and turkeys had been brought out there, and bred and did well. At one
time George Bent brought out several peacocks, whose gay plumage and
harsh voices astonished and more or less alarmed the Indians, who
called them thunder birds, Nŭn-ūm´ā-ē-vĭ´kĭs.
There was no surgeon at the fort, Colonel Bent doing his own doctoring.
He possessed an ample medicine-chest, which he replenished on his trips
to St. Louis. He had also a number of medical books, and no doubt these
and such practical experience as came to him with the years made him
reasonably skilful in the rough medicine and surgery that he practised.
With the train he carried a small medicine-chest, which occasionally
came into play.
For many years Bent’s Fort was the great and only gathering-place for
the Indians in the Southwestern plains, and at different times there
were large companies of them present there.
At one time no less than three hundred and fifty lodges of Kiowa
Apaches were camping near the fort on the south side of the river, and
at another, according to Thomas Boggs, six or seven thousand Cheyennes
were camped there at one time. When the Kiowas, Comanches, and Apaches
were camped about the fort the number of Indians was very large. It
must be remembered that prior to 1849 the Indians of the Southwest had
not been appreciably affected by any of the new diseases brought into
the country by the whites. This was largely due to the forethought of
William Bent, who, by his action in 1829, when smallpox was raging at
his stockade, protected the Cheyennes and Arapahoes at least, and very
likely other Indians, from the attacks of this dread disease.
Shortly after the great peace between the Cheyennes, Arapahoes, Kiowas,
Comanches, and Apaches, which was made in 1840, the two great camps
moved up to Bent’s Fort, the Cheyennes and Arapahoes camping on the
north side of the river, the Kiowas, Comanches, and Apaches on the
south. It was a great gathering of Indians, and the feasting, singing,
dancing, and drumming were continuous. Though peace had just been made,
there was danger that some of the old ill feeling that had so long
existed between the tribes yet remained. Colonel Bent, with his usual
wisdom, warned his employees that to these camps no spirits whatever
should be traded. He recognized that if the Indians got drunk they
would very likely begin to quarrel again, and a collision between
members of tribes formerly hostile might lead to the breaking of the
newly made peace. This was perhaps the greatest gathering of the
Indians that ever collected at Fort William. How many were there will
never be known.
Such, briefly, is the story of Bent’s Fort, the oldest, largest, and
most important of the fur trading posts on the great plains of the
United States. Unless some manuscript, the existence of which is now
unknown, should hereafter be discovered, it is likely to be all that we
shall ever know of the place that once held an important position in
the history of our country.
Bent’s Fort long ago fell to ruins, but it has not been wholly
forgotten. Up to the year 1868 the buildings were occupied as a
stage station, and a stopping-place for travellers, with a bar and
eating-house; but soon after that, when the railroad came up the
Arkansas River, and stage travel ceased, the old post was abandoned.
From that time on, it rapidly disintegrated under the weather.
In the autumn of 1912 I stood on this historic spot, still bare of
grass, and marked on two sides by remains of the walls, in some places
a mere low mound, and in others a wall four feet high, in which the
adobe bricks were still recognizable. Here and there were seen old bits
of iron, the fragment of a rusted horseshoe, of a rake, and a bit of
cast-iron which had been part of a stove and bore letters and figures
which could be made out as portions of the words “St. Louis, 1859.”
The land on which the fort stood was owned by a public-spirited
citizen, Mr. A. E. Reynolds, of Denver, Col., and here within the walls
of the old fort he has placed a granite stone to mark its site and to
commemorate its history. He has given the land over to the care of the
Daughters of the American Revolution to be used as a public park for
the counties of Otero and Bent, Colo.
William Bent, whose life was devoted to the upbuilding of the
Southwest, will always be remembered as the one who placed on that
fertile and productive empire the stamp “settled.”
GEORGE FREDERICK RUXTON, HUNTER
Some time about 1840 George Frederick Ruxton, a young Englishman, was
serving in Canada as an officer in a British regiment. In 1837, when
only seventeen years of age, he had left Sandhurst to enlist as a
volunteer in the service of Spain, where he served with gallantry and
distinction in the civil wars and received from Queen Isabella II the
cross of the first class of the Order of San Fernando. The monotony of
garrison duty in Canada soon palled on one who had taken part in more
stirring scenes, and before long he resigned his commission in his
regiment and sought new fields of adventure.
He was a man fond of action and eager to see new things. His earliest
project was to cross Africa, and this he attempted, but without success.
He next turned toward Mexico as a field for adventure, and he has
painted a fascinating picture, both of life there at the time of the
Mexican War and of life in the mountains to the north. The two small
volumes of his writings are now out of print, but they are well worth
reading by those who desire to learn of the early history of a country
that is now well known, and which within fifty years has changed from a
region without population to one which is a teeming hive of industry.
In Ruxton’s _Adventures in Mexico and the Rocky Mountains_ is a
singularly vivid account of the author’s journeyings from England, by
way of the Madeira Islands, Barbadoes and others of the Antilles, to
Cuba, and so to Vera Cruz, more fully called the Rich City of the True
Cross; or as often, and quite aptly--from the plague of yellow fever
which so constantly ravaged it--the City of the Dead. From Vera Cruz he
travelled north, passing through Mexico, whose coast was then blockaded
by the gringoes of North America, then through the country ravaged by
marauding Indians, and at last, leaving Chihuahua and crossing by way
of El Paso into New Mexico, he reached what is now the Southwestern
United States. Through this country he passed--in winter--north through
the mountains, meeting the trappers and mountaineers of those days and
the Indians as well, crossed the plains, and finally reached St. Louis,
and from there passed east to New York.
Although untrained in literature, Ruxton was a keen observer, and
presented his narrative in most attractive form. He saw the salient
characteristics of the places and the people among whom he was thrown,
and commented on them most interestingly. He gives us a peculiarly
vivid picture of Mexico as it was during its early days of stress and
strain, or from the time of its independence, for within the last
twenty-five years there had been not far from two hundred and fifty
revolutions. This state of things, as is well known, continued for a
dozen years after the Mexican War, or until the great Indian Juarez
became ruler of the country and put down lawlessness and revolution
with a strong hand. From his day until the expulsion of his great
successor Porfirio Diaz Mexico was fortunate in her rulers.
Just after Ruxton reached Vera Cruz General Santa Anna, ex-President
of Mexico, reached the city, having been summoned to return after his
expulsion of a year before. Santa Anna was received with some form and
ceremony, but with no applause; and before he had been long ashore
was cross-examined by a representative of the people in very positive
fashion, and submitted meekly to the inquisition.
It is hardly to be supposed that Ruxton, who had been a British
soldier, would be blind to the extraordinary appearance and absolute
lack of discipline of the Mexican troops, and his description of the
soldiers, their equipment, and the preparations for the reception
of Santa Anna is interesting. “The crack regiment of the Mexican
army--_el onze_, the 11th--which happened to be in garrison at
the time, cut most prodigious capers in the great plaza several
times a day, _disciplinando_--drilling for the occasion. Nothing
can, by any possibility, be conceived more unlike a soldier than
a Mexican _militar_. The regular army is composed entirely of
Indians--miserable-looking pigmies, whose grenadiers are five feet
high. Vera Cruz, being a show place, and jealous of its glory,
generally contrives to put decent clothing, by subscription, on the
regiment detailed to garrison the town; otherwise clothing is not
considered indispensable to the Mexican soldier. The muskets of the
infantry are (that is, if they have any) condemned Tower muskets,
turned out of the British service years before. I have seen them
carrying firelocks without locks, and others with locks without
hammers, the lighted end of a cigar being used as a match to ignite the
powder in the pan. Discipline they have none. Courage a Mexican does
not possess; but still they have that brutish indifference to death,
which could be turned to account if they were well led, and officered
by men of courage and spirit.”
Toward the end of the rainy season Ruxton, with a _mozo_, started for
the north. He travelled on horseback, and his way was made difficult
by the condition of the roads, which were heavy from rain, and by the
presence in the country of troops on their way to the war, which made
the accommodations, bad at best, still worse.
Concerning the city of Mexico and its inhabitants of the better class
he speaks with some enthusiasm, but the hotels were villainous, the
city unsafe for strangers after night, and at that time a blond man--a
_guero_--was constantly taken for a Texan or a Yankee, and was subject
to attack by any of the people.
In the city of Mexico Ruxton purchased horses from a Yankee
horse-dealer named Smith, and set out with a pack-train for the farther
north. His accounts of his travels, the difficulties of the way, the
inns at which he stopped, and the cities that he passed through are
extremely interesting. Of the manufacture of the national drink,
_pulque_, the favorite beverage of the Mexicans, he says: “The maguey,
American aloe--_Agave americana_--is cultivated over an extent of
country embracing 50,000 square miles. In the City of Mexico alone the
consumption of pulque amounts to the enormous quantity of 11,000,000 of
gallons per annum, and a considerable revenue from its sale is derived
by Government. The plant attains maturity in a period varying from
eight to fourteen years, when it flowers; and it is during the stage of
inflorescence only that the saccharine juice is extracted. The central
stem which incloses the incipient flower is then cut off near the
bottom, and a cavity or basin is discovered, over which the surrounding
leaves are drawn close and tied. Into this reservoir the juice distils,
which otherwise would have risen to nourish and support the flower. It
is removed three or four times during the twenty-four hours, yielding a
quantity of liquor varying from a quart to a gallon and a half.
“The juice is extracted by means of a syphon made of a species of gourd
called _acojote_, one end of which is placed in the liquor, the other
in the mouth of a person, who by suction draws up the fluid into the
pipe and deposits it in the bowls he has with him for the purpose.
It is then placed in earthen jars and a little old pulque--madre de
pulque--is added, when it soon ferments, and is immediately ready for
use. The fermentation occupies two or three days, and when it ceases
the pulque is in fine order.
“Old pulque has a slightly unpleasant odour, which heathens have
likened to the smell of putrid meat, but, when fresh, is brisk and
sparkling, and the most cooling, refreshing, and delicious drink
that ever was invented for thirsty mortal; and when gliding down the
dust-dried throat of a way-worn traveller, who feels the grateful
liquor distilling through his veins, is indeed the ‘licor divino,’
which Mexicans assert, is preferred by the angels in heaven to ruby
wine.”
Wherever Ruxton passed, his fair hair and complexion and his excellent
arms were subjects of wonder; the first to the women and children, the
second to the men. His double-barrelled rifles seem especially to have
impressed the men.
As he passed farther and farther north, he heard more and more
concerning the raids of the Indians, and at the ranch of La Punta,
where he stopped to witness the sport of tailing the bull, he heard
from one of the inhabitants an account of the raid of the previous
year, in which a number of peons were killed and some women and
children carried away to the north. He says: “The ranchero’s wife
described to me the whole scene, and bitterly accused the men of
cowardice in not defending the place. This woman, with two grown
daughters and several smaller children, fled from the rancho before
the Indians approached, and concealed themselves under a wooden bridge
which crossed a stream near at hand. Here they remained for some
hours, half dead with terror: presently some Indians approached their
place of concealment: a young chief stood on the bridge and spoke some
words to the others. All this time he had his piercing eyes bent upon
their hiding-place, and had no doubt discovered them, but concealed
his satisfaction under an appearance of indifference. He played with
his victims. In broken Spanish they heard him express his hope ‘that
he would be able to discover where the women were concealed--that he
wanted a Mexican wife and some scalps.’ Suddenly he jumped from the
bridge and thrust his lance under it with a savage whoop; the blade
pierced the woman’s arm and she shrieked with pain. One by one they
were drawn from their retreat.
“‘_Dios de mi alma!_’--what a moment was this!--said the poor creature.
Her children were surrounded by the savages, brandishing their
tomahawks, and she thought their last hour was come. But they all
escaped with life, and returned to find their houses plundered and the
corpses of friends and relations strewing the ground.
“‘_Ay de mi!_’--what a day was this! ‘_Y los hombres_,’ she continued,
‘_qui no son hombres?_’--And the men--who are _not_ men--where were
they? ‘_Escondidos como los ratones_’--hidden in holes like the rats.
‘_Mire!_’ she said suddenly, and with great excitement: ‘look at these
two hundred men, well mounted and armed, who are now so brave and
fierce, running after the poor bulls; if twenty Indians were to make
their appearance where would they be? _Vaya! vaya!_’ she exclaimed,
‘_son cobardes_’--they are cowards all of them.
“The daughter, who sat at her mother’s feet during the recital, as the
scenes of that day were recalled to her memory, buried her face in her
mother’s lap, and wept with excitement.
“To return to the toros. In a large corral, at one end of which was a
little building, erected for the accommodation of the lady spectators,
were inclosed upwards of a hundred bulls. Round the corral were the
horsemen, all dressed in the picturesque Mexican costume, examining
the animals as they were driven to and fro in the inclosure, in order
to make them wild for the sport--_alzar el corage_. The ranchero
himself, and his sons, were riding amongst them, armed with long
lances, separating from the herd, and driving into another inclosure,
the most active bulls. When all was ready, the bars were withdrawn
from the entrance of the corral, and a bull driven out, who, seeing
the wide level plain before him, dashed off at the top of his speed.
With a shout, the horsemen pursued the flying animal, who, hearing the
uproar behind him, redoubled his speed. Each urges his horse to the
utmost, and strives to take the lead and be first to reach the bull.
In such a crowd, of course, first-rate horsemanship is required to
avoid accidents and secure a safe lead. For some minutes the troop ran
on in a compact mass--a sheet could have covered the lot. Enveloped
in a cloud of dust, nothing could be seen but the bull, some hundred
yards ahead, and the rolling cloud. Presently, with a shout, a horseman
emerged from the front rank; the women cried ‘_Viva!_’ as, passing
close to the stage, he was recognized to be the son of the ranchera, a
boy of twelve years of age, sitting his horse like a bird, and swaying
from side to side as the bull doubled, and the cloud of dust concealed
the animal from his view. ‘_Viva Pepito! viva!_’ shouted his mother,
as she waved her reboso to encourage the boy; and the little fellow
struck his spurs into his horse and doubled down to his work manfully.
But now two others are running neck and neck with him, and the race for
the lead and the first throw is most exciting. The men shout, the women
wave their rebosos and cry out their names: ‘_Alza--Bernardo--por mi
amor, Juan Maria--Viva Pepitito!_’ they scream in intense excitement.
The boy at length loses the lead to a tall, fine-looking Mexican,
mounted on a fleet and powerful roan stallion, who gradually but surely
forges ahead. At this moment the sharp eyes of little Pepe observed the
bull to turn at an angle from his former course, which movement was
hidden by the dust from the leading horseman. In an instant the boy
took advantage of it, and, wheeling his horse at a right angle from
his original course, cut off the bull. Shouts and vivas rent the air
at sight of this skillful maneuver, and the boy, urging his horse with
whip and spur, ranged up to the left quarter of the bull, bending down
to seize the tail, and secure it under his right leg, for the purpose
of throwing the animal to the ground. But here Pepe’s strength failed
him in a feat which requires great power of muscle, and in endeavouring
to perform it he was jerked out of his saddle and fell violently to
the ground, stunned and senseless. At least a dozen horsemen were now
striving hard for the post of honour, but the roan distanced them all,
and its rider, stronger than Pepe, dashed up to the bull, threw his
right leg over the tail, which he had seized in his right hand, and,
wheeling his horse suddenly outwards, upset the bull in the midst of
his career, and the huge animal rolled over and over in the dust,
bellowing with pain and fright.”
Pushing northward through Mexico, Ruxton passed into a country with
fewer and fewer inhabitants. It was the borderland of the Republic,
where the Indians, constantly raiding, were killing people, burning
villages, and driving off stock. The author’s adventures were frequent.
He was shot at by his _mozo_, or servant, who desired to possess his
property. He met wagon-trains coming from Santa Fé, owned and manned by
Americans. He lost his animals, was often close to Indians, yet escaped
without fighting them, assisted in the rescue of a number of American
teamsters who had endeavored to strike across the country to reach the
United States, and many of whom had perished from hunger and thirst;
and finally, while on this good errand, was robbed of all his property
by thieves in the little village where he had left it. His journal of
travel is pleasantly interspersed with traditions of the country and
accounts of local adventures of the time.
Reaching Chihuahua, he found the shops stocked with goods brought from
the United States by way of Santa Fé, it being profitable to drive the
wagon-trains south as far as Chihuahua, rather than to sell their loads
in Santa Fé. This Santa Fé trade, always subject to great risks from
attacks by Indians and other dangers of the road, was made still more
difficult from the extraordinary customs duties laid by the Mexican
officials, who, without reference to the nature of the goods carried,
assessed a duty of $500 on each wagon, no matter what its size or its
contents.
Of Chihuahua as it was in those days Ruxton writes with enthusiasm:
“In the sierras and mountains,” he says, “are found two species of
bears--the common black, or American bear, and the grizzly bear of
the Rocky Mountains. The last are the most numerous, and are abundant
in the sierras, in the neighbourhood of Chihuahua. The carnero
cimarron--the big-horn or Rocky Mountain sheep--is also common on the
Cordillera. Elk, black-tailed deer, cola-prieta (a large species of
the fallow deer), the common red deer of America, and antelope, abound
on all the plains and sierras. Of smaller game, peccaries (javali),
also called cojamete, hares, and rabbits are everywhere numerous; and
beavers are still found in the Gila, the Pecos, the Del Norte, and
their tributary streams. Of birds--the faisan, commonly called paisano,
a species of pheasant: the quail, or rather a bird between a quail
and a partridge, is abundant; while every variety of snipe and plover
is found on the plains, not forgetting the _gruya_, of the crane kind,
whose meat is excellent. There are also two varieties of wolf--the
white, or mountain wolf; and the coyote, or small wolf of the plains,
whose long-continued and melancholy howl is an invariable adjunct to a
Mexican night encampment.”
At the time that the author passed through Chihuahua that province
was in a state of more or less excitement, expecting the advance of
the “Americanos” from New Mexico, which province had been occupied by
the United States forces (Santa Fé having been entered Aug. 18, 1846,
by Gen. S. W. Kearny), and following the troops was a caravan of 200
traders’ wagons bound for Chihuahua. Ruxton was travelling northward,
directly toward the American troops, and bore despatches for the
American commander; he was therefore treated with extreme courtesy
in Chihuahua and went on his way. He has something to say about the
Mexican troops stationed here at Chihuahua, whom Colonel Doniphan, two
or three months later, with 900 volunteers, defeated with a loss of
300 killed and as many wounded, capturing the city of Chihuahua, and
without “losing _one man_ in the campaign.” As a matter of fact, one
man was killed on the United States side, while the Mexican losses were
given as 320 killed, 560 wounded, and 72 prisoners.
It was in November that the author bade adieu to Chihuahua and set
out for Santa Fé. Though the country through which he journeyed was
infested with Indians, yet now and then a Mexican village was passed,
occupied by people who were poor both in pocket and in spirit, and
satisfied merely to live. When the Rio Grande, which in old times was
commonly called the Del Norte, was passed, Ruxton was in what is now
the United States. It was then Mexican territory, however, and at El
Paso there were Mexican troops, and also a few American prisoners. From
here, for some distance northward, Indian “sign” was constantly seen,
chiefly of Apaches, who made it their business and their pleasure to
ravage the region.
On the Rio Grande, a few days’ journey beyond El Paso, a surveying
party under the command of Lieutenant Abert, of the United States
Engineers, was met with, and near him was camped a great part of the
traders’ caravan which was on its way to Chihuahua. The scene here
must have been one of interest. The wagons were corralled, making a
fort, from which Indians or Mexicans could be defied, and the large
and wild-looking Missourians formed a striking contrast to the tiny
Mexicans, with whom the author had so long been mingling. The American
troops in this and neighboring camps were volunteers, each one of whom
thought himself quite as good as his commanding officers, and anything
like discipline was unknown. Ruxton was greatly impressed by this,
and commented freely on it, declaring that--“the American can never
be made a soldier; his constitution will not bear the restraint of
discipline; neither will his very mistaken notions about liberty allow
him to subject himself to its necessary control.”