ASTORIA;
OR, ANECDOTES OF AN ENTERPRISE BEYOND THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS
By Washington Irving
AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION
IN THE COURSE of occasional visits to Canada many years since, I became
intimately acquainted with some of the principal partners of the
great Northwest Fur Company, who at that time lived in genial style
at Montreal, and kept almost open house for the stranger. At their
hospitable boards I occasionally met with partners, and clerks, and
hardy fur traders from the interior posts; men who had passed years
remote from civilized society, among distant and savage tribes, and
who had wonders to recount of their wide and wild peregrinations, their
hunting exploits, and their perilous adventures and hair-breadth escapes
among the Indians. I was at an age when imagination lends its coloring
to everything, and the stories of these Sinbads of the wilderness made
the life of a trapper and fur trader perfect romance to me. I even
meditated at one time a visit to the remote posts of the company in
the boats which annually ascended the lakes and rivers, being thereto
invited by one of the partners; and I have ever since regretted that I
was prevented by circumstances from carrying my intention into effect.
From those early impressions, the grand enterprise of the great fur
companies, and the hazardous errantry of their associates in the wild
parts of our vast continent, have always been themes of charmed
interest to me; and I have felt anxious to get at the details of their
adventurous expeditions among the savage tribes that peopled the depths
of the wilderness.
About two years ago, not long after my return from a tour upon the
prairies of the far West, I had a conversation with my friend, Mr.
John Jacob Astor, relative to that portion of our country, and to the
adventurous traders to Santa Fe and the Columbia. This led him to advert
to a great enterprise set on foot and conducted by him, between twenty
and thirty years since, having for its object to carry the fur trade
across the Rocky Mountains, and to sweep the shores of the Pacific.
Finding that I took an interest in the subject, he expressed a regret
that the true nature and extent of his enterprise and its national
character and importance had never been understood, and a wish that I
would undertake to give an account of it. The suggestion struck upon the
chord of early associations already vibrating in my mind. It occurred
to me that a work of this kind might comprise a variety of those curious
details, so interesting to me, illustrative of the fur trade; of its
remote and adventurous enterprises, and of the various people, and
tribes, and castes, and characters, civilized and savage, affected by
its operations. The journals, and letters, also, of the adventurers by
sea and land employed by Mr. Astor in his comprehensive project, might
throw light upon portions of our country quite out of the track of
ordinary travel, and as yet but little known. I therefore felt disposed
to undertake the task, provided documents of sufficient extent and
minuteness could be furnished to me. All the papers relative to the
enterprise were accordingly submitted to my inspection. Among them were
journals and letters narrating expeditions by sea, and journeys to and
fro across the Rocky Mountains by routes before untravelled, together
with documents illustrative of savage and colonial life on the borders
of the Pacific. With such material in hand, I undertook the work.
The trouble of rummaging among business papers, and of collecting and
collating facts from amidst tedious and commonplace details, was spared
me by my nephew, Pierre M. Irving, who acted as my pioneer, and to whom
I am greatly indebted for smoothing my path and lightening my labors.
As the journals, on which I chiefly depended, had been kept by men of
business, intent upon the main object of the enterprise, and but little
versed in science, or curious about matters not immediately bearing upon
their interest, and as they were written often in moments of fatigue
or hurry, amid the inconveniences of wild encampments, they were
often meagre in their details, furnishing hints to provoke rather
than narratives to satisfy inquiry. I have, therefore, availed myself
occasionally of collateral lights supplied by the published journals of
other travellers who have visited the scenes described: such as Messrs.
Lewis and Clarke, Bradbury, Breckenridge, Long, Franchere, and Ross Cox,
and make a general acknowledgment of aid received from these quarters.
The work I here present to the public is necessarily of a rambling
and somewhat disjointed nature, comprising various expeditions and
adventures by land and sea. The facts, however, will prove to be linked
and banded together by one grand scheme, devised and conducted by
a master spirit; one set of characters, also, continues throughout,
appearing occasionally, though sometimes at long intervals, and the
whole enterprise winds up by a regular catastrophe; so that the work,
without any labored attempt at artificial construction, actually
possesses much of that unity so much sought after in works of fiction,
and considered so important to the interest of every history.
WASHINGTON IRVING
CHAPTER I.
Objects of American Enterprise.--Gold Hunting and Fur
Trading.--Their Effect on Colonization.--Early French Canadian
Settlers.--Ottawa and Huron Hunters.--An Indian Trading Camp.
Coureurs Des Bois, or Rangers of the Woods.--Their Roaming
Life.--Their Revels and Excesses.--Licensed Traders.
Missionaries.--Trading Posts.--Primitive French Canadian
Merchant.--His Establishment and Dependents.--British Canadian
Fur Merchant.--Origin of the Northwest Company.--Its
Constitution.--Its Internal Trade.--A Candidate for the
Company.--Privations in the Wilderness.--Northwest Clerks.
Northwest Partners.--Northwest Nabobs.--Feudal Notions in the
Forests.--The Lords of the Lakes.--Fort William.--Its
Parliamentary Hall and Banqueting Room.--Wassailing in the
Wilderness.
TWO leading objects of commercial gain have given birth to wide and
daring enterprise in the early history of the Americas; the precious
metals of the South, and the rich peltries of the North. While the fiery
and magnificent Spaniard, inflamed with the mania for gold, has extended
his discoveries and conquests over those brilliant countries scorched by
the ardent sun of the tropics, the adroit and buoyant Frenchman, and the
cool and calculating Briton, have pursued the less splendid, but no
less lucrative, traffic in furs amidst the hyperborean regions of the
Canadas, until they have advanced even within the Arctic Circle.
These two pursuits have thus in a manner been the pioneers and
precursors of civilization. Without pausing on the borders, they have
penetrated at once, in defiance of difficulties and dangers, to the
heart of savage countries: laying open the hidden secrets of the
wilderness; leading the way to remote regions of beauty and fertility
that might have remained unexplored for ages, and beckoning after them
the slow and pausing steps of agriculture and civilization.
It was the fur trade, in fact, which gave early sustenance and vitality
to the great Canadian provinces. Being destitute of the precious metals,
at that time the leading objects of American enterprise, they were long
neglected by the parent country. The French adventurers, however, who
had settled on the banks of the St. Lawrence, soon found that in the
rich peltries of the interior, they had sources of wealth that
might almost rival the mines of Mexico and Peru. The Indians, as yet
unacquainted with the artificial value given to some descriptions of
furs, in civilized life, brought quantities of the most precious kinds
and bartered them away for European trinkets and cheap commodities.
Immense profits were thus made by the early traders, and the traffic was
pursued with avidity.
As the valuable furs soon became scarce in the neighborhood of the
settlements, the Indians of the vicinity were stimulated to take a wider
range in their hunting expeditions; they were generally accompanied on
these expeditions by some of the traders or their dependents, who
shared in the toils and perils of the chase, and at the same time made
themselves acquainted with the best hunting and trapping grounds, and
with the remote tribes, whom they encouraged to bring their peltries
to the settlements. In this way the trade augmented, and was drawn from
remote quarters to Montreal. Every now and then a large body of Ottawas,
Hurons, and other tribes who hunted the countries bordering on the great
lakes, would come down in a squadron of light canoes, laden with beaver
skins, and other spoils of their year’s hunting. The canoes would be
unladen, taken on shore, and their contents disposed in order. A camp of
birch bark would be pitched outside of the town, and a kind of primitive
fair opened with that grave ceremonial so dear to the Indians. An
audience would be demanded of the governor-general, who would hold
the conference with becoming state, seated in an elbow-chair, with the
Indians ranged in semicircles before him, seated on the ground,
and silently smoking their pipes. Speeches would be made, presents
exchanged, and the audience would break up in universal good humor.
Now would ensue a brisk traffic with the merchants, and all Montreal
would be alive with naked Indians running from shop to shop, bargaining
for arms, kettles, knives, axes, blankets, bright-colored cloths, and
other articles of use or fancy; upon all which, says an old French
writer, the merchants were sure to clear at least two hundred per cent.
There was no money used in this traffic, and, after a time, all payment
in spirituous liquors was prohibited, in consequence of the frantic and
frightful excesses and bloody brawls which they were apt to occasion.
Their wants and caprices being supplied, they would take leave of the
governor, strike their tents, launch their canoes, and ply their way up
the Ottawa to the lakes.
A new and anomalous class of men gradually grew out of this trade. These
were called coureurs des bois, rangers of the woods; originally men
who had accompanied the Indians in their hunting expeditions, and made
themselves acquainted with remote tracts and tribes; and who now became,
as it were, peddlers of the wilderness. These men would set out from
Montreal with canoes well stocked with goods, with arms and ammunition,
and would make their way up the mazy and wandering rivers that interlace
the vast forests of the Canadas, coasting the most remote lakes, and
creating new wants and habitudes among the natives. Sometimes they
sojourned for months among them, assimilating to their tastes and habits
with the happy facility of Frenchmen, adopting in some degree the Indian
dress, and not unfrequently taking to themselves Indian wives.
Twelve, fifteen, eighteen months would often elapse without any tidings
of them, when they would come sweeping their way down the Ottawa in full
glee, their canoes laden down with packs of beaver skins. Now came their
turn for revelry and extravagance. “You would be amazed,” says an old
writer already quoted, “if you saw how lewd these peddlers are when they
return; how they feast and game, and how prodigal they are, not only in
their clothes, but upon their sweethearts. Such of them as are married
have the wisdom to retire to their own houses; but the bachelors act
just as an East Indiaman and pirates are wont to do; for they lavish,
eat, drink, and play all away as long as the goods hold out; and when
these are gone, they even sell their embroidery, their lace, and their
clothes. This done, they are forced upon a new voyage for subsistence.”
Many of these coureurs des bois became so accustomed to the Indian mode
of living, and the perfect freedom of the wilderness, that they lost
relish for civilization, and identified themselves with the savages
among whom they dwelt, or could only be distinguished from them by
superior licentiousness. Their conduct and example gradually corrupted
the natives, and impeded the works of the Catholic missionaries, who
were at this time prosecuting their pious labors in the wilds of Canada.
To check these abuses, and to protect the fur trade from various
irregularities practiced by these loose adventurers, an order was issued
by the French government prohibiting all persons, on pain of death, from
trading into the interior of the country without a license.
These licenses were granted in writing by the governor-general, and
at first were given only to persons of respectability; to gentlemen of
broken fortunes; to old officers of the army who had families to provide
for; or to their widows. Each license permitted the fitting out of
two large canoes with merchandise for the lakes, and no more than
twenty-five licenses were to be issued in one year. By degrees, however,
private licenses were also granted, and the number rapidly increased.
Those who did not choose to fit out the expeditions themselves, were
permitted to sell them to the merchants; these employed the coureurs des
bois, or rangers of the woods, to undertake the long voyages on shares,
and thus the abuses of the old system were revived and continued.
The pious missionaries employed by the Roman Catholic Church to convert
the Indians, did everything in their power to counteract the profligacy
caused and propagated by these men in the heart of the wilderness. The
Catholic chapel might often be seen planted beside the trading house,
and its spire surmounted by a cross, towering from the midst of an
Indian village, on the banks of a river or a lake. The missions had
often a beneficial effect on the simple sons of the forest, but had
little power over the renegades from civilization.
At length it was found necessary to establish fortified posts at the
confluence of the rivers and the lakes for the protection of the trade,
and the restraint of these profligates of the wilderness. The most
important of these was at Michilimackinac, situated at the strait of the
same name, which connects Lakes Huron and Michigan. It became the great
interior mart and place of deposit, and some of the regular merchants
who prosecuted the trade in person, under their licenses, formed
establishments here. This, too, was a rendezvous for the rangers of the
woods, as well those who came up with goods from Montreal as those who
returned with peltries from the interior. Here new expeditions
were fitted out and took their departure for Lake Michigan and the
Mississippi; Lake Superior and the Northwest; and here the peltries
brought in return were embarked for Montreal.
The French merchant at his trading post, in these primitive days of
Canada, was a kind of commercial patriarch. With the lax habits and easy
familiarity of his race, he had a little world of self-indulgence and
misrule around him. He had his clerks, canoe men, and retainers of
all kinds, who lived with him on terms of perfect sociability, always
calling him by his Christian name; he had his harem of Indian beauties,
and his troop of halfbreed children; nor was there ever wanting a
louting train of Indians, hanging about the establishment, eating and
drinking at his expense in the intervals of their hunting expeditions.
The Canadian traders, for a long time, had troublesome competitors in
the British merchants of New York, who inveigled the Indian hunters
and the coureurs des bois to their posts, and traded with them on more
favorable terms. A still more formidable opposition was organized in
the Hudson’s Bay Company, chartered by Charles II., in 1670, with the
exclusive privilege of establishing trading houses on the shores of that
bay and its tributary rivers; a privilege which they have maintained to
the present day. Between this British company and the French merchants
of Canada, feuds and contests arose about alleged infringements of
territorial limits, and acts of violence and bloodshed occurred between
their agents.
In 1762, the French lost possession of Canada, and the trade fell
principally into the hands of British subjects. For a time, however, it
shrunk within narrow limits. The old coureurs des bois were broken up
and dispersed, or, where they could be met with, were slow to accustom
themselves to the habits and manners of their British employers. They
missed the freedom, indulgence, and familiarity of the old French
trading houses, and did not relish the sober exactness, reserve, and
method of the new-comers. The British traders, too, were ignorant of the
country, and distrustful of the natives. They had reason to be so. The
treacherous and bloody affairs of Detroit and Michilimackinac showed
them the lurking hostility cherished by the savages, who had too long
been taught by the French to regard them as enemies.
It was not until the year 1766, that the trade regained its old
channels; but it was then pursued with much avidity and emulation
by individual merchants, and soon transcended its former bounds.
Expeditions were fitted out by various persons from Montreal and
Michilimackinac, and rivalships and jealousies of course ensued. The
trade was injured by their artifices to outbid and undermine each other;
the Indians were debauched by the sale of spirituous liquors, which had
been prohibited under the French rule. Scenes of drunkeness, brutality,
and brawl were the consequence, in the Indian villages and around the
trading houses; while bloody feuds took place between rival trading
parties when they happened to encounter each other in the lawless depths
of the wilderness.
To put an end to these sordid and ruinous contentions, several of the
principal merchants of Montreal entered into a partnership in the winter
of 1783, which was augmented by amalgamation with a rival company in
1787. Thus was created the famous “Northwest Company,” which for a time
held a lordly sway over the wintry lakes and boundless forests of
the Canadas, almost equal to that of the East India Company over the
voluptuous climes and magnificent realms of the Orient.
The company consisted of twenty-three shareholders, or partners,
but held in its employ about two thousand persons as clerks, guides,
interpreters, and “voyageurs,” or boatmen. These were distributed at
various trading posts, established far and wide on the interior lakes
and rivers, at immense distances from each other, and in the heart of
trackless countries and savage tribes.
Several of the partners resided in Montreal and Quebec, to manage
the main concerns of the company. These were called agents, and were
personages of great weight and importance; the other partners took
their stations at the interior posts, where they remained throughout
the winter, to superintend the intercourse with the various tribes of
Indians. They were thence called wintering partners.
The goods destined for this wide and wandering traffic were put up at
the warehouses of the company in Montreal, and conveyed in batteaux, or
boats and canoes, up the river Attawa, or Ottowa, which falls into the
St. Lawrence near Montreal, and by other rivers and portages, to Lake
Nipising, Lake Huron, Lake Superior, and thence, by several chains of
great and small lakes, to Lake Winnipeg, Lake Athabasca, and the Great
Slave Lake. This singular and beautiful system of internal seas, which
renders an immense region of wilderness so accessible to the frail bark
of the Indian or the trader, was studded by the remote posts of the
company, where they carried on their traffic with the surrounding
tribes.
The company, as we have shown, was at first a spontaneous association of
merchants; but, after it had been regularly organized, admission into
it became extremely difficult. A candidate had to enter, as it were,
“before the mast,” to undergo a long probation, and to rise slowly by
his merits and services. He began, at an early age, as a clerk, and
served an apprenticeship of seven years, for which he received one
hundred pounds sterling, was maintained at the expense of the company,
and furnished with suitable clothing and equipments. His probation was
generally passed at the interior trading posts; removed for years from
civilized society, leading a life almost as wild and precarious as the
savages around him; exposed to the severities of a northern winter,
often suffering from a scarcity of food, and sometimes destitute for a
long time of both bread and salt. When his apprenticeship had expired,
he received a salary according to his deserts, varying from eighty to
one hundred and sixty pounds sterling, and was now eligible to the great
object of his ambition, a partnership in the company; though years might
yet elapse before he attained to that enviable station.
Most of the clerks were young men of good families, from the Highlands
of Scotland, characterized by the perseverance, thrift, and fidelity
of their country, and fitted by their native hardihood to encounter the
rigorous climate of the North, and to endure the trials and privations
of their lot; though it must not be concealed that the constitutions
of many of them became impaired by the hardships of the wilderness, and
their stomachs injured by occasional famishing, and especially by the
want of bread and salt. Now and then, at an interval of years, they were
permitted to come down on a visit to the establishment at Montreal, to
recruit their health, and to have a taste of civilized life; and these
were brilliant spots in their existence.
As to the principal partners, or agents, who resided in Montreal and
Quebec, they formed a kind of commercial aristocracy, living in
lordly and hospitable style. Their posts, and the pleasures, dangers,
adventures, and mishaps which they had shared together in their wild
wood life, had linked them heartily to each other, so that they formed
a convivial fraternity. Few travellers that have visited Canada some
thirty years since, in the days of the M’Tavishes, the M’Gillivrays, the
M’Kenzies, the Frobishers, and the other magnates of the Northwest,
when the company was in all its glory, but must remember the round of
feasting and revelry kept up among these hyperborean nabobs.
Sometimes one or two partners, recently from the interior posts, would
make their appearance in New York, in the course of a tour of pleasure
and curiosity. On these occasions there was a degree of magnificence of
the purse about them, and a peculiar propensity to expenditure at
the goldsmith’s and jeweler’s for rings, chains, brooches, necklaces,
jeweled watches, and other rich trinkets, partly for their own
wear, partly for presents to their female acquaintances; a gorgeous
prodigality, such as was often to be noticed in former times in Southern
planters and West India creoles, when flush with the profits of their
plantations.
To behold the Northwest Company in all its state and grandeur, however,
it was necessary to witness an annual gathering at the great interior
place of conference established at Fort William, near what is called
the Grand Portage, on Lake Superior. Here two or three of the leading
partners from Montreal proceeded once a year to meet the partners from
the various trading posts of the wilderness, to discuss the affairs
of the company during the preceding year, and to arrange plans for the
future.
On these occasions might be seen the change since the unceremonious
times of the old French traders; now the aristocratic character of the
Briton shone forth magnificently, or rather the feudal spirit of the
Highlander. Every partner who had charge of an interior post, and a
score of retainers at his Command, felt like the chieftain of a Highland
clan, and was almost as important in the eyes of his dependents as of
himself. To him a visit to the grand conference at Fort William was
a most important event, and he repaired there as to a meeting of
parliament.
The partners from Montreal, however, were the lords of the ascendant;
coming from the midst of luxurious and ostentatious life, they quite
eclipsed their compeers from the woods, whose forms and faces had
been battered and hardened by hard living and hard service, and whose
garments and equipments were all the worse for wear. Indeed, the
partners from below considered the whole dignity of the company as
represented in their persons, and conducted themselves in suitable
style. They ascended the rivers in great state, like sovereigns making
a progress: or rather like Highland chieftains navigating their subject
lakes. They were wrapped in rich furs, their huge canoes freighted
with every convenience and luxury, and manned by Canadian voyageurs,
as obedient as Highland clansmen. They carried up with them cooks and
bakers, together with delicacies of every kind, and abundance of choice
wines for the banquets which attended this great convocation. Happy were
they, too, if they could meet with some distinguished stranger; above
all, some titled member of the British nobility, to accompany them on
this stately occasion, and grace their high solemnities.
Fort William, the scene of this important annual meeting, was a
considerable village on the banks of Lake Superior. Here, in an immense
wooden building, was the great council hall, as also the banqueting
chamber, decorated with Indian arms and accoutrements, and the trophies
of the fur trade. The house swarmed at this time with traders and
voyageurs, some from Montreal, bound to the interior posts; some from
the interior posts, bound to Montreal. The councils were held in great
state, for every member felt as if sitting in parliament, and every
retainer and dependent looked up to the assemblage with awe, as to the
House of Lords. There was a vast deal of solemn deliberation, and hard
Scottish reasoning, with an occasional swell of pompous declamation.
These grave and weighty councils were alternated by huge feasts and
revels, like some of the old feasts described in Highland castles. The
tables in the great banqueting room groaned under the weight of game
of all kinds; of venison from the woods, and fish from the lakes, with
hunters’ delicacies, such as buffalos’ tongues, and beavers’ tails,
and various luxuries from Montreal, all served up by experienced cooks
brought for the purpose. There was no stint of generous wine, for it was
a hard-drinking period, a time of loyal toasts, and bacchanalian songs,
and brimming bumpers.
While the chiefs thus revelled in hall, and made the rafters resound
with bursts of loyalty and old Scottish songs, chanted in voices cracked
and sharpened by the northern blast, their merriment was echoed
and prolonged by a mongrel legion of retainers, Canadian voyageurs,
half-breeds, Indian hunters, and vagabond hangers-on who feasted
sumptuously without on the crumbs that fell from their table, and made
the welkin ring with old French ditties, mingled with Indian yelps and
yellings.
Such was the Northwest Company in its powerful and prosperous days, when
it held a kind of feudal sway over a vast domain of lake and forest. We
are dwelling too long, perhaps, upon these individual pictures, endeared
to us by the associations of early life, when, as yet a stripling youth,
we have sat at the hospitable boards of the “mighty Northwesters,”
the lords of the ascendant at Montreal, and gazed with wondering
and inexperienced eye at the baronial wassailing, and listened with
astonished ear to their tales of hardship and adventures. It is one
object of our task, however, to present scenes of the rough life of the
wilderness, and we are tempted to fix these few memorials of a transient
state of things fast passing into oblivion; for the feudal state of Fort
William is at an end, its council chamber is silent and deserted; its
banquet hall no longer echoes to the burst of loyalty, or the “auld
world” ditty; the lords of the lakes and forests have passed away; and
the hospitable magnates of Montreal where are they?