History of the Expedition Under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. 2. / To the Sources of the Missouri, Thence Across the Rocky Mountains and Down the River Columbia to the Pacific Ocean. Performed During the Years 1804-5-6.

by Meriwether Lewis; William Clark

This season there has been sent up the Missouri, for the Indian trade, more than treble the quantity of merchandise that has ever been previously embarked in that trade at any one period. Of this quantity, as far as I could judge from the best information I could collect, two-thirds was the property of British merchants, and directly or indirectly that of the Northwest company. Not any of this merchandise was destined for a higher point on the Missouri than the mouth of the Vermillion river, or the neighbourhood of the Yanktons of the river Demoin; of course, there will be a greater excess of goods beyond what the Indians can purchase, unless they sell at one-third their customary price, which the American merchant certainly cannot do without sacrificing his capital.

On my return this fall, I met on the Missouri an American merchant by the name of Robert McClellan, formerly a distinguished partisan in the army under general Wayne: in a conversation with this gentleman, I learned that during the last winter, in his trade with the Mahas, he had a competitor by the name of Joseph La Croix (believed to be employed by the Northwest company, but now is an avowed British merchant)—that the prices at which La Croix sold his goods, compelled him to reduce the rates of his own goods so much as to cause him to sink upwards of two thousand dollars of his capital, in the course of his trade, that season; but that as he had embarked in this trade for two years past, and had formed a favourable acquaintance with the Mahas and others, he should still continue it a few seasons more, even at a loss of his time and capital, in the hope that government seeing the error would correct it, and that he might then regain his losses, from the circumstance of his general acquaintance with the Indians.

I also met in my way to St. Louis, another merchant, by the same name, a captain M’Clellan, formerly of the United States’ corps of artillerists. This gentleman informed me that he was connected with one of the principal houses in Baltimore, which I do not now recollect, but can readily ascertain the name and standing of the firm, if it is considered of any importance; he said he had brought with him a small but well assorted adventure, calculated for the Indian trade, by way of experiment; that the majority of his goods were of the fine high-priced kind, calculated for the trade with the Spanish province of New Mexico, which he intended to carry on within the territory of the United States, near the border of that province; that connected with this object, the house with which he was concerned was ready to embark largely in the fur trade of the Missouri, provided it should appear to him to offer advantages to them. That since he had arrived in Louisiana, which was last autumn, he had endeavoured to inform himself of the state of this trade, and that from his inquiries, he had been so fully impressed with the disadvantages it laboured under from the free admission of the British merchants, he had written to his house in Baltimore, advising that they should not embark in this trade, unless these merchants were prohibited from entering the river.

I have mentioned these two as cases in point, and which have fallen immediately under my own observation: the first shows the disadvantages under which the trade of our own merchants is now actually labouring; and the second, that no other merchants will probably engage in this trade, while the British fur traders are permitted by our government to continue their traffic in Upper Louisiana. With this view of the subject, it is submitted to the government, with whom it alone rests to decide whether the admission or non-admission of those merchants is at this moment most expedient.

The custom of giving credits to the Indians, which grew out of the Spanish system, still exists, and agreeably to our present plan of intercourse with these people, is likely to produce more pernicious consequences than it did formerly. The Indians of the Missouri, who have been in the habit of considering these credits rather as a present, or the price of their permission for the trader to depart in peace, still continue to view it in the same light, and will therefore give up their expectations on that point with some reluctance; nor can the merchants well refuse to acquiesce, while they are compelled to be absent from the nations with which they trade five or six months in the year. The Indians are yet too vicious to permit them in safety to leave goods at their trading houses, during their absence, in the care of one or two persons; the merchant, therefore, would rather suffer the loss by giving the credit, than incur the expense of a competent guard, or doubling the quantity of his engagees, for it requires as many men to take the peltries and furs to market as it does to bring the goods to the trading establishment, and the number usually employed are not found at any time, more than sufficient to give a tolerable security against the Indians.

I presume that it will not be denied, that it is our best policy, and will be our practice to admit, under the restrictions of our laws on this subject, a fair competition among all our merchants in the Indian trade. This being the case then, it will happen, as it has already happened, that one merchant having trade with any nation, at the usual season gives them a credit and departs: a second knowing that such advance had been made, hurries his outfit and arrives at that nation, perhaps a month earlier in the fall than the merchant who had made this advance to the Indians: he immediately assembles the nation and offers his goods in exchange for their redskin hunt; the good faith of the Indians, with respect to the absent merchant, will not bind them to refuse; an exchange, of course, takes place; and when the merchant to whom they are indebted arrives, they have no peltry, either to barter or to pay him for the goods which they have already received; the consequences are, that the merchant who has sustained the loss becomes frantic; he abuses the Indians, bestows on them the epithets of liars and dogs, and says a thousand things only calculated to sour their minds, and disaffect them to the whites: the rival trader he accuses of having robbed him of his credits (for they never give this species of artifice among themselves a milder term) and calls him many opprobrious names; a combat frequently ensues, in which the principals are not the only actors, for their men will, of course, sympathise with their respective employers. The Indians are the spectators of those riotous transactions, which are well calculated to give them a contempt for the character of the whites, and to inspire them with a belief of the importance of their peltries and furs. The British traders have even gone further in the northwest, and even offered bribes to induce the Indians to destroy each other; nor have I any reason to doubt but what the same thing will happen on the Missouri, unless some disinterested person, armed with authority by government, be placed in such a situation as will enable him to prevent such controversies. I look to this custom of extending credits to the Indians, as one of the great causes of all those individual contentions, which will most probably arise in the course of this trade, as well between the Indians and whites, as between the whites themselves; and that our agents and officers will be always harrassed with settling these disputes, which they never can do in such a manner as to restore a perfect good understanding between the parties. I think it would be best in the outset, for the government to let it be understood by the merchants, that if they think proper to extend credits to the Indians, it shall be at their own risk, dependent on the good faith of the Indians for voluntary payment; that the failure of the Indians to comply with their contracts, shall not be considered any justification for their maltreatment or holding abusive language to them, and that no assistance shall be given them in any shape by the public functionaries to aid them in collecting their credits. If the government interfere in behalf of the traders by any regulation, then it will be the interest of every trader individually to get the Indians indebted to him, and to keep them so in order to secure in future their peltries and furs exclusively to himself. Thus, the Indians would be compelled to exchange without choice of either goods or their prices, and the government would have pledged itself to make the Indians pay for goods, of which they cannot regulate the prices. I presume the government will not undertake to regulate the merchant in this respect by law.

The difficulties which have arisen, and which must arise under existing circumstances, may be readily corrected by establishing a few posts, where there shall be a sufficient guard to protect the property of the merchants in their absence, though it may be left with only a single clerk: to those common marts, all traders and Indians should be compelled to resort for the purposes of traffic.

The plan proposed guards against all difficulties, and provides for a fair exchange, without the necessity of credit: when the Indian appears with his peltry and fur, the competition between the merchants will always insure him his goods on the lowest possible terms, and the exchange taking place at once, there can be no cause of controversy between the Indian and the merchant, and no fear of loss on the part of the latter, unless he is disposed to make a voluntary sacrifice, through a spirit of competition with others, by selling his goods at an under value.