If an article or statement on the Mountains of Stone website offends the sensibilities of someone or some group...too bad. The Mountain Man Plains Indian Fur Trade website is not intended to be a politically correct site. All of the Mountain Man Plains Indian Fur Trade articles were written by Ned Eddins of Afton, Wyoming. My goal is to be as unbiased and historically accurate as possible. If there is a mistake in an article, please point it out and the appropriate correction will be made. A reader recently pointed out that the Mountain Man Plains Indian website was on the fur trade, but nowhere had I listed the type of Mountain Man goods traded and the values....dumb, dumb on my part...thank you.

One of life's truths is...no one learns anything by someone agreeing with them.

The purposes of writing the Mountain Man and Plains Indian articles is for me to learn more about a particular subject, as well as, to have a place for an open discussion on controversial issues. Everything on the Mountain Man Plains Indian website is open for discussion, and all disagreements, or comments, will be posted at the bottom of the appropriate article. There have been some interesting responses to the Indian Smallpox, the Indian Horse, and the Forest Fire articles.

Please Note: There have been several emails against the trapping of fur bearing animals. If the people that sent those emails had read the articles, they would know this site is not about  trapping. The Mountain Man Indian Fur Trade site is concerned with the history of the fur trade. Still, it should be noted that the trapping of fur bearing animals was key to the mountain man and played a significant role in America's western expansion.

Several of the articles are not directly related to the Mountain Man and the Plains Indian Fur Trade, but are of interest to me as background information for my next historical novel, Winds of Change. The Anasazi Indians and Mesa Verde, Prehistoric Indians,  Fremont Indian Culture, Barrier Canyon Rock Art, and the Devastation of Forest Fires should be of interest to anyone that wants to understand and preserve our heritage.

The four major "things" brought to Native Americans by the early European explorers, the colonists, the Mountain Man and the fur traders were diseases, alcohol, trade guns, and Spanish Colonial horses. Of the four, diseases and alcohol had the most devastating effects on the Native American Indians.

The smallpox outbreak of 1780 - 1782 killed a great many Plains Indians, and the one in 1837 - 1838  was as bad or worse. Misinformation and outright fabrications have led many people to believe that the smallpox virus was deliberately spread among the Indian Nations by the United States Army. Except one case by a British Captain, there is no direct evidence to support these accusations. Some writers claim the government deliberately withheld smallpox vaccine from Native Americans. When the safety of using an attenuated smallpox virus vaccine is being questioned at the present time, this seems like a ridiculous claim. Based on the medical standards of the time and the effectiveness of non-attenuated cowpox virus vaccine, it may well have been as deadly as the smallpox virus to an Indian population with no immunities to European diseases.

The top entry, or exit page, on the site is usually the Indian smallpox page. The vast majority of keywords typed into Google to find the article involves smallpox blankets.  The whole issue of the U.S. Army using smallpox blankets in 1837 was fabricated in an article of lies by a University of Colorado radical activist, Ward Churchill. The only place Ward Churchill should be allowed to teach is as an inmate to death row prisoners, and his defenders should be right along side him. At least there, it would severely limit the damage Churchill and his defenders are doing to our educational system. Dr. Thomas Brown at Lamar University has published a paper on Ward Churchill's fabrication and lies.

A great many Indians were killed simply because they were Indian, but history is what it is, both the good and the bad, and should be taught that way. Ideally, with equal time spent on the bad as well as the good. History should not be taught based on some long-haired, nut-case's political agenda, or based on political correctness.

Starting in 1790, the federal government tried to regulate the Mountain Man Indian fur trade and the use of alcohol through a series of Trade and Intercourse Acts. With the limited ability of the government to enforce these federal acts, the Mountain Man whiskey turned a great many proud, self-reliant Native Americans into drunken beggars. A great many Indians were willing to trade anything they had to the Mountain Man for more of the white-man's firewater. 

The Northwest trade guns used during the Mountain Man Indian Fur Trade Era were inaccurate and based on today's standards of poor quality; few Plains Indians could repair even minor problems associated with them. Before the introduction of the breechloader, the value of Northwest trade guns to the Plains Indians for hunting and warfare has been blown all out of proportion.

Brought to America in 1519 by Spanish Conquistadors, the Spanish Barb horses had the biggest impact on the American Indian Cultures. Horses were the one thing brought to this continent that American Indians could reproduce and trade to the fur traders and the Mountain Man. Spanish Colonial horses spread out of the Southwest across the Rocky Mountains, the Northwest, the Plains, and to the Cree in Canada through an Indian to Indian horse trading network.

Trade Beads were used as a medium of exchange between Europeans and Native Americans. The Spanish explorers, Cortéz in 1519 (Mexico), Narváez in 1527, and De Soto in 1539 (Florida) carried glass beads for trade with the native inhabitants. In 1741, the Russians reached the coast of Alaska and from there explored down the western coast of North America. A North West Company trader, Alexander Mackenzie, crossed Canada to the Pacific Ocean in 1793. All of the explorers, as well as, David Thompson,  Lewis and Clark, and the Mountain Man carried glass beads for presents and as a medium of exchange in dealing with the Native American Indians.

                                                               Beaver House

Fur Trappers and traders were the first Americans to ascend the Missouri River and its tributaries. The mountain men were  seeking to trap and trade for furs with the Plains Indians. During the late seventeen hundreds, the Plains Indians were exchanging beaver pelts and horses to the Hudson’s Bay and North West fur traders for European goods on the Kootanae Plains and at Missouri River trade fairs. The Missouri River trade fairs were held at the villages of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Indians. Exchanged at the trade fairs were garden products (beans, squash, corn, etc.) raised at the Missouri River villages, horses, furs, and hides from the Plains Indians, and whiskey, guns, iron goods, trade beads, and a few beaver traps from the North West and Hudson's Bay traders.

Fur Trade Facts is short tidbits of information on the United States and Canadian fur trade conducted by the Mountain Man, the Missouri River traders and the Astorians. Many of these "facts" point out distortion in the history of the Mountain Man Plains Indian fur trade.

The article on the Astorians and the discovery of the Oregon Trail is divided into five parts: John Jacob Astor, Tonquin, Fort Astoria, Wilson Price Hunt, and Robert Stuart. Robert Stuart's crossing of the Continental Divide at South Pass on what would become the Oregon Trail had a profound effect on the geographical outline of the United States, millions of buffalo, and the Plains Indians....Forty-six years after the first settlers traveled over the Oregon Trail, the last buffalo hunt was held in the Judith Valley (Ewers), and the vast majority of Plains Indians were on reservations. 

David Thompson ranks as the premier surveyor of North America. Two Canadians, David Thompson and Alexander Mackenzie, are also the leading explorers of North America. Mackenzie was the first to reach the Pacific Ocean and the Arctic Ocean by an overland route. From 1792 to 1812, David Thompson mapped most of the country west of Hudson Bay and Lake Superior, across the Rocky Mountains to the source of the Columbia River, and the length of the Columbia to the Pacific Ocean.

Joseph Rutherford Walker’s heritage was seventy years of border warfare and two hundred and fifty-four direct descendents from his great-grandfather John Walker. His extended family through marriage included Andrew Jackson and Sam Houston. This background and heritage served him well as America’s greatest mountain man—explorer. His closest rivals for the honor are Jedediah Smith, and three Canadians, David Thompson, Alexander McKenzie, and Peter Skene Ogden. Walker blazed the California Trail across the Great Basin, brought the first wagons over South Pass with Bonneville, guided Fremont on his third expeditions, and guided the first wagons to Owens Valley in California.

Jedediah Smith made the effective discovery of South Pass. Smith was a partner in the Rocky Mountain fur trade with General Ashley in 1825, and in 1826, formed the Smith Jackson Sublette Company with David Jackson and William Sublette. Jedediah Smith wrote Gen. William Clark, a report on his travels and losses at the Mojave Village and with the Umpqua Indians between August 1827 and July 1828 at twenty-five men and over three hundred riding and pack horses. Jedediah Smith made the first crossings of the Great Basin across Utah from North to South and East to West—from the southern end of California to the Columbia River.

The Mountain Man Article is a large comprehensive article on the history of the North American Fur Trade. North of present day Mexico, the area that would become the United States and Canada was explored, wars were fought, and Indian Cultures destroyed in the pursuit of the Mountain Man Indian Fur Trade. During the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade Era, the Mountain Man explored the West from the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains to the Oregon Country. The Mountain Man served as guides for  the missionaries and the settlers over the Oregon Trail. For ease of navigation, the Mountain Man Indian fur Trade article is divided into eight parts:
Early Fur Trade History                              Fur Trade Explorers
Trade and Intercourse Acts                        North West Fur Company
The Mountain Man                                     Rocky Mountain Fur Trade History
Mountain Man Fur Trade Goods             Mountain Man Statistical Review

                                Grand Teton - Geographical Center of the Fur Trade

Innovation of the Rendezvous System is credited to William Ashley , and in terms of the Rocky Mountains, this is true. However, Ashley was not the first to use a rendezvous for the exchange of pelts and to re-supply the trappers. The North West Company had held an annually rendezvous at Grand Portage and later at Fort William since 1783. Several Congressional Trade and Intercourse Acts starting in 1790 made it illegal to trap on Indian lands, sell alcohol to Indians, or that the 1825 and the 1826 rendezvous were held on Mexican soil. These minor legalities did not bother General William H. Ashley, the Lieutenant Governor and future Missouri Congressman, one bit...one constant in history is that politician change little with time.

All of the mountain man rendezvous sites are pictured with approximate GPS locations. All of the rendezvous were held west of the Continental Divide with the exception of the 1829, 1830, and 1838 rendezvous. Six of the sixteen rendezvous were held outside the United States in territory belonging to Mexico. Except for two sites in Utah and one in Idaho, all of the rendezvous were held in Wyoming; six of the sixteen rendezvous were held on Horse Creek in the Green River Valley near present-day Daniel, Wyoming. Another point of interest is that all of the rendezvous were held in the territory of the Shoshone, or Snake, Indians.

Fort Bonneville on the Wyoming Green River is the creation of post-fur trade historians...not rendezvous participants.  With the exception of Warren G. Ferris' description of Fort Bonneville, there is no evidence in pertinent fur trade literature to support a Fort Bonneville. Osborne Russell, Zenas Leonard, Robert Newell, Joe Meek, Robert Campbell, Charles Larpenteur, William H. Gray, Nathaniel Wyeth, Alfred Jacob Miller, Sir William Drummond Stewart, John Townsend, Dr. F. A. Wislizenus, and Father De Smet attended various mountain man rendezvous on the Horse Creek meadows. Not one journal, biography, or book by the contemporaries of Ferris mention a Fort Bonneville, a Fort Nonsense, or a Bonneville's Folly. Ferris uses the name Fort Nonsense because the fort was immediately abandoned after construction--not because of the severe weather as is stated by historians in the fur trade books.

America's western expansion over the Oregon, Mormon, and California trails cannot be separated from the fur trade. The Mountain Man not only discovered, or was shown by Native American Indians, the western routes; the Mountain Man served as the guide that led the pioneers to the Oregon Country. The Oregon Trail and Mormon Trail articles are historical facts, tidbits of information, and some gross misrepresentations connected with the Oregon and Mormon pioneers, the American and Canadian fur trade, and the Astorians.

For a heart-rendering account of the Martin Handcart Company tragedy, read the firsthand account of Sarah Crossley Sessions. Some historians claim the tragedy that struck the Willey and Martin Handcart Companies was the worst disaster in the history of western overland travel. Only a massive rescue effort prevented it from being worse. It should be pointed out that the Cherokee Trail of Tears and the Long Walk of the Navajo and Apache resulted in a much higher death rate.

The Hole-in-the-Rock expedition from the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument to the San Juan area in the four corners of the United States is a feat unparalleled in American western expansion. The Hole-in-the-Rock narrative is more than men and women colonizing a new area. It is the “can do”, or as Jens Nielson would say  "stickie-ta-tudy" attitude of  America's Manifest Destiny.

Lewis and Clark page covers interesting tidbits of information on the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Native Americans, and Sacajawea. Did you know that Native American Indians domesticated over three-fifths of modern day agriculture, or that Sacajawea (Sakakawea, Sacagawea) died in 1812, or that "Captain" William Clark was actually a Second Lieutenant,  or that Captain Meriwether Lewis committed suicide?

The article on Historical Landmarks, Monuments, and Markers is associated with the Oregon, California, and Mormon trails, the Mountain Man Fur Trade, and South Pass. A brief discussion of the Sublette Cutoff, and pictures of the Lander Cutoff are included.

Prehistoric Indians migrated to the Americas about 13,500 (11,500 B.C.)  years ago. The three earliest groups, Clovis, Folsom, and Plainview  are referred to as Paleo-Indians. The classification of Prehistoric Indians is based of stone points associated with animal kill sites. The major portion of these hunter-gatherers came by way of Beringia the Bering Strait land bridge, but there is also growing evidence that some Native Americans came by boats at an earlier date.

Some of the finest pictographs in this country comes from Barrier Canyon Indians of the Archaic Period. The Barrier Canyon Indians left some of the finest rock art in the United States. Located in Canyonlands National Park, Barrier Canyon has been renamed Horseshoe Canyon.

The Anasazi Indians, (Ancestral Puebloans, Ancient Ones, Ancient Enemies), settled in the Four Corners area of the Southwestern United States during the late Archaic Period. The Anasazi Indians, as well as, the Mogollon and Hohokam Indians built large Pueblos and raised corn, squash, and beans several hundred years before the first European explorers "discovered" North America. Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde were population centers for the Ancestral Puebloans several centuries before the first colonists reached the North American Continent.

Hovenweep is located near Monument Valley in the Four Corners area. Built by  Anasazi Indians, the inhabitants of Hovenweep remained in the Four Corners area less than one hundred years. The partial towers and structures of Hovenweep were built between 1230 and 1277. During the 1300s, Hovenweep was abandoned.  The Hovenweep people joined the Rio Grand Pueblo villages and the Hopi villages.

The Fremont Indians were diverse groups of Native American Indians that inhabited the western Colorado Plateau and the eastern Great Basin of Utah from 400 A.D. to 1350 A.D.  Vast numbers of Fremont Indian pictograph and petroglyph rock art panels are scattered throughout Canyonlands and Arches National Parks. The Three King's panel of the Fremont Indians near Vernal, Utah is regarded as the finest Indian petroglyph panel in the world. The Waldo Wilcox Ranch along Range Creek in the Book Cliff mountains of Utah was recently opened to archeological study. The undisturbed Fremont villages on the Wilcox Ranch will contribute a great deal to the understanding of the Fremont Indian Culture. The Anasazi Indian Culture left the great houses and kivas; the Fremont Indian Culture left the finest petroglyphs in the world. The finest pictographs are the "Great Mural" paintings in Baja, Mexico.

The forest fire article is on the devastating forest fires that result from the influence of environmentalists and the mismanagement of our National Parks and Forests. Although not directly related to the Mountain Man Indian Fur Trade, forest fires should be a concern to all of us that do not want to see our National Parks and National Forests destroyed by forest fires. Part of the article is based on firsthand observations from start to finish of the Mule Fire of 2002. The Mule Fire was on North Horse Creek in Sublette County, Wyoming. The fire was not far from Fort Bonneville, where the six Horse Creek rendezvous were held during the Mountain Man rendezvous  period from 1825 to 1840.

The next picture is what we should see in our National Parks, not the black burned areas still visible fourteen years after the Yellowstone forest fires of 1988.

                                        Beaver Dam - Grand Teton National Park

A historical novel, Mountains of Stone deals with the clash of European and Indian cultures beyond the Alleghany Mountains. Western expansion set in opposition two peoples: one with an insatiable thirst for furs and land; the other a territorial people with no concept of land ownership...Mother Earth was shared by all. A historical background intertwined in American expansion and Native American Cultural and Religious aspects makes Mountains of Stone a gripping blend of historical fact and fiction. An exciting, page turning, storyline makes Mountains of Stone a "good read", as well as, educational.

The Winds of Change chronicles the early affects of westward expansion on the Northwest and Plains Indians. The central characters of Winds of Change bring to life an exciting period of American history. Broken Knife's and Wind's interaction with the leading fur traders of St. Louis, the head of Indian Affairs, General William Clark,  Partisan of the Sioux, and Tecumseh of the Shawnee creates an interesting storyline, while maintaining a high level of historical accuracy.  

Winds of Change is footnoted throughout the book. A chapter on Western Expansion Trivia is divided into seven sections:  Lewis and Clark, Astorians, Mountain Men, Canadian Fur Trade, Oregon Trail, Oregon Country, and the Mormon Trail. Like Mountains of Stone, Winds of Change is an exciting read, as well as, educational.

Click on logo for more information on Winds of Change. For those that ordered Mountains of Stone, the price for Winds of Change will be the same.

 You are not required to pre-pay or send credit card information when ordering  Mountains of Stone or The Winds of Change. After receiving the book, please pay the enclosed invoice. A sad commentary on our present-day values is that there is little trust in people anymore. This is too bad. Being old fashioned, I trust people, and the overwhelming majority of people buying Mountains of Stone bear out my faith in people. The few people that do not pay for the book end up on my "Dead Beat List".

During the school year, this site averages over five million hits per month. For someone with any integrity at all, it should be embarrassing to have your name on a "Dead Beat List" that can be seen by colleagues, friends, students, clients, neighbors, and people from around the world. As an example, copy and paste - Sidney McLaughlin - or paste - Sidney McLaughlin deadbeat into Google.

Click on the rattlesnake for address, phone number, and email address for the dead beats on this list.
Dead Beats Paul Retzlaff,  Paula Vandel,  Agness Jack, Cyndy Geraghty,  Dead Beats Sidney McLaughlin, Mike Thompson, Brigitte Lucke, PhD,- Dead Beat Paul Topham, David A Miller, Cade Humphrey, Shane Garcia – Dead Beats William Perugino, Michael Loretto, Allen Willyerd, Jon Merritt – Dead Beats Timothy Dietz, Larry Opheim,  Linda Bennington, Virginia Perches– Dead Beats, Kris Giedosh, Brett D Pfingston, Gail Belt, Shawn Seigler– Dead Beats Gerald Gallimore, Sandra Bowden, Nikki Davenport,  Don McCall, Gary Blauser, Randy Adam - Dead Beats, Feigue Cieplinski, PhD, Jim Georgeson – Dead Beats.

There are frequent request to link to other internet sites, but I have refrained from linking to them because the sites were not about the history of the fur trade. However, Oregon State University Press has just republished Don Berry's book, A Majority of Scoundrels. A Majority of Scoundrels is an excellent book on the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade.

Fur, Fortune, and Empire by Eric Jay Dolin has just been released by W.W. Norton & Company. This Epic History of the Fur Trade in America begins in the early Seventeenth Century with the Dutch traders on the Hudson River and culminates with the destruction of the buffalo in the late Nineteenth Century. Fur, Fortune, and Empire clearly outlines the search for beaver pelts as the prime motivator for America's western expansion. Dr. Dolin will speak at the Mountain Man Rendezvous in Pinedale, Wyoming on July 9, 2010, and in many other small towns and cities in the West during July and August .      

Unless otherwise noted, Ned Eddins took the photographs on the Mountain Man Plains Indian website. In some cases, the pictures have been digitally enhanced to portray the western Wyoming mountains, especially the Tetons in Jackson Hole, Monument Valley, Four Corners Area, etc. before the arrival of West Coast smog. It is nearly impossible to get a clear picture during the day--there is always a haze that can be seen on the skyline. For you non-believers, stand in Barstow, California just after sundown and look West, or fly out of Denver, Colorado some evening.

This picture was taken a few miles from my house on New Years day 2006.

                                                 Upper Dam - Swift Creek Canyon

New Years day was one of the clearest days that we have had in a long time. The vast majority of the time, the mountain valleys of Wyoming are filled with smog from northern California and the Pacific Northwest (our prevailing winds). Even on what appears a clear day, there is always a gray haze on the horizon. If you scoff at this, look in the beaver dam picture at how much clearer the Mount Moran reflection is than the actual image. Or better yet, if you live in the West, walk outside and look west any evening, or at the background haze in any outdoor move scene, or at the PBS documentary on the Lewis and Clark Expedition...Captain Lewis recorded in his journal how clear the air was as they approached the Rocky Mountains...not anymore.

I received the following comment in an email...

Mr. Eddins, I hear that you don't like teachers, and think that they aren't as smart or as good as they used to be.

You heard wrong. Nothing could be further from the truth. Next to my parents, the man that had the greatest affect on my life was Dr. Bill McNulty, Head of the Plant Physiology Department at the University of Utah. Teachers are the cornerstone of a free society, and thankfully, there are a great many outstanding teachers in our educational system. What I and many teachers object to is the lies and fabrications of bigoted liberal activists posing as "teachers". No college professor should be able to publish an article of lies, or plagiarize a painting like Ward Churchill did and remain a teacher. Churchill's defenders are no better than he is...academic freedom  does not give anyone the right to lie, or plagiarize.

This site is maintained through the sale of my two historical novels.

                                       
     There are no banner adds, no pop up adds, or other advertising, except my books -- To keep the site this way, your support is appreciated. 

There have been many requests for copies of pictures from the website. The best website pictures, and others from Jackson Hole, Yellowstone, and Star Valley, Wyoming, have been put on a CD. The pictures make beautiful screensavers, or can be used as a slide show in Windows XP. When ordering Mountains of Stone, or Winds of Change, request the CD and I will send it free with the book. The Winds of Change CD contains different pictures than those on the Mountains of Stone CD. To view a representative sample of pictures, click on...

To email a comment, a question, or a suggestion click on the mountain man logo.

To return to the Article Link Bars click on the trapper logo.

The articles on the Mountain Man and Plains Indian Fur Trade site were written by O. Ned Eddins of Afton, Wyoming. Permission is given for material from the Mountain Man Plains Indian Fur Trade site to be used for school research papers.

Web Site Citation: Eddins, Ned. Index Page. Thefurtrapper.com. 2003

References are at the end of each article.

This site is maintained by:

                                  O. N. Eddins
                                  P.O. 305
                                  Afton, WY.
                                  83110

 Last Updated:
July 29, 2010