There are several articles not directly related to the Mountain Man and the Plains Indian Fur Trade, but were background information for my historical novels, Mountains of Stone and The Winds of Change. The collected information was added to the website because prehistoric Indians and the devastation of forest fires should be of interest to anyone who wants to understand and preserve our heritage.

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 major portion of these hunter-gatherers came by way of Beringia and the Bering Strait land bridge, but there is also growing evidence some Native Americans came by boats at an earlier date.

Mesoamerica, or Meso-America, is the area of central America from central Mexico and the Yucatan Peninsula to Guatemala, Belize, and parts of Honduras. Some of the most complex and advanced cultures in the world developed in Mesoamerica. Vast temple ruins are found throughout Meso-America.

Barrier Canyon Indians left some of the oldest and finest rock art in the United States. Located in the Maze District of Canyonlands National Park, Barrier Canyon has been renamed Horseshoe Canyon.

Anasazi Indians (Ancestral Puebloans, Ancient Ones, Ancient Enemies) and  the Mogollon and Hohokam-Sinagua Indians settled in the Four Corners area of the Southwestern United States during the late Archaic Period.

Mesa Verde and Pueblo Bonita in Chaco Canyon were population centers several centuries before the first colonists reached the North American Continent.

Hovenweep National Monument is located near Monument Valley in the Four Corners area. Two other outstanding areas connected with Hovenweep are the Holly and Cajon sites. Built by Anasazi Indians, the inhabitants of Hovenweep remained in the Four Corners area less than one hundred years.

Monument Valley is located in the Four Corners area south and east of Hovenweep National Monument. The first known pre-historic Indians to inhabit Monument Valley were the Kayenta Anasazi. The spectacular Monument Valley monoliths are among the most photographed objects in the United States.

Fremont Indians were diverse groups of Native American Indians inhabiting the western Colorado Plateau and the eastern Great Basin of Utah from 400 A.D. to 1350 A.D. Numerous Fremont Indian pictograph and petroglyph rock art panels are scattered throughout Canyonlands and Arches National Parks.

Rock Art of the Fremont Indian Culture is regarded as among the finest in the world. The Fremont Indians left the rock art; Anasazi Indian Culture left the great houses and kivas.

The four major "things" brought to Native Americans by early European explorers, colonists, Mountain Men and  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.

Indian 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 the smallpox virus was deliberately spread among the First Nations by the United States Army.

Indian alcohol was regulated by the the federal government  through a series of Trade and Intercourse Acts starting in 1790. With the limited ability of the government to enforce these federal acts, the white man's firewater turned a great many proud, self-reliant Native Americans into drunken beggars.

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 is blown all out of proportion.

Spanish Colonial horses were brought to America in 1519 by Spanish Conquistadors. An Indian to Indian horse trading network spread the Indian horses out of the Southwest, across the Rocky Mountains, the Northwest, the Plains, and to the Cree in Canada. Spanish horses were the one thing American Indians could reproduce and trade to fur traders and Mountain Man.

Trade Beads were a medium of exchange between Europeans and Native Americans. Columbus in 1492 and the Spanish explorers, Cort�z in 1519 (Mexico), Narv�ez in 1527 (Florida), and De Soto in 1539 (Florida) carried glass beads for trade with the native inhabitants.

                                                               Beaver House

Astorians and the discovery of the Oregon Trail is divided into six parts: John Jacob Astor, Tonquin, Fort Astoria, Wilson Price Hunt, and Robert Stuart. The Astorians had a profound effect on the geographical outline of the United States.

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.

The Lewis and Clark article covers interesting tidbits of information on the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Native Americans, and Sacajawea.

The Mountain Man Rendezvous Article is a comprehensive article on the history of the North American Fur Trade Era. Mountain Man explored and trapped beaver from Mexico to the Oregon Country.

                                                           United States 1821 

Fur Trappers and traders were the first Americans to ascend the Missouri River and its tributaries. During the late seventeen hundreds, the Plains Indians exchanged 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. 

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

Joseph Rutherford Walker is considered America�s greatest mountain man�explorer. His closest rivals for the honor are Jedediah Smith, and three Canadians, David Thompson, Alexander Mackenzie, and Peter Skene Ogden.

Jedediah Smith made the effective discovery of South Pass in 1824.  Jedediah Smith made the first crossings of the Great Basin in Utah from North to South and East to West, as well as, from the southern end of California to the Columbia River. Smith was killed by Comanche Indians on the Cimarron River on the twenty-seventh of May, 1831.

                                Grand Teton - Geographical Center of the Fur Trade

The 1825 to 1840 rendezvous sites are pictured with approximate GPS locations. Six of the sixteen rendezvous were held outside the United States in territory belonging to Mexico. Except three sites in Utah and one in Idaho, all of the rendezvous were held in Wyoming.

Fort Bonneville on the Wyoming Green River is the creation of post-fur trade historians...not rendezvous participants. Not one journal, biography, or book by the contemporaries of Warren Ferris mention a Fort Bonneville, a Fort Nonsense, or a Bonneville's Folly. 

America's western expansion over the Oregon, Mormon, and California trails cannot be separated from the fur trade. The Mountain Man discovered, or was shown by Native American Indians, the western routes; the Mountain Man served as  guides for the pioneers to the Oregon Country.

Historical Landmarks, is associated with the Oregon, California, and Mormon trails, the Mountain Man Fur Trade, and South Pass monuments, and markers.  

The Oregon Trail pioneered by Robert Stuart in 1812 opened up a new way of life for a great many Americans thirty-one years later. The Oregon Trail article contain historical facts, tidbits of information, and some gross misrepresentations in connection with western expansion.

The Oregon Country boundary at the forty-ninth parallel in 1846 and the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on February 2, 1848 determined the outline of American western expansion, except for a part of Arizona.

The Mormon Trail was the route of exodus for the Mormons from Nauvoo, Illinois to the Valley of the Great Salt Lake. The Mormon Trail consisted of two segments. The first segment across Iowa to the Missouri River in February of 1846 covered two hundred and sixty-five miles in four months. The second segment from the Missouri River to the Valley of the Great Salt Lake covered one thousand and thirty-two miles in four months.

The Willey and Martin Handcart Companies is considered by some the worst disaster in the history of western overland travel...the Cherokee Trail of Tears resulted in a much higher death rate. Only a massive rescue effort prevented the snowbound handcart companies from being a worse disaster.

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.

Not directly related to the Mountain Man Indian Fur Trade, forest fires should be a concern to all of us who do not want our National Parks and National Forests destroyed by forest fires.

Forest fires are rampant in western federal lands. The advocacy of letting natural fires burn, or in some cases correcting decades of fire-fuel buildup with mismanaged prescribed burns, is a standard practice with the forest service if no structures are involved.

Environmental policies of the Sierra Club and other radical environmentalist groups are destroying our National Forests. Devastating forest fires result from the influence of environmentalists in the National Parks and Forests. Environmentalist and bureaucratic policies render federal agencies ineffective in managing the National Forests.

The Mule Fire of 2002 is based on firsthand observations from start to finish. The Mule Fire was on North Horse Creek in Sublette County, Wyoming. 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 (Great Lakes area) 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 degree 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.

All of the Mountain Man Plains Indian Fur Trade articles were written by Ned Eddins of Afton, Wyoming. The purposes of writing the Mountain Man and Plains Indian articles is to learn about a particular subject. My goal is to be as unbiased and historically accurate as possible. There have been some interesting responses to the Indian Smallpox, the Indian Horse and the Forest Fire articles. If there is a mistake in an article, please point it out and the appropriate correction will be made.

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

There are frequent request to link to other internet sites, but I have refrained from linking to them because the sites are not about the history of the fur trade. However, there are three new books on the fur trade.

Oregon State University Press republished Don Berry's book, A Majority of Scoundrels. A Majority of Scoundrels is an excellent book on the business aspects of the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade.

Pierre's Hole! The Fur Trade History of Teton Valley by Jim Hardee. Jim Hardee is the editor of the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade Journal, and director of the Fur Trade Research Center.  Published by the Sublette County Historical Society and the Museum of the Mountain Man, Pierre's Hole! is an excellent source of information on the Rocky Mountain fur trade associated with the Teton Valley and the upper Snake River plains. Jim's meticulous research uncovered several unpublished accounts of the 1832 Pierre's Hole Rendezvous. Pierre's Hole is available online at the Museum of the Mountain Man in Pinedale.

Fur, Fortune, and Empire by Eric Jay Dolin is published by W. W. Norton & Company. This Epic History of the American Fur Trade 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.

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 Yellowstone, Tetons in Jackson Hole, Monument Valley, Four Corners Area, etc. before the prevailing winds brought West Coast smog. This picture was taken a few miles from my house on New Years day 2006.

                                                   Swift Creek Canyon

New Years day was one of the clearest days in a long time. Even on what appears a clear day, there is always a gray haze on the horizon...look how much clearer the Mount Moran reflection is than the actual image. Captain Lewis recorded in his journal how clear the air was as they approached the Rocky Mountains...not anymore.

Permission is given for the articles on the Mountain Man and Plains Indian Fur Trade websites to be used for school research papers.

Citation: Eddins, Ned. (article name) Thefurtrapper.com. Afton, Wyoming. 2002.

Article Links, References, and Responses are at the end of the articles.

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

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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, 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 the pictures on the CDs, click on...

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Contributions:                                           
The Native American Indian points and knives are from a private collection of West Texas Projectile Points. 

The buffalo head was courtesy of Lou Roberts on Horse Creek, Daniel, Wyoming.

This site is maintained by:

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

                                                                    Last Updated:
                                                                  March 16, 2011