The Sioux, By Their Intercourse With
The British Traders, Had Acquired The Use Of Firearms, Which Had
Given Them Vast Superiority Over Other Tribes Higher Up The
Missouri.
They had made themselves also, in a manner, factors for
the upper tribes, supplying them at second hand, and at greatly
advanced prices, with goods derived from the white men.
The
Sioux, therefore, saw with jealousy the American traders pushing
their way up the Missouri; foreseeing that the upper tribes would
thus be relieved from all dependence on them for supplies; nay,
what was worse, would be furnished with fire-arms, and elevated
into formidable rivals.
We have already alluded to a case in which Mr. Crooks and Mr.
M'Lellan had been interrupted in a trading voyage by these
ruffians of the river, and, as it is in some degree connected
with circumstances hereafter to be related, we shall specify it
more particularly.
About two years before the time of which we are treating, Crooks
and M'Lellan were ascending the river in boats with a party of
about forty men, bound on one of their trading expeditions to the
upper tribes. In one of the bends of the river, where the channel
made a deep curve under impending banks, they suddenly heard
yells and shouts above them, and beheld the cliffs overhead
covered with armed savages. It was a band of Sioux warriors,
upwards of six hundred strong. They brandished their weapons in a
menacing manner, and ordered the boats to turn back and land
lower down the river.
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