Travels in the Interior of North America Part 22

About ten o'clock we had an alarm of fire on board: the upper deck had been set on fire by the iron pipe of the chimney of the great cabin.

We immediately lay to, and, by breaking up the deck, the danger was soon over, which, however, was not inconsiderable, as we had many barrels of powder on board. We had scarcely got over this trouble, when another arose; the current of the swollen river was so strong, that we long contended against it to no purpose, in order to turn a certain point of land, while, at the same time, the high west wind was against us, and both together threw the vessel back three times on the south coast. The first shock was so violent, that the lower deck gallery was broken to pieces. Our second attempt succeeded no better; part of the paddle-box was broken, and carried away by the current. We were now obliged to land forty men to tow the vessel, for which purpose all on board voluntarily offered their services, even the two Blackfeet overcame their natural laziness. Beyond this dangerous place, we took on board the hunters whom we had sent out. They were covered from head to foot with blood, and hung about with game, having killed two elks. The effect of the current and the wind upon our vessel continued for a long time. It was often thrown against the alluvial bank, so that the deck was covered with earth, and the track of our vessel clearly marked along the clayey sand bank. After four o'clock we stopped at a narrow verdant prairie in front of the hills, to fell wood: several pretty plants, among which was a juniper with the berries still green, were found here. The cat bird, the wren and blackbird animated the thickets, and we observed also the great curlew (_Numenius longirostris_). A very large elk horn of twelve antlers had been found; a number of them lie about in all the forests and prairies, of which no use is made. In the afternoon we saw in the prairie of the north bank a large grizzly bear, and immediately sent Ortubize and another hunter in pursuit of him, but to no purpose. Soon after we saw two other bears, one of a whitish, the other of a dark colour, and our hunters, when they returned, affirmed that they had wounded the largest. Harvey had shot an elk, and brought the best part of it from a great distance, and with considerable exertion, to the river. From this place upwards, the grey bear became more and more common; further down the river it is still rare. Brackenridge says, it is not found below the [pg. 184] Mandan villages, but this is not quite correct. Near the prairie where we saw the bears, is the mouth of White Earth River, called by Lewis and Clarke, Goat-pen River.[347]

Here we crossed the Missouri, and lay to for the night on the south coast, where some of our people landed to set traps for the beavers.

Harvey had the good fortune to catch, during the night, a young beaver, which he brought on board alive, on the following morning, the 23rd. The iron trap had broken one of the legs of the little beaver, and with all our care we could not keep it alive. The surrounding country on the banks of the Missouri, which is here very broad, again showed the singularly formed angular hills flattened at the top like tables: several pretty prairies, in which the white artemisia and other beautiful plants grew, extended at the foot of the eminences, on the declivity of which the buffalo berry and the creeping juniper were common; henceforward the clay cones were partly burnt as red as bricks, which was a clear proof of their origin. Many of them had parallel horizontal stripes, projecting a little, of harder sandstone strata, which had resisted the influence of the elements more than the intermediate strata of clay and sand.

The vessel laying to, about eleven o'clock, near a wood on the south bank, we suddenly perceived on the north bank some Indians, who immediately called to us. They were the first a.s.siniboins that we had met with; they sat upon the bank waiting for the boat which Mr. Mc Kenzie sent to them. After a short pause they came on board the steamer, and proved to be Sta.s.saga (le brecheux), who was well known to Mr. Mc Kenzie, with seven of his people of the branch called by the French, Gens des Filles.[348] The chief, a robust, thick-set man, rather above the middle size, wore his hair tied behind in a thick queue, and cut short in front; he had bound across the crown a slip of whitish skin; in his ears he had strings of blue and white gla.s.s beads; round his neck a collar of bears' claws; the upper part of his body was wrapped in a red woollen shirt; his legs were quite bare, but he had a pair of handsomely embroidered leggins which he put on when his people left the vessel. He was wrapped in a buffalo robe, and had in his hand a musket, and an eagle's wing for a fan. Another robust man had smeared his face, about the eyes, with white clay. The rest of these Indians were neither well formed nor well dressed, but dirty and slovenly. Their hair hung in disorder about their heads; some of them had made it up into three plaits; their legs were mostly bare; only a couple of them had leggins. One of them, with a Jewish physiognomy, wore a white wolf skin cap. Some of them were marked with two parallel tattooed black stripes from the neck down the breast; the upper parts of their bodies were naked, but they were wrapped in buffalo robes.

Most of them had guns, and all, without distinction, bows and arrows, the latter in a quiver or bag made of skin, to which also the case for the bow is attached, as shown in the woodcut.[349]

As the a.s.siniboins are a branch of the Sioux, Ortubize was able to act as interpreter. They were made to sit down round the great cabin, and the pipe circulated; they likewise [pg. 185] received abundance of food, which seemed to please them much. They said that since they came to these parts in the spring, they had suffered much from want of food, buffaloes being scarce. They intended shortly to leave this part of the country, but the chief wished to go with us to Fort Union, which we allowed him to do. After they had been shown about the vessel, the steam-engine of which greatly excited their attention, though they suppressed any mark of surprise, they were landed in a lofty poplar grove on the north bank.

After dinner, we proceeded along the side of a prairie, where we heard the note of the great curlew. The valley of the river was bounded on both sides by very remarkable whitish-grey, obliquely stratified ridges, with singular spots of red clay, and bushes in the ravines; at their feet was the prairie, covered with pale green artemisia; and on the tongues of land, at the windings of the Missouri, there were fine poplar groves, with an undergrowth of roses in full bloom, buffalo-berry bushes, and many species of plants. On the mountains we again saw naked rounded cones of earth, as if they had been thrown up by moles, and, on the tops of some of them, a little turret, or cone, while their sides were rounded by the rain water, or marked with parallel perpendicular furrows.

On our further progress up the river, we saw, for the first time, the animal known by the name of the bighorn, or the Rocky Mountain sheep, the _Ovis montana_ of the zoologists. A ram and two sheep of this species stood on the summit of the highest hill, and, after looking at our steamer, slowly retired. These animals are not frequent hereabouts, but we afterwards met with them in great numbers. We here took on board some cord wood, which the different trading posts had employed their _engages_ to get ready for the steamboat.

On the 24th, in the morning, we found the banks wooded, and beyond the thickets were the chain of hills, in the middle of which were strata of the colour of red bricks. Cones of that colour, and sometimes detached grey figures, with a red base, crowned the heights. Many varied colours showed that these eminences must have undergone the action of fire. About eight o'clock we came to the mouth of Muddy River (the White Earth River of Lewis and Clarke), which issues from a thicket on the north bank.[350] In this part we saw smoke on the bank, and, soon afterwards, some a.s.siniboins, one of whom fired three shots to attract our attention: others soon came up, and we took them on board. They were robust men, with high cheek-bones, well dressed, all in leather shirts, their legs mostly bare, and their hair hanging smooth about their heads; one of them took off the leather case of his bow, and wrapped it round his head like a turban, so that a little tuft of feathers, at one end of it, stood upright. Following the numerous windings of the Missouri, from one chain of hills to another, we reached, at seven o'clock in the evening, the mouth of the Yellow Stone, a fine river, hardly inferior in breadth to the Missouri at this part. It issues below the high grey chain of hills, and its mouth is bordered with a fine wood of tall poplars, with willow thickets.

The two rivers unite in an obtuse angle; and there [pg. 186] is a sudden turn of the Missouri to the north-west; it is not wooded at the junction, but flows between prairies thirty or more miles in extent.

Herds of buffaloes are often seen here; at this time they had left these parts: we saw, however, many antelopes. At the next turn of the river, towards the right hand, we had a fine prospect. Gentle eminences, with various rounded or flat tops, covered with bright verdure, formed the back-ground; before them, tall poplar groves, and willow thickets on the bank of the river, whose dark blue waters, splendidly illumined by the setting sun, flowed, with many windings, through the prairie. A little further on lay Fort Union, on a verdant plain, with the handsome American flag, gilded by the last rays of evening, floating in the azure sky, while a herd of horses grazing animated the peaceful scene.[351]

As the steamer approached, the cannon of Fort Union fired a salute, with a running fire of musketry, to bid us welcome, which was answered in a similar manner by our vessel. When we reached the fort, we were received by Mr. Hamilton, an Englishman, who, during the absence of Mr. Mc Kenzie, had performed the functions of director,[352] as well as by several clerks of the Company, and a number of their servants (_engages_ or _voyageurs_), of many different nations, Americans, Englishmen, Germans, Frenchmen, Russians, Spaniards, and Italians, about 100 in number, with many Indians, and half-breed women and children. It was the seventy-fifth day since our departure from St.

Louis, when the a.s.siniboin cast anchor at Fort Union.

The Yellow Stone, being one of the princ.i.p.al affluents of the Missouri, receives several considerable streams, of which the following are the chief:--

1. The Bighorn River (_La Grosse Corne_).

2. The Little Bighorn River (_La Pet.i.te Grosse Corne_).

3. The Tongue River (_La Riviere a la Langue_).

4. The Powder River (_La Riviere a la Poudre_).

The Yellow Stone is called, by the Canadians, La Roche Jaune. Warden calls it Keheetsa, but I do not know where he got this name. Lewis and Clarke say it has no name. The names given it by most of the Indian nations signify Elk River.[353]

FOOTNOTES:

[335] Knife River, called by the French Riviere de Couteau, and by the Indians Minah Wakpa, is a prairie stream, whose course is in general east, entering the Missouri in Mercer County, North Dakota. The town of Stanton is now on the site of the third village, Awachawi--ED.

[336] See p. 361, for ill.u.s.tration of a Blackfoot musical instrument.--ED.

[337] This fort of Pilcher, built for the Missouri Fur Company about 1822, was about eleven miles above the mouth of Knife River, and named Fort Vanderburgh. Not proving profitable, it was maintained but a short time. See another mention in our volume xxiii, chapter xxiii.--ED.

[338] See article by O. D. Wheeler, in _Wonderland_ (1904), on the recent development of the lignite coal area of North Dakota.--ED.

[339] It was a custom of the Minitaree, maintained until 1866, to leave their permanent village each winter for a spot where fuel was convenient, and there build log-cabins, very warm and secure, as winter quarters. They thus preserved both the fuel supply, and the game in the neighborhood of their summer home.--ED.

[340] Miry Creek appears to be the present Snake Creek, in McLean County, North Dakota, the one which Maximilian designates as Snake being a small run from a cliff which was known as Snake den. See _Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition_, i, p. 291.--ED.

[341] See description of bear-dance, with ill.u.s.tration, in Catlin, _North American Indians_, i, pp. 242-245.--ED.

[342] These stones are generally granite, not sharp, but rounded in front; are used by the Indians to break the large bones of the buffaloes, of the marrow of which they are very fond. Stones closely resembling these are found among the Blackfoot Indians.--MAXIMILIAN.

[343] See p. 361, for ill.u.s.tration of a stone battle-axe.--ED.

[344] The Little Missouri is the most important North Dakota affluent of the Missouri, above the Cannonball. It rises on the northwestern slopes of the Black Hills and flows north for some distance, thence turning northeast and east to enter the main river in Williams County.

It is a broad but shallow stream, impregnated with alkali.--ED.

[345] Wild Onion Creek was so named by Lewis and Clark because of the quant.i.ty of that plant growing upon its bordering plains. Within Garfield County, North Dakota, it is now denominated Pride Creek.--ED.

[346] Goose Egg Lake, so named by the explorers "from the circ.u.mstance of my [Clark] shooting a goose on her nest on some sticks in the top of a high cotton wood tree in which there was one egg," is now Cold Spring Lake (_Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition_, i, pp. 304, 305). The great bend (Grand Detour) is still so named, but is much wider than the lower bend, being nearly ten miles across, and over twenty around the curve.--ED.

[347] Coues, _Lewis and Clark Expedition_, i, p. 274, identifies Goat Pen Creek with Upper Knife River. Maximilian's identification of this stream as the present White Earth River appears to accord better with the _Original Journals_ (i, p. 313). The White Earth rises in Coteau des Prairies, and flows directly south into the Missouri. Lewis and Clark applied the name to a river farther up, near the forks of the Yellowstone. See note 348, _post_, p. 372.--ED.

[348] For the a.s.siniboin see our volume ii, p. 168, note 75. They separated from the Wazikute gens of the Yanktonnai Sioux before the middle of the seventeenth century. The Dakota stigmatize them as "Hohe" (rebels). Lewis and Clark name three bands of these people, of whom they heard along the Missouri--Gens de Canoe, Gens des Filles, and Gens des Grand Diables. The Gens des Filles (girl band) was composed of about sixty tents, its head chief being Les Yeux Gris (Grey Eyes). See United States Bureau of Ethnology _Report_, 1894-95, p. 223.--ED.

[349] See p. 287, for ill.u.s.tration of bows, arrows, and quiver.--ED.

[350] The White Earth River of Lewis and Clark, now Muddy River, is a northern affluent of the Missouri, taking its name from the mud by which its mouth is choked. Above the mouth it is a clear and partly navigable stream, flowing through a valley nearly five miles wide, fertile although treeless. It enters the Missouri in Buford County, having the town of Williston at its mouth.--ED.

[351] Fort Union was the most important post of the American Fur Company on the upper Missouri. It was commenced in the autumn of 1828 (Maximilian says 1829), being at first known as Fort Floyd--another Fort Union existing higher up the river, which was abandoned, and the property transferred to the fort at the mouth of the Yellowstone. The actual site was five miles above the meeting of the rivers, on the north bank of the Missouri; see _Larpenteur's Journal_, i, pp. 50, 68.

The fort was injured by fire in 1832, but substantially rebuilt, Wyeth (1833) p.r.o.nouncing it superior to the Oregon forts of the British companies. Maintained until 1867, it was finally abandoned, part of its effects being transferred to the government post Fort Buford, some miles below.--ED.

[352] Our knowledge of Hamilton is chiefly derived from the pages of Larpenteur, who says that the former was an English n.o.bleman, whose real name was Archibald Palmer. Having become involved in some difficulties, he a.s.sumed the name James Archdale Hamilton, and having formed acquaintance with Kenneth McKenzie was sent by the latter as book-keeper to Fort Union, where he took full command during McKenzie's frequent absences. Hamilton was at this time about fifty years of age, punctilious in manner, particular in dress, and both respected and feared by his subordinates. Later he reverted to his own name and returned to St. Louis, becoming cashier for the American Fur Company, and dying in that city.--ED.

[353] The French form for the name of this great river (Roche Jaune) was in early use; Chittenden (_Yellowstone National Park_ (Cincinnati, 1895), pp. 1-7) thinks it a translation of the Indian term, derived from the predominant color of Yellowstone Canon. The first use of the English form appears to be in the writings of David Thompson, the English explorer (1798). See Elliott Coues, _New Light on the Early History of the Greater Northwest_ (New York, 1897), i, p. 302. The Crow Indians had a name for this stream, signifying "Elk."

The reference is to D. B. Warden, _Statistical, Political, and Historical Account of the United States of North America_ (Edinburgh, 1819), i, p. 93.--ED.

CHAPTER XV

DESCRIPTION OF FORT UNION AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD

Description of the Fort and its Vicinity--Its Inhabitants, and the Fur Trade on the Upper Missouri--The Indian Branch of the a.s.siniboins, the original Possessors of this Spot.

The erection of Fort Union was commenced in the autumn of 1829, by Mr.

Mc Kenzie, and is now completed, except that some of the edifices which were erected in haste are under repair. The fort is situated on an alluvial eminence, on the northern bank of the Missouri, in a prairie, which extends about 1,500 paces to a chain of hills, on whose summit there are other wide-spreading plains. The river runs at a distance of scarcely fifty or sixty feet from the fort, in the direction from west to east; it is here rather broad, and the opposite bank is wooded. The fort itself forms a quadrangle, the sides of which measure about eighty paces in length, on the exterior. The ramparts consist of strong pickets, sixteen or seventeen feet high, squared, and placed close to each other, and surmounted by a _chevaux-de-frise_. On the south-west and north-east ends, there are block-houses, with pointed roofs, two stories high, with embrasures and some cannon, which, though small, are fit for service. In the front of the enclosure, and towards the river, is the well-defended princ.i.p.al entrance, with a large folding gate. Opposite the entrance, on the other side of the quadrangle, is the house of the commandant; it is one story high, and has four handsome gla.s.s windows on each side of the door. The roof is s.p.a.cious, and contains a large, light loft. This house is very commodious, and, like all the buildings of the inner quadrangle, constructed of poplar wood, the staple wood for building in this neighbourhood. In the inner quadrangle are the residences of the clerks, the interpreters, and the _engages_, the powder magazine, the stores, or supplies of goods and bartered skins, various workshops for the handicraftsmen, smiths, carpenters, &c., stables for the horses and cattle, rooms for receiving and entertaining the Indians; and in the centre is the flag-staff, around which several half-breed Indian hunters had erected their leathern tents. A cannon was also placed here, with its mouth towards the princ.i.p.al [pg. 188] entrance.[354]

The fort contains about fifty or sixty horses, some mules, and an inconsiderable number of cattle, swine, goats, fowls, and domestic animals. The cattle are very fine, and the cows yield abundance of milk. The horses are driven, in the day-time, into the prairie, guarded and exercised by armed men, and, in the evening, brought back into the quadrangle of the fort, where the greater part of them pa.s.s the night in the open air. Mr. Mc Kenzie has, however, lately had a separate place, or park, provided for them.

Fort Union is one of the princ.i.p.al posts of the Fur Company, because it is the central point of the two other trading stations, still higher up, towards the Rocky Mountains, and having the superintendence of the whole of the trade in the interior, and in the vicinity of the mountains. One of these two trading stations, called Fort Ca.s.s, is 200 miles up the Yellow Stone River, and is confined to the trade with the Crow tribe; the other, Fort Piekann, or, as it is now called, Fort Mc Kenzie, is 850[355] miles up the Missouri, or about a day's journey from the falls of this river, and carries on the fur trade with the three tribes of the Blackfoot Indians. The latter station has been established about two years, and, as the steamers cannot often go up to Fort Union, they despatch keel-boats, to supply the various trading posts with goods for barter with the Indians. They then pa.s.s the winter at these stations, and in the spring carry the furs to Fort Union, whence they are transported, in the course of the summer, to St. Louis, by the steamers.

The Company maintains a number of agents at these different stations; during their stay they marry Indian women, but leave them, without scruple, when they are removed to another station, or are recalled to the United States. The lower cla.s.s of these agents, who are called _engages_, or _voyageurs_, have to act as steersmen, rowers, hunters, traders, &c., according to their several capabilities. They are often sent great distances, employed in perilous undertakings among the Indians, and are obliged to fight against the enemy, and many of them are killed every year by the arms with which the Whites themselves have furnished the Indians. Some of the agents of the Fur Company winter every year in the Rocky Mountains.[356]

The proprietors of the American Fur Company were Messrs. Astor, at New York, General Pratte, Chouteau, Cabanne, Mc Kenzie, Laidlow, and Lamont; the three latter had a share [pg. 189] in the fur trade on the Upper Missouri only. Wild beasts and other animals, whose skins are valuable in the fur trade, have already diminished greatly in number along this river, and it is said that, in another ten years, the fur trade will be very inconsiderable. As the supplies along the banks of the Missouri decreased, the Company gradually extended the circle of their trading posts, as well as enterprises, and thus increased their income. Above 500 of their agents are in the forts of the Upper Missouri, and at their various trading posts; and, besides these individuals, who receive considerable salaries (for it is said that the Company yearly expend 150,000 dollars in salaries), there are in these prairies, and the forests of the Rocky Mountains, beaver and fur trappers, who live at their own cost; but whose present wants, such as horses, guns, powder, ball, woollen cloths, articles of clothing, tobacco, &c. &c., are supplied by the Company, and the scores settled, after the hunting season is over, by the furs which they deliver at the different trading posts. Many of these, when not employed in hunting, live at the Company's forts. They are, for the most part, enterprising, robust men, capital riflemen, and, from their rude course of life, are able to endure the greatest hardships.

During the summer, the Company send out, under the direction of an experienced clerk, a number of strong, well-armed, mounted men, who convey the necessary goods and supplies, on pack-horses, to the trading stations, at a distance from the river; they always observe and enforce the required conditions of the Indians, and not unfrequently come to blows with them. These expeditions have to support themselves by the chase, consequently the men must be good hunters, as they subsist almost exclusively on what they procure by their guns. Besides the forts which I have so often named, the Company has also small winter posts, called log-houses, or block-houses, among the Indians, quickly erected, and as quickly abandoned: to these the Indians bring their furs, which are purchased, and sent, in the spring, to the trading posts. The American Fur Company has, at present, about twenty-three, large and small, trading posts. In the autumn and winter the Indian tribes generally approach nearer to these posts, to barter their skins; while in the spring and summer they devote themselves especially to catching beavers, for which they receive every encouragement from the merchants, who lend or advance them iron traps for the purpose.

The animals, whose skins are objects of this trade, and the annual average of the income derived from skins, may be pretty well ascertained from the following statement:

1. Beavers: about 25,000 skins. They are sold in packs of 100 lbs.