Is It Necessary To Know Much Of
Human Nature To Know How These Men Treated The Indians?
The trappers not
only began the lucrative fur trade of the West, that laid the foundation
for several vast
American fortunes, but they also laid the foundation for a
series of Indian wars that have cost the United States more lives and
treasure than all the furs ever gathered on earth were worth. And not only
did they take the furs from the animals they trapped. The agents of the Fur
Companies (whether British or American) took them from the Indians. Read
Jim Beckwourth's accounts of how he traded with the Indians, and listen to
his own comments upon his actions. As Dellenbaugh vividly says: "Roughshod
the trapper broke the wilderness, fathomed its secret places, traversed its
trails and passes, marking them with his own blood and more vividly with
that of the natives."
The Ashley Fur Camp Is Established. Early in the last century, the trappers
were operating on the head waters of the Colorado River. Green River Valley
was discovered, and in 1822 one of the most brilliant men of the West of
that period, General William Henry Ashley (born in Virginia in 1778, went
to Missouri in 1802, and in 1820 was its first governor), went into the fur
trade with Andrew Henry, an expert trapper. Two years later, with a band of
such men as Henry, Ashley established a camp in Green River Valley, and,
with his men, set out on expeditions for furs and pelts.
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