The Spring hunt opened on the Green river, and continuing there a while,
the party went to the Big Snake; and after trapping with extraordinary
success for a few weeks, returned to the Summer rendezvous, held again
upon the Green River. Meantime Carson had recovered from his wound.
An unusually large number of trappers and traders, with great numbers
from the neighboring Indian tribes, assembled at this rendezvous,
made up of Canadians, Frenchmen, Dutchmen, Spaniards, and many a
backwoodsman, who had lived upon the borders, perhaps, for three
generations, removing when a neighbor came within ten miles, because
_near_ neighbors were a nuisance to him. Let us see the parties as they
come in, the leader, or the one to whom fitness accords this position,
having selected the spot for the camp, so remote from every other, as to
have plenty of grass about it for the animals of the party. Perhaps a
tent is spread, at least, everything is put in proper order, according
to the notions and the tastes of the men who make up the party; for the
camp is the home of its members, and here they will receive visitors,
and exchange courtesies.
The party or parties that have made the special arrangements for the
rendezvous--traders with a full supply of goods--have spread a large
tent in a central spot of the general encampment, where the whole
company, save those detained at each camp in charge of the animals
belonging to it, will assemble, at certain hours each day, the time upon
which the sales are announced to take place, and the exchanges commence.
The several parties arriving first, have been obliged to wait until all
expected for the season have arrived, because there is a feeling of
honor as well as a care for competition, that compels the custom. The
traders take furs or money for their goods, which bring prices that seem
fabulous to those unaccustomed to the sight or stories of mountain life.
The charge, of course, is made upon the ground of the expense and risk
of bringing goods eight hundred and a thousand miles into the
wilderness, from the nearest points in western Missouri and St. Louis.
Irving opens his Astoria with the following: "Two leading objects of
commercial gain, have given birth to wide daring and enterprise in the
early history of the Americas; the precious metals of the South and the
rich peltries of the North." When he wrote this, it was true of the
localities he named--the gold was not yet an attraction, except in the
south, and only the British Fur Company in Canada had become an object
of history in this branch of trade. He says, "While the fiery and
magnificent Spaniard, influenced 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 Frenchman, and the cool and
calculating Briton, have pursued the less splendid, but no less
lucrative, traffic in furs, amidst the hyper-borean regions of the
Canadas, until they advanced even within the Artic 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, that gave early sustenance and vitality to the great
Canadian provinces.
"Being destitute of the precious metals, they were for a long time
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 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 dependants, who
shared in the toils and perils of the chase, and at the same time, made
themselves acquainted with the best hunting grounds, and with the remote
tribes whom they encouraged to bring 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 the 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.
"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, the merchants were sure
to clear two hundred per cent.
"Their wants and caprices being supplied, they would take leave, strike
their tents, launch their canoes, and ply their way up the Ottawa to
the lakes."
Later, the French traders, _couriers des bois_, penetrated the remote
forests, carrying such goods as the Indians required, and held
rendezvous among them, on a smaller scale, but similar to the one Carson
had attended, so far as the Indian trade was concerned. But the Yankee
element of character preponderated among the traders and trappers from
the States; besides the greater difficulty and expense necessarily
incurred to reach the hunting grounds by land than in canoe, called into
the work only men of energy and higher skill than the employees, mostly
French, in the service of the Hudson Bay Fur Company, and a score of
smaller parties, each owning no authority outside itself, adopted the
plan of these summer encampments, during the season when the fur of the
beaver and the otter was not good, as an arrangement for mutual
convenience; and the Indians of this more southern section availed
themselves of the occasion, for their own pleasure and profit, and to
the advantage and satisfaction of the traders, whose prices ruled high
in proportion to the difficulty of transit, as well as the monopoly in
their hands of the articles deemed necessary to the trapper's dress,
culinary establishment, and outfit. These consisted of a woolen shirt, a
sash or belt, and with some stockings, coffee, and black pepper, and
salt, unless he could supply himself from the licks the buffalo visits;
with tin kettle, and cup, and frying pan; the accoutrements of the
horse, saddle and packsaddle, bridle, spurs, and horse-shoes; with
material for bait; and last, but not least, tobacco, which if he did not
use, he carried to give to the Indians--made up not only the
necessaries, but the luxuries which the Indian and the white man
indulged in, and for which, at such times, they paid their money or
their furs.
Perhaps the trapper took an Indian wife, and then she must be made fine
with dress, denoting the dignity of her position as wife of a white man,
and presents must be given to the friends of his bride. This was usually
an expensive luxury, but indulged in most frequently by the French and
Canadian trappers, many of whom are now living quietly upon their farms
in Oregon and California, and the numerous valleys of the West. Indeed
we might give the names of many a mountain ranger, and pioneer of note,
first a trapper, who still lives surrounded by his Indian wife and
their children, and finds himself thus connected with this people,
having their utmost confidence, chosen the chief of his tribe, and able
to care for them as no one not in such association could.
At almost any point upon Green River the grass upon the bottom lands is
sufficient for a night's encampment for a small party; but at the place
selected for the rendezvous, in the space of two or three miles upon
either side of the river, the bottom spreads out in a broad prairie, and
the luxuriant growth of grass, with the country open all about it, made
the spot desirable for a large encampment.