Free The Mammoth Book of the West by Jon E. Lewis

gambling form prominent parts. Sometimes an Indian becomes so excited with “Fire Water” that he commences “running a muck” – he is pursued . . . and secured . . . “Affairs of honour” are adjusted between rival Trappers – one . . . of course, receiving a complete drubbing; – all caused evidently from mixing too much Alcohol with water. Night closes this scene of revelry and confusion. The following days exhibit the strongest contrast . . . The Company’s great tent is raised; the Indians erect their picturesque white lodges; – the accumulatedfurs . . . are brought forth, and the Company’s tent is a besieged and busy place. Now the women come in for their share of ornaments and finery. (Alfred Jacob Miller,
The West of Alfred Jacob Miller
)
     
    With the decline of the beaver trade, most trappers took up other occupations. Tom “Broken Hand” Fitzpatrick and Kit Carson became wilderness scouts, both helping the flamboyant government explorer John Charles Frémont on his much fanfared journey through the far West in the 1840s. Jim Bridger scouted for the army, and would appear numerous times in the future history of the frontier. Caleb Greenwood led the first wagon train through the Sierras, at the age of 81. A number of beaver trappers turned to hunting another fur-bearer doomed to wholesale butchery, the buffalo. Some trappers retired east, but found their Indian wives aroused loathing.
    Few mountain men, when they looked in their buckskin pouches, had made any money; the profits in the fur trade were made by the John Jacob Astors, not the trappers. But no one had done more to open up the West.
    Only one other group of men made even a comparable contribution. These were the traders who blazed the trail to Santa Fe and the Spanish-speaking Southwest. For years American traders had tried to reach the thriving New Mexico town of Santa Fe, but had been turned back – even imprisoned – by isolationist Spanish officials. In 1820, however, the Mexicans threw off Spanish rule and became eager for commercial contact with the US. The first to benefit from this changed situation was a Missouri Indian trader called William Becknell. In September 1821, as Becknell laboured his way along the Arkansas River towards the Rockies, he encountered in the rugged Raton Pass a party of Mexican soldiers, who told him that he would be welcome in Santa Fe. Hardly able to believe hisluck, Becknell hastened to the New Mexican capital, where the commodity-lacking citizenry gave him a warm – and profitable – welcome. Becknell, “The Father of the Santa Fe Trade,” returned to Franklin, Missouri, his saddlebags heavy with silver.
    The following spring, Becknell led another expedition to Santa Fe, this time with three heavily loaded wagons. To avoid the precipitous Raton Pass, Becknell pioneered a short cut through the searing Cimarron Desert, once becoming so low on water that he and his men were reduced to drinking the stomach contents of a buffalo they had shot. They were also dogged by Indian attacks. Yet they made it to Santa Fe, and their route would become the famed Santa Fe Trail.
    By 1824 the Santa Fe trade was thoroughly established. That spring, for their better protection, traders travelled together in a mighty, lumbering caravan of 25 wagons. They took goods worth $35,000; they returned with $190,000 in gold, silver and furs.
    The style of the Santa Fe trade was thus set. A decade later, up to a hundred caravans undertook the gruelling but lucrative annual journey to New Mexico, typically returning with profits of between 10 and 40 per cent.
    The Santa Fe trade had notable spin-offs. It encouraged other entrepreneurs, such as brothers Charles and William Bent and their partner Ceran St Vrain, to begin trade with the Indians of New Mexico and its borders. In 1832, the Bents and St Vrain built a massive adobe trading post, with walls 14 feet high and four feet thick, on the upper Arkansas River. The Bents married