The Fur Trade on the Upper Missouri, 1840-1865"By beginning where the standard works leave off and carrying the story up to its logical conclusion in 1865, this book fills a definite void in the history of the fur trade in the American West. Set in the upper Missouri country, which was bypassed by settlement until the 1860s, it focuses primarily upon the St. Louis firm of Pierre Chouteau, Jr., and Company, usually known as the American Fur Company....This is not the distorted and romanticized approach so typical of much of the literature on the earlier fur trade. Drama is inherent, but it is sound, well-conceived, carefully documented history."-American Historical Review |
Contents
A sort of bastard East India Company on a small scale | 3 |
In these degenerate days | 26 |
The green cotton commenced to dry | 52 |
Notorious for their misconduct | 78 |
Still the heroes of the day | 105 |
Rapacity envy and sickly emulation | 131 |
Under the influence of Christian civilization | 159 |
For Fort Benton or bust | 187 |
Political troubles involving everything | 215 |
Tired and out of spirits | 242 |
| 266 | |
| 282 | |
Common terms and phrases
aboard Alexander Culbertson American Fur Company annuities April ashore Assiniboin August Benton and Sarpy Berthold Blackfeet Blackfoot boat Boller buffalo Captain La Barge cargo Charles Chouteau Chippewa Chittenden Chouteau Family Papers CHSM Clark Cong Crow Dakota downriver Drips Early Steamboat Navigation Ebbetts Father De Smet Fort Benton Fort Campbell Fort Clark Fort Pierre Fort Union Forts Benton freight fur trade Harvey Historical Society Honoré Picotte Indian Agent Indian country Indian Office James John Journal July June La Barge landed Larpenteur Letters Received liquor mackinaw March Minnesota missionary Missouri River Mitchell Montana MOSHI mouth opposition outfit packs of robes pany passengers Pierre Chouteau Platte reached St Robert Campbell robes and furs Saint Louis Daily September sess Shreveport Spread Eagle steamboat steamer trading posts tribes trip Union Fur Company upper river upriver posts Valley Vaughan vessel W. P. Dole Weekly Reveille William winter Yankton Yellowstone