The Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet in California, Sonora, and Western Texas

by Frederick Marryat

It was, I believe, in the spring of 1821, that Chambers, with the other prisoners, returned to the United States, and shortly afterwards a treaty with the States rendered the trade lawful. Their accounts induced one Captain Glenn, of Cincinnati, to join them in a commercial expedition, and another caravan, twenty men strong, started again for Santa Fé. They sought a shorter road, to fall in with the Arkansas river, but their enterprise failed; for, instead of ascending the stream of the Canadian fork, it appears that they only coasted the great river to its intersection by the Missouri road.

There is not a drop of water in this horrible region, which extends even to the Cimaron river, and in this desert they had to suffer all the pangs of thirst. They were reduced to the necessity of killing their dogs and bleeding their mules to moisten their parched lips. None of them perished; but, quite dispirited, they changed their direction and turned back to the nearest point of the river Arkansas, where they were at least certain to find abundance of water. By this time their beasts of burden were so tired and broken down that they had become of no use. They were therefore obliged to conceal their goods, and arrived without any more trouble at Santa Fé, when, procuring other mules, they returned to their cachette.

Many readers are probably unaware of the process employed by the traders to conceal their cargo, their arms, and even their provisions. It is nothing more than a large excavation In the earth, in the shape of a jar, in which the objects are stored; the bottom of the cachette having been first covered with wood and canvas, so as to prevent anything being spoiled by the damp. The important science of cachaye (Canadian expression) consists in leaving no trace which might betray it to the Indians; to prevent this, the earth taken from the excavation is put into blankets and carried to a great distance.

The place generally selected for a cachette is a swell in the prairie, sufficiently elevated to be protected from any kind of inundation, and the arrangement is so excellent, that it is very seldom that the traders lose anything in their cachette, either by the Indians, the changes of the climate, or the natural dampness of the earth.

In the spring of 1820, a company from Franklin, in the west of Missouri, had already proceeded to Santa Fé, with twelve mules loaded with goods. They crossed prairies where no white man had ever penetrated, having no guides but the stars of Heaven, the morning breeze from the mountains, and perhaps a pocket compass. Daily they had to pass through hostile nations; but spite of many other difficulties, such as ignorance of the passes and want of water, they arrived at Santa Fé.

The adventurers returned to Missouri during the fall; their profit had been immense, although the capital they had employed had been very small. Their favourable reports produced a deep sensation, and in the spring of the next year, Colonel Cooper and some associates, to the number of twenty-two, started with fourteen mules well loaded. This time the trip was a prompt and a fortunate one; and the merchants of St. Louis getting bolder and bolder, formed, in 1822, a caravan of seventy men, who carried with them goods to the amount of forty thousand dollars.

Thus began the Santa Fé trade, which assumed a more regular character. Companies started in the spring to return in the fall, with incredible benefits, and the trade increasing, the merchants reduced the number of their guards, till, eventually, repeated attacks from the savages obliged them to unite together, in order to travel with safety.

At first the Indians appeared disposed to let them pass without any kind of interruption; but during the summer of 1826 they began to steal the mules and the horses of the travellers; yet they killed nobody till 1828. Then a little caravan, returning from Santa Fé, followed the stream of the north fork of the Canadian river. Two of the traders, having preceded the company in search of game, fell asleep on the edge of a brook. These were espied by a band of Indians, who surprised them, seized their rifles, took their scalps and retired before the caravan had reached the brook, which had been agreed upon as the place of rendezvous. When the traders arrived, one of the victims still breathed. They carried him to the Cimaron, where he expired, and was buried according to the prairie fashion.

Scarcely had the ceremony been terminated, when upon a neighbouring hill appeared four Indians, apparently ignorant of what had happened. The exasperated merchants invited them into their camp, and murdered all except one, who, although wounded, succeeded in making his escape.

This cruel retaliation brought down heavy punishment. Indeed from that period the Indians vowed an eternal war--a war to the knife, "in the forests and the prairies, in the middle of rivers and lakes, and even among the mountains covered with eternal snows."