THE INCEPTION OF THE ASTOR FORTUNE
The founder of the Astor fortune was John Jacob Astor, a butcher's son.
He was born in Waldorf, Germany, on July 17, 1763. At the age of
eighteen, according to traditional accounts, he went to London, where a
brother, George Peter, was in the business of selling musical
instruments. Two years later with "one good suit of Sunday clothes,
seven flutes and five pounds sterling of money"[72] he emigrated to
America. Landing at Baltimore he proceeded to New York City.
Here he became an apprentice to George Dieterich, a baker at No. 351
Pearl street, for whom he peddled cakes, as was the custom. Walter
Barrett insists that this was Astor's first occupation in New York.
Later, Astor went into business for himself. "For a long time," says
Barrett, "he peddled [fur] skins, and bought them where he could; and
bartered cheap jewelry, etc., from the pack he carried on his back."[73]
Another story is that he got a job beating furs for $2 a week and board
in the store of Robert Bowne, a New York merchant; that while in this
place he showed great zest in quizzing the trappers who came in to sell
furs, and that in this fashion he gained considerable knowledge of the
fur animals. The story proceeds that as Bowne grew older he entrusted to
Astor the task of making long and fatiguing journeys to the Indian
tribes in the Adirondacks and Canada and bargaining with them for furs.
ASTOR'S EARLY CAREER.
Astor got together enough money to start in the fur business for himself
in 1786 in a small store on Water street. It is not unreasonable to
suppose that at this time he, in common with all the fur dealers of the
time, participated in the current methods of defrauding the Indians. It
is certain that he contrived to get their most valuable furs for a jug
of rum or for a few toys or notions. Returning from these strokes of
trade, he would ship large quantities of the furs to London where they
were sold at great profit.
His marriage to Sarah Todd, a cousin of Henry Brevoort, brought him a
good wife, who had the shining quality of being economical, and an
accession of some means and considerable family connections. Remarkably
close-fisted, he weighed over every penny. As fast as his means
increased he used them in extending his business. By 1794 he was
somewhat of an expansive merchant. Scores of trappers and agents ravaged
the wilderness at his command. Periodically he shipped large quantities
of furs to Europe. His modest, even niggardly, ways of living in rooms
over his store were not calculated to create the impression that he was
a rich man. It was his invariable practice habitually to deceive others
as to his possessions and plans. But when, in 1800, he removed to No.
223 Broadway, at the corner of Vesey street, then a fashionable
neighborhood, he was rated, perforce, as a man of no inconsiderable
means. He was, in fact, as nearly as can be gathered, worth at this time
a quarter of a million dollars--a monumental fortune at a period when
a man who had $50,000 was thought rich; when a good house could be
rented for $350 a year and when $750 or $800 would fully defray the
annual expenses of the average well-living family.
[Illustration: JOHN JACOB ASTOR.
The Founder of the Colossal Astor Fortune.
(From an Engraving.)]
The great profits from the fur trade naturally led him into the business
of being his own shipowner and shipper, for he was a highly efficient
organizer and well understood the needlessness of middlemen. A beaver
skin bought for one dollar from the Indian or white trappers in Western
New York could be sold in London for six dollars and a quarter. On all
other furs there were the same large profits. But, in addition to these,
Astor saw that his profits could be still further increased by investing
the money that he received from the sale of his furs in England, in
English goods and importing them to the United States. By this process,
the profit from a single beaver skin could be made to reach ten dollars.
At that time the United States depended upon British manufactures for
many articles, especially certain grades of woolen goods and cutlery.
These were sold at exorbitant profit to the American people. This trade
Astor carried on in his own ships.
HIS METHODS IN BUSINESS.
It is of the greatest importance to ascertain Astor's methods in his fur
trade, for it was fundamentally from this trade that he reaped the
enormous sums that enabled him to become a large landowner. What these
methods were in his earlier years is obscure. Nothing definite is
embodied in any documentary evidence. Not so, however, regarding the
methods of the greatest and most successful of his fur gathering
enterprises, the American Fur Company. The "popular writer" referred to
before says that the circumstances of Astor's fur and shipping
activities are well known. On the contrary, they are distinctly not well
known nor have they ever been set forth. None of Astor's biographers
have brought them out, if, indeed, they knew of them. And yet these
facts are of the most absolute significance in that they reveal the
whole foundation of the colossal fortune of the Astor family.
The pursuit and slaughter of fur animals were carried on with such
indefatigable vigor in the East that in time that territory became
virtually exhausted. It became imperative to push out into the fairly
virgin regions of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers and of the Rocky
Mountains. The Northwest Company, a corporation running under British
auspices, was then scouring the wilds west and northwest of the Great
Lakes. Its yearly shipments of furs were enormous.[74] Astor realized
the inconceivably vaster profits which would be his in extending his
scope to the domains of the far West, so prolific in opportunities for
furs.
In 1808 he incorporated the American Fur Company. Although this was a
corporation, he was, in fact, the Company. He personally supplied its
initial capital of $500,000 and dictated every phase of its policy. His
first ambitious design was to found the settlement of Astoria in Oregon,
but the war of 1812 frustrated plans well under way, and the expedition
that he sent out there had to depart.[75] Had this plan succeeded, Astor
would have been, as he rightly boasted, the richest man in the world;
and the present wealth of his descendants instead of being $450,000,000
would be manifold more.
MONOPOLY BASED ON FORCE.
Thwarted in his project to get a monopoly of the incalculable riches of
furs in the extreme Northwest, he concentrated his efforts on that vast
region extending along the Missouri River, far north to the Great Lakes,
west to the Rocky Mountains and into the Southwest. It was a region
abounding in immense numbers of fur animals and, at that time, was
inhabited by the Indian tribes, with here and there a settlement of
whites. By means of Government favoritism and the unconcealed exercise
of both fraud and force, he obtained a complete monopoly, as complete
and arbitrary as ever feudal baron held over seignorial estates.
Nominally, the United States Government ruled this great sweep of
territory and made the laws and professed to execute them. In reality,
Astor's company was a law unto itself. That it employed both force and
fraud and entirely ignored all laws enacted by Congress, is as clear as
daylight from the Government reports of that period.
The American Fur Company maintained three principal posts or depots of
receiving and distribution--one at St. Louis, one at Detroit, the third
at Mackinac. In response to an order from Lewis Cass, Secretary of War,
to send in complete reports of the fur trade, Joshua Pilcher reported
from St. Louis, December 1, 1831:
About this time [1823] the American Fur Company had turned their
attention to the Missouri trade, and, as might have been expected,
soon put an end to all opposition. Backed, as it was, by any
amount of capital, and with skillful agents to conduct its affairs
at _every point_, it succeeded by the year 1827, in monopolizing
the trade of the Indians on the Missouri, and I have but little
doubt will continue to do so for years to come, as it would be
rather a hazardous business for small adventurers to rise in
opposition to it.[76]
In that wild country where the Government, at best, had an insufficient
force of troops, and where the agents of the company went heavily armed,
it was distinctly recognized, and accepted as a fact, that no possible
competitor's men, or individual trader, dare intrude. To do it was to
invite the severest reprisals, not stopping short of outright murder.
The American Fur Company overawed and dominated everything; it defied
the Government's representatives and acknowledged no authority superior
to itself and no law other than what its own interests demanded. The
exploitation that ensued was one of the most deliberate, cruel and
appalling that has ever taken place in any country.
THE DEBAUCHING OF INDIANS.
If there was any one serious crime at that time it was the supplying of
the Indians with whisky. The Government fully recognized the baneful
effects of debauching the Indians, and enacted strict laws with harsh
penalties. Astor's company brazenly violated this law, as well as all
other laws conflicting with its profit interests. It smuggled in
prodigious quantities of rum. The trader's ancient trick of getting the
Indians drunk and then swindling them of their furs and land was carried
on by Astor on an unprecedented scale. To say that Astor knew nothing of
what his agents were doing is a palliation not worthy of consideration;
he was a man who knew and attended to even the pettiest details of his
varied business. Moreover, the liquor was despatched by his orders
direct by ship to New Orleans and from thence up the Mississippi to St.
Louis and to other frontier points. The horrible effects of this traffic
and the consequent spoliation were set forth by a number of Government
officers.
Col. J. Snelling, commanding the garrison at Detroit, sent an indignant
protest to James Barbour, Secretary of War, under date of August 23,
1825. "He who has the most whisky, generally carries off the most furs,"
wrote Col. Snelling, and then continued:
The neighborhood of the trading houses where whisky is sold,
presents a disgusting scene of drunkenness, debauchery and
misery; it is the fruitful source of all our difficulties, and of
nearly all the murders committed in the Indian country.... For the
accommodation of my family I have taken a house three miles from
town, and in passing to and from it, I have daily opportunities of
seeing the road strewed with the bodies of men, women and
children, in the last stages of brutal intoxication. It is true
there are laws in this territory to restrain the sale of whisky,
but they are not regarded....[77]
Col. Snelling added that during that year there had been delivered by
contract to an agent of the North American Fur Company, at Mackinac (he
meant the American Fur Company which, as we have seen, had one of its
principal headquarters at that post and maintained a monopoly there),
3,300 gallons of whisky and 2,500 gallons of high wines. This latter
liquor was preferred by the agents, he pointed out, as it could be
"increased at pleasure." Col. Snelling went on: "I will venture to add
that an inquiry into the manner in which the Indian trade is conducted,
especially by the North American Fur Company, is a matter of no small
importance to the tranquillity of the borders."[78]
VIOLATION OF LAWS.
A similar report was made the next winter by Thomas L. McKenney,
Superintendent of Indian Affairs, to the Secretary of War. In a
communication dated Feb. 14, 1826, McKenney wrote that "the forbidden
and destructive article, whisky, is considered so essential to a
lucrative commerce, as not only to still those feelings [of repugnance]
but lead the traders to brave the most imminent hazards, and evade, by
various methods the threatened penalties of law." The superintendent
proceeded to tell of the recent seizure by General Tipton, Indian Agent
at Fort Wayne, of an outfit in transit containing a considerable supply
of whisky, which was owned in large part, he says, by the American Fur
Company. He then continued: "The trader with the whisky, it must be
admitted, is certain of getting the most furs.... There are many
honorable and high-minded citizens in this trade, but expediency
overcomes their objections and reconciles them for the sake of the
profits of the trade."[79]
In stating this fact, McKenney was unwittingly enunciating a profound
truth, the force of which mankind is only now beginning to realize, that
the pursuit of profit will transform natures inherently capable of much
good into sordid, cruel beasts of prey, and accustom them to committing
actions so despicable, so inhuman, that they would be terrified were it
not that the world is under the sway of the profit system and not merely
excuses and condones, but justifies and throws a glamour about, the
unutterable degradations and crimes which the profit system calls forth.
Living in a more advanced time, in an environment adjusted to bring out
the best, instead of the worst, Astor and his henchmen might have been
men of supreme goodness and gentleness. As it was, they lived at a
period when it was considered the highest, most astute and successful
form of trade to resort to any means, however base, to secure profits.
Let not too much ignominy be cast upon their memories; they were but
creatures of their time; and their time was not that "golden age," so
foolishly pictured, but a wild, tempestuous, contending struggle in
which every man was at the throat of his fellowman, and in a vortex
which statesmen, college professors, editors, political economists, all
praised and sanctified as "progressive civilization."
Like all other propertied interests, Astor's company regarded the law as
a thing to be rigorously invoked against the poor, the helpless and
defenseless, but as not to be considered when it stood in the way of the
claims, designs and pretensions of property. Superintendent McKenney
reported that all laws in the Indian country were inoperative--so much
dead matter. Andrew S. Hughes, reporting from St. Louis, Oct. 31, 1831,
to Lewis Cass, Secretary of War, wrote:
.... The traders that occupy the largest and most important space
in the Indian country are the agents and engagees of the American
Fur Trade Company. They entertain, as I know to be the fact, no
sort of respect for our citizens, agents, officers or the
Government, or its laws or general policy.
After describing the "baneful influence of these persons," Hughes went
on:
The capital employed in the Indian trade must be very large,
especially that portion which is employed in the annual purchase
of whisky and alcohol into the Indian country for the purpose of
trade with the Indians. It is not believed that the superintendent
is ever applied to for a permit for the one-hundredth gallon that
is taken into the Indian country. The whisky is sold to the
Indians in the face of the [Government] agents. Indians are made
drunk, and, of course, behave badly....
PROFIT AND ITS RESULTS.
Not only, however, were the Indians made drunk with the express purpose
of befuddling and swindling them,[80] but in the very commission of this
act, an enormous profit was made on the sale of the whisky. Those who
may be inclined to recoil with horror at the historic contemplation of
this atrocity, will do well to remember that this was simply one
manifestation of the ethics of the trading class--the same class which
formed and ruled government, made and interpreted laws, and constituted
the leading, superior and exclusive groups of high society. Hughes
continued:
I am informed that there is but little doubt, but a clear gain of
more than fifty thousand dollars has been made this year on the
sale of whisky to the Indians on the river Missouri; the _prices
are from $25 to $50 a gallon_. Major Morgan, United States sutler
at Cantonment Leavenworth, says that thousands of gallons of
alcohol has passed that post during the present year, destined for
the Indian country.[81]
These official reports were supplemented by another on the same subject
from William M. Gordon to General William Clark, at that time
Superintendent of Indian Affairs. In his report, Gordon, writing from
St. Louis, pointed out that, "whisky, though not an authorized article,
has been a principal, and I believe a very lucrative one for the last
several years."[82]
What a climax of trading methods, first to debauch the Indians
systematically in order to swindle them, and then make a large revenue
on the rum that enabled the company to do it! Undoubtedly it was by
these means that Astor became possessed of large tracts of land in
Wisconsin and elsewhere in the West. But the methods thus far enumerated
were but the precursors of others. When the Indians were made maudlin
drunk and bargained with for their furs were they paid in money? By no
means. The American Fur Company had another trick in reserve. Astor
employed the cunning expedient of exchanging merchandise for furs. Large
quantities of goods, especially woolens, made by underpaid adult and
child labor in England and America, and representing the sweat and
suffering of the labor of the workers, were regularly shipped by him to
the West. For these goods the Indians were charged one-half again or
more what each article cost after paying all expenses of
transportation.[83] Reporting from St. Louis, Oct. 24, 1831, in a
communication to the Secretary of War, Thomas Forsyth gave a description
of this phase of the American Fur Company's dealings. He said:
In the autumn of every year [when the hunting season began] the
trader carefully avoids giving credit to the Indians on many
costly articles such as silver works, wampum, scarlet cloth, fine
bridles, etc., etc., as also a few woolens, such as blankets,
strouds, etc., unless it be to an Indian whom he knows will pay
all his debts. In that case he will allow the Indian, on credit,
everything he wishes.
Traders always prefer giving credit on gunpowder, flints, lead,
knives, tomahawks, hoes, domestic cottons, etc.; which they do _at
the rate of 300 or 400 per cent_, and if one-fourth of the price
of these articles be paid, he is amply remunerated.[84]
Nor were these the final injustices and infamies heaped upon the
untutored aborigines. It was not enough that they should be pillaged of
their possessions; that the rights guaranteed them by the solemn
treaties of Government should be blown aside like so much waste paper by
the armed force of the American Fur Company; that whole tribes should be
demoralized with rum and then defrauded; that shoddy merchandise, for
which generally no market could be found elsewhere, should be imposed
upon them at such incredibly high prices, that they were bound to be
beggared.[85] These methods were not enough. Never were human beings so
frightfully exploited as these ignorant, unsophisticated savages of the
West. Through the long winters they roamed the forests and the prairies,
and assiduously hunted for furs which eventually were to clothe and
adorn the aristocracy of America, Europe and Asia. When in the spring
they came in with their spoil, they were, with masterly cunning,
artfully made intoxicated and then robbed. Not merely robbed in being
charged ruinous prices for merchandise, but robbed additionally in the
weight of their furs. Forsyth relates that for every dollar in
merchandise that the Astor company exchanged for furs, the company
received $1.25 or $1.50 in fur values, undoubtedly by the trader's low
trick of short weighing.
A LONG RECORD OF VIOLENCE.
In law the Indian was supposed to have certain rights, but Astor's
company not only ignored but flouted them. Now when the Indians
complained, what happened? Did the Government protect them? The
Government, and especially the courts, were quick and generous in
affording the greatest protection and the widest latitude to Astor's
company. But when the Indians resented the robberies and injustices to
which they were subjected beyond bearing, they were murdered. They were
murdered wantonly and in cold blood; and then urgent alarmist
representations would be sent to Washington that the Indians were in a
rebellious state, whereupon troops would be punitively hurried forth to
put them down in slaughter. In turn, goaded by an intense spirit of
revenge, the Indians would resort to primitive force and waylay, rob and
murder the white agents and traders.[86]
From 1815 to 1831 more than 150 traders were robbed and killed by
Indians.[87] Many of these were Astor's men. But how many Indians were
killed by the whites has never been known, nor apparently was there any
solicitude as to whether the number was great or small.
What did Astor pay his men for engaging in this degrading and dangerous
business? Is it not a terrifying commentary on the lengths to which men
are forced to go in quest of a livelihood, and the benumbing effects on
their sensibilities, that Astor should find a host of men ready to
seduce the Indians into a state of drunkenness, cheat and rob them, and
all this only to get robbed and perhaps murdered in turn? For ten or
eleven months in the year Astor's subaltern men toiled arduously through
forest and plain, risking sickness, the dangers of the wilderness and
sudden death. They did not rob because it benefited them; it was what
they were paid to do; and it was likewise expected of them that they
should look upon the imminent chances of death as a part of their
contract.
For all this what was their pay? It was the trifling sum of $130 for the
ten or eleven months. But this was not paid in money. The poor wretches
who gave up their labor, and often their health and lives, for Astor
were themselves robbed, or their heirs, if they had any. Payment was
nearly always made in merchandise, which was sold at exorbitant prices.
Everything that they needed they had to buy at Astor's stores; by the
time that they had bought a year's supplies they not only had nothing
coming to them, but they were often actually in debt to Astor.
But Astor--how did he fare? His profits from the fur trade of the West
were truly stupendous for that period. He, himself, might plead to the
Government that the company was in a decaying state of poverty. These
pleas deceived no one. It was characteristic of his habitual deceit that
he should petition the Government for a duty on foreign furs on the
ground that the company was being competed with in the American markets
by the British fur companies. At this very time Astor held a virtual
monopoly of fur trading in the United States. One need not be surprised
at the grounds of such a plea. Throughout the whole history of the
trading class, this pathetic and absurdly false plea of poverty has
incessantly been used by this class, and used successfully, to get
further concessions and privileges from a Government which reflected,
and represented, its interests. Curiously, enough, however, if a
mendicant used the same plea in begging a mite of alms on the streets,
the law has invariably regarded him as a vagrant to be committed to the
Workhouse.
ASTOR'S ENORMOUS PROFITS.
At about the identical time that John Jacob Astor was persistently
complaining that the company was making no money, his own son and
partner, William B. Astor, was writing from New York on Nov. 25, 1831,
to the Secretary of War, that the company had a capital of about
$1,000,000 and that, "You may, however, estimate our annual returns at
half a million dollars."[88] Not less than $500,000 annual revenues on a
capital of $1,000,000! These were inconceivably large returns for the
time; Thomas J. Dougherty, Indian Agent at Camp Leavenworth, estimated
that from 1815 to 1830 the fur trade on the Missouri and its waters had
yielded returns amounting to $3,330,000 with a clear profit of
$1,650,000. This was unquestionably a considerable underestimate.
It is hardly necessary to say that Astor, as the responsible head and
beneficiary of the American Fur Company, was never prosecuted for the
numerous violations of both penal and civil laws invariably committed
by his direction and for his benefit. With the millions that rolled in,
he was able to command the services of not only the foremost lawyers in
warding off the penalties of law, but in having as his paid retainers
some of the most noted and powerful politicians of the day.[89] Senator
Benton, of Missouri, a leading light in the Democratic party, was not
only his legal representative in the West and fought his cases for him,
but as United States Senator introduced in Congress measures which Astor
practically drafted and the purport of which was to benefit Astor and
Astor alone. Thus was witnessed a notorious violator of the law,
invoking aid of the law to enrich himself still further,--a condition
which need not arouse exceptional criticism, since the whole trading
class in general did precisely the same thing.
FOOTNOTES:
[72] Parton's "Life of John Jacob Astor":28.
[73] "The Old Merchants of New York," 1:287.
[74] The extent of its operations and the rapid slaughter of fur animals
may be gathered by a record of one year's work. In 1793 this company
enriched itself by 106,000 beaver skins, 2,100 bear skins, 1,500 fox
skins, 400 kit fox, 16,000 muskrat, 32,000 martin, 1,800 mink, 6,000
lynx, 6,000 wolverine, 1,600 fisher, 100 raccoon, 1,200 dressed deer,
700 elk, 550 buffalo robes, etc.
[75] Astor was accused by a Government agent of betraying the American
cause at the outbreak of this war. In addition to the American Fur
Company, Astor had other fur companies, one of which was the Southwest
Company. Under date of June 18, 1818, Matthew Irwin, U. S. factor or
agent at Green Bay, Wis., wrote to Thomas L. McKenney, U. S.
Superintendent of Indian Affairs: "It appears that the Government has
been under an impression [that] the Southwest Company, of which Mr. John
Jacob Astor is the head, is strictly an American company, and in
consequence, some privileges in relation to trade have been granted to
that company." Irwin went on to tell how Astor had obtained an order
from Gallatin, U. S. Secretary of the Treasury, allowing him, Astor, to
land furs at Mackinac from the British post at St. Joseph's. Astor's
agent in this transaction was a British subject. "On his way to St.
Joseph's," Irwin continued, "he [Astor's British agent] communicated to
the British at Malden that war had been or would be declared. The
British made corresponding arrangements and landed on the Island of
Mackinac with regulars, Canadians and Indians before the commanding
officer there had notice that war would be declared. The same course was
about to be pursued at Detroit, before the arrival of troops with Gen.
Hull, who, having been on the march there, frustrated it." Irwin
declared that Astor's purpose was to save his furs from capture by the
British, and concluded: "Mr. Astor's agent brought the furs to Mackinac
_in company with the British troops_, and the whole transaction is well
known at Mackinac and Detroit."--U. S. Senate Docs., First Session,
Seventeenth Congress, 1821-22, Vol. I, Doc. No. 60:50-51.
[76] Document No. 90, U. S. Senate, First Session, 22nd Congress, ii:30.
[77] Document No. 58, U. S. Senate Docs. First Session, 19th
Congress:7-8.
[78] Ibid. That the debauching of the Indians was long continuing was
fully evidenced by the numerous communications sent in by Government
representatives. The following is an extract from a letter written on
October 6, 1821, by the U. S. Indian Agent at Green Bay to the
Superintendent of Indian Affairs (or Indian Trade): "Mr. Kinzie, son to
the sub Indian Agent at Chicago, _and agent for the American Fur
Company_, has been detected in selling large quantities of whisky to the
Indians at and near Milwaukee of Lake Michigan."--Senate Docs., First
Session, Seventeenth Congress, 1821-22, Vol. I, Doc. No. 60:54.
[79] Doc. No. 58:10.
[80] Of this fact there can be no doubt. Writing on February 27, 1822,
to Senator Henry Johnson, chairman of the U. S. Senate Committee on
Indian Affairs, Superintendent McKenney said: ".... The Indians, it is
admitted, are good judges of the articles in which they deal, and,
generally when they are permitted to be sober, they can detect attempts
to practise fraud upon them. The traders knowing this (however, few of
the Indians are permitted to trade without a previous preparation in the
way of liquor,) would not be so apt to demand exorbitant prices.... This
may be illustrated by the fact, as reported to this office by Matthew
Irwin, that previous to the establishment of the Green Bay factory
[agency] as much as one dollar and fifty cents had been demanded by the
traders of the Indians, and received, for a brass thimble, and eighteen
dollars for one pound of tobacco!"--U. S. Senate Docs., First Session,
Seventeenth Congress, 1821-22, Vol. I, Document No. 60:40.
[81] Document No. 90, U. S. Senate Docs., First Session, 22nd Congress,
ii:23-24.
[82] Ibid:54.
[83] For a white 3 point blanket which cost $4.00 they were charged $10;
for a beaver trap costing $2.50, the charge was $8; for a rifle costing
$11 they had to pay $30; a brass kettle which Astor could buy at 48
cents a pound, he charged the Indians $30 for; powder cost him 20 cents
a pound; he sold it for $4 a pound; he bought tobacco for 10 cents a
pound and sold it at the rate of five small twists for $6, etc., etc.,
etc.
[84] Document No. 90:72.
[85] Many of the tribes, the Government reports show, not only yielded
up to Astor's company the whole of their furs, but were deeply in debt
to the company. In 1829 the Winnebagoes, Sacs and Foxes owed Farnham &
Davenport, agents for the American Fur Company among those tribes,
$40,000; by 1831 the debts had risen to $50,000 or $60,000. The Pawnees
owed fully as much, and the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Sioux and other
tribes were heavily in debt.--Doc. No. 90:72.
[86] Forsyth admits that in practically all of these murders the whites
were to blame.--Doc. No. 90:76.
[87] Doc. No. 90.--This is but a partial list. The full list of the
murdered whites the Government was unable to get.
[88] Document No. 90:77.
[89] Some of the original ledgers of the American Fur Company were put
on exhibition at Anderson's auction rooms in New York city in March,
1909. One entry showed that $35,000 had been paid to Lewis Cass for
services not stated. Doubtless, Astor had the best of reasons for not
explaining that payment; Cass was, or had been, the Governor of Michigan
Territory, and he became the identical Secretary of War to whom so many
complaints of the crimes of Astor's American Fur Company were made.
The author personally inspected these ledgers. The following are some
extracts from a news account in the New York "Times," issue of March 7,
1909, of the exhibition of the ledgers:
"They cover the business of the Northern Department from 1817 to 1835,
and consist of six folio volumes of about 1,000 pages each, in two stout
traveling cases, fitted with compartments, lock and key. It is said that
these books were missing for nearly seventy-five years, and recently
escaped destruction by the merest accident.
"The first entry is April 1, 1817. There are two columns, one for
British and the other for American money. An entry, May 3, 1817, shows
that Lewis Cass, then Governor of Michigan Territory and afterward
Democratic candidate for the Presidency against Gen. Zachary Taylor, the
successful Whig candidate, took about $35,000 of the Astor money from
Montreal to Detroit, in consideration of something which is not set
down."