[717] For this expedition see ibid., Gushing to Kingsbury, February 20, 1805; Kingsbury to Smith, June 2, 1805; Smith to Kingsbury, June 1, 1805; Kingsbury to Brevoort, June 2, 1805; Kingsbury to Williamson, July 10, 1805, et passim.
The government factory or trading house constituted a notable feature of the Indian trade at Chicago after 1805. The policy of the government toward the red man which found expression in the factory system was fraught with such significance, not only for the Indian trade, but also for the larger subject of the relations between the two races, that it seems desirable at this point to present a somewhat comprehensive account of it. The origin of the policy of government trading houses dates from the early colonial period. In the Plymouth and Jamestown settlements all industry was at first controlled by the commonwealth, and in Massachusetts Bay the stock company had reserved to itself the trade in furs before leaving England.[718] In the last-named colony a notable experiment was carried on during the first half of the eighteenth century in conducting "truck houses" for the Indians. About the close of this period Benjamin Franklin, whose attention had been called to the abuses which the Indians of the Pennsylvania frontier suffered at the hands of the private traders, investigated the workings of the Massachusetts system and recommended the establishment of public trading houses at suitable places along the frontier.[719]
[718] Turner, Indian Trade in Wisconsin, 58.
[719] Franklin, Works, II, 221. The letter is not certainly by Franklin, but he is supposed to have been its author. See ibid., 217, footnote.
The first step toward a national system of Indian trading establishments was taken during the opening throes of the Revolution. The establishment of friendly relations with the Indians appeared to the second Continental Congress a matter of the "utmost moment."[720] Accordingly it was resolved, July 12, 1775, to establish three Indian departments, a northern, a middle, and a southern, with appropriate powers for supervising the relations of the United Colonies with the Indians. In November of the same year a committee, of which Franklin was a member, was directed to devise a plan for carrying on trade with the Indians, and ways and mean for procuring the goods proper for it.[721]
[720] Journals of the Continental Congress, II, 174.
[721] Ibid., III, 350, 365, 366.
Acting upon the report of this committee, in January, 1776, the Congress adopted a series of resolutions outlining a general system of governmental supervision of the Indian trade, and appropriating the sum of forty thousand pounds to purchase goods for it.[722] These were to be disposed of by licensed traders, acting under instructions laid down by the commissioners, and under bond to them to insure compliance with the prescribed regulations. The following month Congress further manifested its good intentions toward the native race by passing resolutions expressing its faith in the benefits to accrue from the propagation of the gospel and the civil arts among the red men, and directing the commissioners of Indian affairs to report suitable places in their departments for establishing schoolmasters and ministers of the gospel.[723] Owing to the exigencies of the war, however, these plans for the establishment of a trading system and for the civilization of the Indians were alike frustrated. The struggle with the mother country absorbed all the energies and resources of the Revolutionary government. How this affected the prosecution of the plans for the Indian Departments, which had been entered upon so hopefully in the beginning of the war, is sufficiently shown by the fact that the expenses of the government in behalf of the Indians fell from two hundred and sixty-one thousand dollars in 1776 to thirty-five hundred dollars in 1779; and the total amount for the five years from 1779 to 1783 inclusive was less than one-tenth the sum spent in the single year 1776.[724]
[722] Ibid., IV, 96-98.
[723] Ibid., IV, III.