Beyond the Old Frontier: Adventures of Indian-Fighters, Hunters, and Fur-Traders

by George Bird Grinnell

Though the fort was full of idle men, nevertheless time did not hang heavy on their hands. There were amusements of various sorts, hunting parties, games, and not infrequent dances, in which the moccasined trappers, in their fringed, beaded, or porcupine-quilled buckskin garments swung merry-faced, laughing Indian women in the rough but hearty dances of the frontier. To the employees of the fort liquor was ever dealt out with a sparing hand, and there is no memory of any trouble among the people who belonged at the post. It was a contented and cheerful family that dwelt within these four adobe walls.

Perhaps the most important persons at the fort, after the directing head who governed the whole organization, were the traders, who dealt out goods to the Indians in the post, receiving their furs in payment, and who were sent off to distant camps with loads of trade goods, to gather from them the robes which they had prepared, or to buy horses and mules.

Of these traders there were seven or eight, of whom the following are remembered: Murray, an Irishman known to the Indians as Pau-ē-sīh´, Flat Nose; Fisher, an American, Nō-mā-nī´, Fish; Hatcher, a Kentuckian, Hē-hīm´nī-hō-nāh´, Freckled Hand; Thomas Boggs, a Missourian, Wŏhk´ po-hŭm´, White Horse; John Smith, a Missourian, Pŏ-ō-om´mats, Gray Blanket; Kit Carson, a Kentuckian, Vī-hiu-nĭs´, Little Chief, and Charles Davis, a Missourian, Ho-nīh´, Wolf.

L. Maxwell, Wō-wĭhph´ pai-ī-sīh´, Big Nostrils, was the superintendent or foreman at the fort, but had nothing to do with the trading. He looked after the herds and laborers and fort matters in general.

Murray, who was a good hunter and trapper, and a brave man, was one of the two more important men among the traders. He usually remained at the fort, and was almost always left in charge when the train went to the States. Hatcher, however, was probably the best trader, and the most valued of the seven.

Each of these traders had especial friendly relations with some particular tribe of Indians, and each was naturally sent off to the tribe that he knew best. Besides this, often when villages of Indians came and camped somewhere near the post, the chiefs would request that a particular man be sent to their village to trade. Sometimes to a very large village two or three traders would be sent, the work being more than one man could handle in a short period of time.

When it was determined that a trader should go out, he and the chief clerk talked over the trip. The trader enumerated the goods required, and these were laid out, charged to him, and then packed for transportation to the camp. If the journey were over level prairie, this transportation was by wagon, but if over rough country pack-mules were used. If on arrival at the camp the trader found that the trade was going to be large, and that he required more goods, he sent back his wagon, or some of his animals, to the post for additional supplies. When he returned from his trip and turned in his robes, he was credited with the goods that he had received. The trade for robes ended in the spring, and during the summer the traders often went to different villages to barter for horses and mules.

A certain proportion of the trade with the Indians was for spirits, but this proportion was small. The Indians demanded liquor, and though Colonel Bent was strongly opposed to giving it to them, he knew very well that unless he did something toward satisfying their demands, whiskey traders from Santa Fé or Taos might come into the territory and gratify the Indians’ longing for drink, and at the same time take away the trade from the fort. Two or three times a year, therefore, after many visits from the chiefs, asking for liquor, promising to take charge of it and see to its distribution, and to be responsible that payment should be made for it, a lot of liquor would be sent out to a camp, packed in kegs of varying sizes. A trader coming into the villages would deposit his load in the lodge of the chief. The Indians wishing to trade would come to the lodge and offer what they had to trade, and each would be assigned a keg of a certain size, sufficient to pay for the robes, horses, or mules that he sold. Each Indian then tied a piece of cloth or a string to his keg, so as to mark it as his, and it remained in the chief’s lodge, unopened for the present. When the trade had been completed, the trader left the village, and not until he had gone some distance did the chief permit the Indians to take their kegs of liquor. Sometimes while the traders were in a camp trading ordinary goods, a party of men from Taos or Santa Fé would come into the camp with whiskey, and then at once there would be an end of all legitimate business until the Indians had become intoxicated, drunk all the spirits, and become sober again. No trader ever wished to have whiskey in the camp where he was working.

We commonly think of the trade at one of these old forts as being wholly for furs, but at Bent’s Fort this was not the case. In later times furs—that is to say, buffalo robes—were indeed a chief article of trade, and were carried back to the States to be sold there; but a great trade also went on in horses and mules, of which the Indians possessed great numbers, and of which they were always getting more. These horses and mules were taken back to the settlements and sold there, but they were also sold to any one who would buy them. The cavalyard was a part of every train which returned to the States, the animals being herded by Mexicans and being in charge of a trader, who disposed of them when they reached the settlements.

The Indians frequently paid for their goods in horses and mules, but this was not the only source from which horses came. About 1845 William Bent sent his brother, George Bent, with Tom Boggs and Hatcher, down into Mexico to trade for horses and mules. They brought back great herds, and with them a celebrated rider known at the fort, and in later years to all the Cheyennes, as One-eyed Juan, whose sole occupation was breaking horses, a vocation which he followed until he was too old to get into the saddle. It was said of him that when he wished to show off he would put a saddle on a wild horse, and placing a Mexican dollar in each one of the huge wooden stirrups, would mount the horse, and no matter what the horse might do, these dollars were always found under the soles of the rider’s feet when the animal stopped bucking.