Geographically, Pike's expedition added little to American knowledge of the Wilderness, yet it served to make clearer the conditions existing between the Missouri and the foot of the mountains. Politically it emphasised the claims of the United States in that direction, but much remained to be adjusted before anything definite could come out of the chaos.
CHAPTER XI
A Race for Life—Colter Wins—The Missouri Fur Company—The American Fur Company—The Pacific Fur Company—A Great Project Foredoomed—Disaster at the Columbia Bar—The Destruction of the Tonquin—Hunt Starts for the Columbia Overland—The Voyageurs Baulked—The Caldron Linn—Dog Steak at a Premium—Misery and Danger—Success at Last.
The fine profits obtained by the British fur companies, combined with the information of the enormous numbers of beaver existing in the Rocky Mountains, brought back by Lewis and Clark and the trappers who had followed at their heels, gave a sudden impetus to the movement of Americans into the new Louisiana acquisition. The expedition of Pike had marked the trail to Santa Fé and indicated possibilities of profitable overland trade with New Mexico when the Spanish Government should modify its restrictions. Notwithstanding, therefore, that nobody knew just where Spanish territory began and where that of the United States ended, American hunters and trappers crossed into the Wilderness by scores. Even the sparsely settled districts of the Ohio valley proved irksome to them, and in the lead was the veteran Daniel Boone, who with fourscore years upon him turned his back upon the land he had done so much to win, and settled at La Charette, the French village beyond St. Louis.
And St. Louis, half Spanish, half French, had now become part American. Being the point of departure for all parts of the Wilderness, even the region of the upper Missouri, to which attention was now mainly directed, it began every day to increase in size and importance. Maxent, La Clede, and Company were operating from this point before the cession to the United States, and so was the artful and slippery Manuel Lisa, who was believed to have no liking for Americans, or for any other competitors, and who, justly or unjustly, was looked upon with suspicion by every trapper who ventured up the river. Lisa annually sent trading parties in that direction, and in 1807 he made the journey himself. Perhaps he was no worse than the other traders, every one of whom was striving to thwart the success of rivals. He was about thirty-five years old, and in cunning and business intrigue a match for the keenest. In these respects he was the opposite of another noted character of the time, Auguste Choteau, a French creole, whose integrity and agreeable personality made him as much liked as Lisa was mistrusted. On Lisa's trip up the river he seems to have had with him the trapper Potts, who had been one of the Lewis and Clark party; and later he employed another of that party, Colter, who had obtained his release from Lewis on the return trip when they met Dixon and Hancock.
Canyon of the Yellowstone from Grand View.