They Did Not Long Enjoy
Unmolested The Sway Which They Had Somewhat Surreptitiously
Attained.
A fierce competition ensued between them and their old
rivals, the Hudson's Bay Company; which was carried on at great
cost and sacrifice, and occasionally with the loss of life.
It
ended in the ruin of most of the partners of the Northwest
Company; and the merging of the relics of that establishment, in
1821, in the rival association. From that time, the Hudson's Bay
Company enjoyed a monopoly of the Indian trade from the coast of
the Pacific to the Rocky Mountains, and for a considerable extent
north and south. They removed their emporium from Astoria to Fort
Vancouver, a strong post on the left bank of the Columbia River,
about sixty miles from its mouth; whence they furnished their
interior posts, and sent forth their brigades of trappers.
The Rocky Mountains formed a vast barrier between them and the
United States, and their stern and awful defiles, their rugged
valleys, and the great western plains watered by their rivers,
remained almost a terra incognita to the American trapper. The
difficulties experienced in 1808, by Mr. Henry of the Missouri
Company, the first American who trapped upon the head-waters of
the Columbia; and the frightful hardships sustained by Wilson P.
Hunt, Ramsay Crooks, Robert Stuart, and other intrepid Astorians,
in their ill-fated expeditions across the mountains, appeared for
a time to check all further enterprise in that direction. The
American traders contented themselves with following up the head
branches of the Missouri, the Yellowstone, and other rivers and
streams on the Atlantic side of the mountains, but forbore to
attempt those great snow-crowned sierras.
One of the first to revive these tramontane expeditions was
General Ashley, of Missouri, a man whose courage and achievements
in the prosecution of his enterprises have rendered him famous in
the Far West. In conjunction with Mr. Henry, already mentioned,
he established a post on the banks of the Yellowstone River in
1822, and in the following year pushed a resolute band of
trappers across the mountains to the banks of the Green River or
Colorado of the West, often known by the Indian name of the
Seeds-ke-dee Agie. This attempt was followed up and sustained by
others, until in 1825 a footing was secured, and a complete
system of trapping organized beyond the mountains.
It is difficult to do justice to the courage, fortitude, and
perseverance of the pioneers of the fur trade, who conducted
these early expeditions, and first broke their way through a
wilderness where everything was calculated to deter and dismay
them. They had to traverse the most dreary and desolate
mountains, and barren and trackless wastes, uninhabited by man,
or occasionally infested by predatory and cruel savages. They
knew nothing of the country beyond the verge of their horizon,
and had to gather information as they wandered. They beheld
volcanic plains stretching around them, and ranges of mountains
piled up to the clouds, and glistening with eternal frost: but
knew nothing of their defiles, nor how they were to be penetrated
or traversed. They launched themselves in frail canoes on rivers,
without knowing whither their swift currents would carry them, or
what rocks and shoals and rapids they might encounter in their
course. They had to be continually on the alert, too, against the
mountain tribes, who beset every defile, laid ambuscades in their
path, or attacked them in their night encampments; so that, of
the hardy bands of trappers that first entered into these
regions, three-fifths are said to have fallen by the hands of
savage foes.
In this wild and warlike school a number of leaders have sprung
up, originally in the employ, subsequently partners of Ashley;
among these we may mention Smith, Fitzpatrick, Bridger, Robert
Campbell, and William Sublette; whose adventures and exploits
partake of the wildest spirit of romance. The association
commenced by General Ashley underwent various modifications. That
gentleman having acquired sufficient fortune, sold out his
interest and retired; and the leading spirit that succeeded him
was Captain William Sublette; a man worthy of note, as his name
has become renowned in frontier story. He is a native of
Kentucky, and of game descent; his maternal grandfather, Colonel
Wheatley, a companion of Boon, having been one of the pioneers of
the West, celebrated in Indian warfare, and killed in one of the
contests of the "Bloody Ground." We shall frequently have
occasion to speak of this Sublette, and always to the credit of
his game qualities. In 1830, the association took the name of the
Rocky Mountain Fur Company, of which Captain Sublette and Robert
Campbell were prominent members.
In the meantime, the success of this company attracted the
attention and excited the emulation of the American Fur Company,
and brought them once more into the field of their ancient
enterprise. Mr. Astor, the founder of the association, had
retired from busy life, and the concerns of the company were ably
managed by Mr. Ramsay Crooks, of Snake River renown, who still
officiates as its president. A competition immediately ensued
between the two companies for the trade with the mountain tribes
and the trapping of the head-waters of the Columbia and the other
great tributaries of the Pacific. Beside the regular operations
of these formidable rivals, there have been from time to time
desultory enterprises, or rather experiments, of minor
associations, or of adventurous individuals beside roving bands
of independent trappers, who either hunt for themselves, or
engage for a single season, in the service of one or other of the
main companies.
The consequence is that the Rocky Mountains and the ulterior
regions, from the Russian possessions in the north down to the
Spanish settlements of California, have been traversed and
ransacked in every direction by bands of hunters and Indian
traders; so that there is scarcely a mountain pass, or defile,
that is not known and threaded in their restless migrations, nor
a nameless stream that is not haunted by the lonely trapper.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 3 of 117
Words from 2053 to 3064
of 118673
