On the Yuma Desert. A Dying Horse.
Photograph by Delancy Gill.
At such a place the trapper, who had led for a whole year his lonely life in the mountains, ran riot for a brief time, as a sailor will after a long voyage; and then he vanished again into the wilds.
Richard Campbell in 1827, with thirty-five men and a pack train, travelled from Santa Fé to San Diego by way of Zuñi, and this part of the continent at last began to be understood. Intercourse between St. Louis and Santa Fé was gradually growing in permanence and importance. Although McKnight, Chambers, Baird, and others had ventured to Santa Fé to trade as early as 1812, the conditions were unfavourable. They were seized as spies and thrown into jail at Chihuahua, where they remained for nine years. Their goods were confiscated. When Iturbide finally succeeded, they were liberated. Glenn and Fowler met them at Taos at the time they arrived.
William Becknell went out in 1821 to trade with the Comanches, but falling in with some Mexican rangers, they persuaded him to go to Santa Fé, where he sold out at prices which netted splendid profits.
In 1822, a man named Cooper with his sons also made the traverse of the plains with a party of about fifteen, arriving at Taos with $5000 worth of goods; and Becknell a month later with thirty men came again with another $5000 worth. He took a more direct route than had been followed before, and his party had a fearful time, nearly dying of thirst in the barren dry region along the Cimarron, a river they were quite near and did not know it. At last when they were on the point of expiring, and some had actually cut off their mules' ears to drink the blood that would flow, they discovered a buffalo fresh from the river bank, its sides distended with water. It was instantly killed and the water it contained saved the party,—a new use for the animal.
This was the real beginning of the famous Santa Fé Trail by which the great annual caravans found their way back and forth between Franklin, on the Missouri, 150 miles west of St. Louis, and the New Mexican capital. Independence finally became the eastern terminal. Gregg has written an admirable account of the Trail, and all who read it will acknowledge their indebtedness for the accuracy, interest, and general excellence of this contribution to Southwestern history.
In 1824, an effort was made to use waggons. A party which had twenty-five wheeled vehicles besides pack-animals, transporting all together about $30,000 worth of merchandise, started and arrived successfully. By government order J. C. Brown then, 1825-27, with chain and compass surveyed the road from Fort Osage to Taos. The natives gave little trouble in the early days of the trail, and Gregg says the great hostility which afterwards developed was partly due to the brutality of the whites in killing natives, whether they had done wrong or not. Instead of mules, oxen were later largely employed. As far as Council Grove the traders usually travelled in detached parties, but there the caravan was made up with some attempt at military form. A captain was always elected, but he had little real control. Gregg crossed in 1831 with a caravan which had nearly one hundred waggons, drawn by mules and oxen in about equal proportions. The value of the goods was $200,000. The party had two cannon, a four- and a six-pounder, for cannon were considered highly desirable for this work at that time. There were two hundred men organized in four divisions. A constant guard was set and all precautions taken to prevent surprise. In Gregg's caravan were several Spanish women who had, with their family, been banished in 1829. The ban having been removed, they were now returning home. They appear to have been the first European women ever to cross the Wilderness from this direction.
The caravans, so far as possible, always proceeded with order and regularity, and it is an illuminating fact that all parties in the Wilderness which had such organisation and systematic movement met with very little trouble. Ashley was another example of this. Everything with him was admirably systematised. Each man knew exactly what he had to do as to the horses and everything else. At night the animals were tethered with a strong rope, attached to a stake two feet long, expressly made for this and fortified with an iron band at the top and an iron point. His party was divided into three or four sections with his most confidential men in command, and the sections were subdivided into messes under reliable men. When they went into camp, the position of each mess was assigned, and they arranged their baggage, saddles, etc., as a breastwork in case of attack in the night. The stock were watered and turned over to the horse guard who kept them on good grass nearby till sunset, when each man brought in the horses under his care, put on a stronger halter, set his stakes, and otherwise prepared the animals for a comfortable night. Guard was set regularly, of course, and in the early morning, if in dangerous country, two men mounted and scouted the neighbourhood before any others were permitted to leave the breastworks. On the march, scouts were constantly thrown ahead, on the sides, and to the rear. No enemy could surprise Ashley's parties, and they were also enabled to cover ground rapidly.