PROFIT AND ITS RESULTS.
Not only, however, were the Indians made drunk with the express purpose of befuddling and swindling them,[80] but in the very commission of this act, an enormous profit was made on the sale of the whisky. Those who may be inclined to recoil with horror at the historic contemplation of this atrocity, will do well to remember that this was simply one manifestation of the ethics of the trading class—the same class which formed and ruled government, made and interpreted laws, and constituted the leading, superior and exclusive groups of high society. Hughes continued:
I am informed that there is but little doubt, but a clear gain of more than fifty thousand dollars has been made this year on the sale of whisky to the Indians on the river Missouri; the prices are from $25 to $50 a gallon. Major Morgan, United States sutler at Cantonment Leavenworth, says that thousands of gallons of alcohol has passed that post during the present year, destined for the Indian country.[81]
These official reports were supplemented by another on the same subject from William M. Gordon to General William Clark, at that time Superintendent of Indian Affairs. In his report, Gordon, writing from St. Louis, pointed out that, "whisky, though not an authorized article, has been a principal, and I believe a very lucrative one for the last several years."[82]
What a climax of trading methods, first to debauch the Indians systematically in order to swindle them, and then make a large revenue on the rum that enabled the company to do it! Undoubtedly it was by these means that Astor became possessed of large tracts of land in Wisconsin and elsewhere in the West. But the methods thus far enumerated were but the precursors of others. When the Indians were made maudlin drunk and bargained with for their furs were they paid in money? By no means. The American Fur Company had another trick in reserve. Astor employed the cunning expedient of exchanging merchandise for furs. Large quantities of goods, especially woolens, made by underpaid adult and child labor in England and America, and representing the sweat and suffering of the labor of the workers, were regularly shipped by him to the West. For these goods the Indians were charged one-half again or more what each article cost after paying all expenses of transportation.[83] Reporting from St. Louis, Oct. 24, 1831, in a communication to the Secretary of War, Thomas Forsyth gave a description of this phase of the American Fur Company's dealings. He said:
In the autumn of every year [when the hunting season began] the trader carefully avoids giving credit to the Indians on many costly articles such as silver works, wampum, scarlet cloth, fine bridles, etc., etc., as also a few woolens, such as blankets, strouds, etc., unless it be to an Indian whom he knows will pay all his debts. In that case he will allow the Indian, on credit, everything he wishes.
Traders always prefer giving credit on gunpowder, flints, lead, knives, tomahawks, hoes, domestic cottons, etc.; which they do at the rate of 300 or 400 per cent, and if one-fourth of the price of these articles be paid, he is amply remunerated.[84]
Nor were these the final injustices and infamies heaped upon the untutored aborigines. It was not enough that they should be pillaged of their possessions; that the rights guaranteed them by the solemn treaties of Government should be blown aside like so much waste paper by the armed force of the American Fur Company; that whole tribes should be demoralized with rum and then defrauded; that shoddy merchandise, for which generally no market could be found elsewhere, should be imposed upon them at such incredibly high prices, that they were bound to be beggared.[85] These methods were not enough. Never were human beings so frightfully exploited as these ignorant, unsophisticated savages of the West. Through the long winters they roamed the forests and the prairies, and assiduously hunted for furs which eventually were to clothe and adorn the aristocracy of America, Europe and Asia. When in the spring they came in with their spoil, they were, with masterly cunning, artfully made intoxicated and then robbed. Not merely robbed in being charged ruinous prices for merchandise, but robbed additionally in the weight of their furs. Forsyth relates that for every dollar in merchandise that the Astor company exchanged for furs, the company received $1.25 or $1.50 in fur values, undoubtedly by the trader's low trick of short weighing.