovered to his great joy that the agent was absent from the post; no inspection at all. Hastily he debarked his freight and got off again. He made upriver until nine that evening and, feeling himself out of danger, put in to shore for the night.

  Next morning the Omega was scarcely off her mooring when she was stopped by several side shots across her bow. It seems the agent had left orders with a captain of dragoons, who was commanding troops in the area, to make the inspection for Captain Sire was handed "un note polie du Capitaine Burgwin," informing him that the captain’s duty required him to pay a visit to the boat.

  Audubon carried credentials from the government, authorizing himself and party a little liquor, presumably on the basis of his prestige and reliability. These were shown to the lieutenant who had stopped them; he was duly impressed, and Audubon was "immediately settled comfortably." But the great naturalist suddenly developed a terrible urge to study the red-breasted dragoon captain in its natural habitat, and accordingly asked the young officer to take him to their camp, four miles away. (Captain Burgwin would be at the Omega shortly, for inspection, but never mind that.)

  When they arrived at the dragoon camp, Captain Burgwin was astonished that such a prominent person should desire to visit with him; refused Audubons credentials, saying his name was too well known throughout the United States to require any such thing.

  There followed a pleasant and comradely visit, everyone in fine humor, everyone courteous and kind and obliging. Together, Audubon and Burgwin rode back to the Omega, the inspection thus having been delayed for better than two hours.

  While Burgwin and Audubon were getting acquainted, the crew of the Omega had been scrambling frantically in the hold. The hold of a steamboat was divided by a partition that ran down the length of the boat. The main loading hatch was in the forecastle, near the center of the deck. There was a miniature railway in the hold, U-shaped. The legs ran on either side of the partition, and the curve where they joined was directly beneath the loading hatch. Thus, little tram cars could be loaded from the hatch and pushed along their tracks to the stern of the boat on either side. There was no source of light except that from the hatch and from candles. As a result, the hold was, in effect, pitch dark. In the two-hour delay provided by Audubon, the crew had pushed the train of cars all into one leg of the U, and loaded the kegs of whiskey

  on them.

  Captain Burgwin was treated to lunch aboard the Omega. The pleasant company was rendered further amiable by the thoughtfulness of Audubon in providing the captain with some of the liquor authorized by his credentials.

  After lunch, Burgwin was in most excellent temper toward his hosts, and was quite disposed to forego the inspection altogether." Captain Sire insisted; nothing would do but that the captain, should make his search, and, according to Sire’s log, "une recherche aussi stricte que po.vsible."

  It was not often an inspector received an open invitation to make the strictest possible search, and the only condition Captain Sire added was that he should do the same with the other traders who came by. Only fair, certainly, and Captain Burgwin—"whose mellow faculties were now in a most accommodating condition"—agreed wholeheartedly.

  The whole jolly party made its way down into the black hold; the captain was given a candle and steered into the proper, or empty, side. They moved back to the stern, making a strict search per agreement, and possibly even moving a bale now and then. At the stern they passed through an opening in the partition and began to work forward. The candle cast a limited circle of light. If the captain heard the rumble of, little wheels—well, we all hear the rumble of little wheels once in a while, so be our hosts are as generous as Audubon. At the end of the hold the minuscule train was stealthily disappearing around the partition to the side already inspected.

  All parted company the ’very best of friends, and the captain went back to hiscamp enchanted with the hospitality of John James Fougére Audubon and Joseph A. Sire, master of the Omega.

  III

  We left Nat Wyeth with his tiny band on the Snake River near Boise, Idaho, in the late summer of ’32. The details of the remainder of his journey to Fort Vancouver are not essential; he had difficulty getting through the Blue Mountains, and the journal is a daily record of going supperless, traveli
ng rough country, meeting Indians (not hostile), and so forth. He and a small portion of his party were ahead of the main body—a courtesy term only, since it was about seven men—and reached the HBC post at Walla Walla about five o’clock in the evening of October 14. Now he was amongst the dragons that guarded Oregon’s gates.

  Somewhat to his surprise, he was "received in the most hospitable and gentlemanly manner by Peanbron the agent for this post.3 Wyeth had now been separated from civilization for a number of months; his present realities were rocks and rivers, buffalo and bear. Thus: "At the post we saw a bull and cow & calf, hen & cock, punkins, potatoes, corn, all of which looked strange and unnatural and like a dream."

  It was, Wyeth discovered, not the only dreamlike thing about entering the sphere of influence of HBC. He embarked from Walla Walla five days later, after the rest of his men arrived, on one of the company "barges," When he reached Vancouver on October 29 he discovered not the barbarity he had learned to connect with the fur trade but a civilized outpost, stocked with books, and men who could and did read them.

  Wyeth was received in the customary H`BC manner; absolute and unlimited hospitality, right up to the-point of business.

  I find Doct. McLauchland a line old gentleman truly philanthropic in his Ideas he is doing much good by introducing fruits into this country which will much facilitate the progress of its settlement. . . . The gentlemen of this Co. do much credit to their country and concern by their education deportment and talents .... The Co. seemed disposed to render me all the assistance they can they live well at these posts.