It is told of one old Canadian trapper, who had received as much as fifteen thousand dollars for beaver during his life in the mountains, extending over twenty years, that each season he had resolved in his mind to go back to Canada, and with this object in view always converted his furs into cash; but a fortnight at the rendezvous always "cleaned him out," and at the end of the twenty years he had not even enough credit to get a plug of tobacco.
Trading with the Indians in the primitive days of the border was just what the word signifies in its radical interpretation—a system of barter exclusively. No money was used in the transaction, as it was long afterward before the savages began to learn something of the value of currency from their connection with the sutler's and agency stores established on reservations and at military posts on the plains and in the mountains. In the early days, if an Indian by any chance happened to get possession of a piece of money (only gold or silver was recognized as a medium of exchange in the remote West), he would immediately fashion it into some kind of an ornament with which to adorn his person. Some tribes, however, did indulge in a sort of currency, worthless except among themselves. This consisted of rare shells, such as the Oligachuck, so called, of the Pacific coast nations, used by them within my own recollection, as late as 1858.
The poor Indian, as might have been expected, was generally outrageously swindled; in fact, I am inclined to believe, always. I never was present on an occasion when he was not.
The savage's idea of values was very crude until the government, in attempting to civilize and make a gentleman of him, has transformed him into a bewildered child. Very soon after his connection with the white trader, he learned that a gun was more valuable than a knife; but of their relative cost to manufacture he had no idea. For these reasons, obviously, he was always at the mercy of the unscrupulous trader who came to his village, or met him at the rendezvous to barter for his furs. I know that the price of every article he desired was fixed by the trader, and never by the Indian, consequently he rarely got the best of the bargain.
Uncle John Smith, Kit Carson, L. B. Maxwell, Uncle Dick Wooton, and a host of other well-known Indian traders, long since dead, have often told me that the first thing they did on entering a village with a pack-load of trinkets to barter, in the earlier days before the whites had encroached to any great extent, was to arrange a schedule of prices. They would gather a large number of sticks, each one representing an article they had brought. With these crude symbols the Indian made himself familiar in a little while, and when this preliminary arrangement had been completed, the trading began. The Indian, for instance, would place a buffalo-robe on the ground; then the trader commenced to lay down a number of the sticks, representing what he was willing to give for the robe. The Indian revolved the transaction in his mind until he thought he was getting a fair equivalent according to his ideas, then the bargain was made. It was claimed by these old traders, when they related this to me, that the savage generally was not satisfied, always insisting upon having more sticks placed on the pile. I suspect, however, that the trader was ever prepared for this, and never gave more than he originally intended. The price of that initial robe having been determined on, it governed the price of all the rest for the whole trade, regardless of size or fineness, for that day. What was traded for was then placed by the Indian on one side of the lodge, and the trader put what he was to give on the other. After prices had been agreed upon, business went on very rapidly, and many thousand dollars' worth of valuable furs were soon collected by the successful trader, which he shipped to St. Louis and converted into gold.
In a few years, relatively, the Indian began to appreciate the value of our medium of exchange and the power it gave him to secure at the stores in the widely scattered hamlets and at the military posts on the plains, those things he coveted, at a fairer equivalent than in the uncertain and complicated method of direct barter. It was not very long after the advent of the overland coaches on the Santa Fe Trail, that our currency, even the greenbacks, had assumed a value to the savage, which he at least partially understood. Whenever the Indians successfully raided the stages the mail sacks were no longer torn to pieces or thrown aside as worthless, but every letter was carefully scrutinized for possible bills.
I well remember, when the small copper cent, with its spread eagle upon it, was first issued, about the year 1857, how the soldiers of a frontier garrison where I was stationed at the time palmed them off upon the simple savages as two dollar and a half gold pieces, which they resembled as long as they retained their brightness, and with which the Indians were familiar, as many were received by the troops from the paymaster every two months, the savages receiving them in turn for horses and other things purchased of them by the soldiers.
I have known of Indians who gave nuggets of gold for common calico shirts costing two dollars in that region and seventy-five cents in the States, while the lump of precious metal was worth, perhaps, five or seven dollars. As late as twenty-eight years ago, I have traded for beautifully smoke-tanned and porcupine-embroidered buffalo-robes for my own use, giving in exchange a mere loaf of bread or a cupful of brown sugar.
Very early in the history of the United States, in 1786, the government, under the authority of Congress, established a plan of trade with the Indians. It comprised supplying all their physical wants without profit; factories, or stations as they were called, were erected at points that were then on the remote frontier; where factors, clerks, and interpreters were stationed. The factors furnished goods of all kinds to the Indians, and received from them in exchange furs and peltries. There was an officer in charge of all these stations called the superintendent of Indian trade, appointed by the President. As far back as 1821, there were stations at Prairie du Chien, Fort Edward, Fort Osage, with branches at Chicago, Green Bay in Arkansas, on the Red River, and other places in the then far West. These stations were movable, and changed from time to time to suit the convenience of the Indians. In 1822 the whole system was abolished by act of Congress, and its affairs wound up, the American Fur Company, the Missouri Fur Company, and a host of others having by that time become powerful. Like the great corporations of to-day, they succeeded in supplanting the government establishments. Of course, the Indians of the remote plains, which included all the vast region west of the Missouri River, never had the benefits of the government trading establishments, but were left to the tender mercies of the old plainsmen and trappers.
Until the railroad reached the mountains, when the march of a wonderful immigration closely followed, usurping the lands claimed by the savages, and the latter were driven, perforce, upon reservations, the winter camps of the Kiowas, Arapahoes, and Cheyennes were strung along the Old Trail for miles, wherever a belt of timber on the margin of the Arkansas, or its tributaries, could be found large enough to furnish fuel for domestic purposes and cottonwood bark for the vast herds of ponies in the severe snow-storms.