The American fur trade in the Southwest which followed the attainment of Mexican independence has received but scant attention from historians, having been subordinated by them to the merchandise trade over the Santa Fé trail. This viewpoint is mainly due to Gregg and Chittenden. For over half a century Gregg's Commerce of the Prairies has been considered the classic for Southwestern trade. It is a vivid account of an eyewitness who made eight trips over the trails. But there are two serious faults in Gregg's book. In the first place he did not engage in the trade until 1831, 132 and his knowledge of the preceding decades was based upon hearsay or upon a few books of travel. 133 As Gregg was a trader in merchandise, a business which had practically superseded the fur trade by 1831, it was but natural that he should convey the impression that the early trade was of the same nature as the later. Our other great authority is Chittenden, 134 whose admirable history of the fur trade of the far West has frequently been considered the last word on the subject. But Chittenden was strongly influenced by Gregg and the full significance of the Southwestern fur trade did not dawn upon him. He added considerable data, however, by using Fowler's Journal, 135 Pattie's Personal Narrative, 136 the file of the Missouri Intelligencer, and some other materials. But the footnotes in Bancroft's History of Arizona and New Mexico 137 disclose a mass of material which Chittenden apparently did not examine. Still another unused source, which would have thrown light on the subject, is the documentary material in the archives of Mexico. Many of the transactions of the fur traders within Mexican territory were surreptitious, and just as it is difficult to get at the truth about piracy and smuggling, so it is difficult to obtain information about South-western fur traders. They left few documents, and those few were usually but adorned tales. The views of Mexican officials are as valuable in explaining the history of the fur trade as are the reports of the English colonial customs officials, or the records of court proceedings in trials of piracy.
The following account of Ceran St. Vrain's expedition to the Gila in 1826 is based upon this class of materials, three expedientes being used. One is to be found in the archives of the State of Sonora at Hermosillo, book 42, number 7; the others are in the Archivo de Gobernación at Mexico City; one being in the division Comercio, number 44; the other in the same archive, in the division of Jefes Políticos, 1831-1833, being expediente number 1, legajo 59, folio 28. These expedientes comprise thirty pages. Many of the documents are extremely difficult, being in colloquial Spanish, frequently spelled phonetically, and innocent of accents.
Up to the present time our knowledge of St. Vrain's expedition has been based upon Inman's Old Santa Fé Trail 138 and upon Chittenden. Inman says that late in the spring of 1826 Kit Carson joined an expedition gotten up by Ceran St. Vrain, which was destined for the Rocky Mountains. It left Fort Osage one morning in May and “in a few hours turned abruptly to the west on the broad Trail to the mountains.” As to the exact destination the author fails to enlighten us, due no doubt to the fact that his object in introducing this bit of information was to tell the story of a fight with the Pawnees.
Chittenden says regarding the expedition, “It appears that in September of this year a party under Ceran St. Vrain (if we may trust Inman) set out for Santa Fe, arriving there in November; in this party was a runaway boy, Kit Carson, then 17 years old.” 139 But it is evident that in spite of his citation of Inman, Chittenden did not follow that author faithfully. Inman says that St. Vrain started in May, Chittenden says in September. Chittenden's method of arriving at his conclusion that the date should be changed is found when we examine the sources of information regarding Kit Carson. In the Missouri Intelligencer of October 12, 1826, appeared an advertisement inserted by David Workman, to whom Carson was apprenticed, which stated that on or about September 1, Kit ran away. 140 Peters in his biography of Carson says that he arrived in Santa Fé in November, 141 a statement which is followed by Sabin in his recent work. 142 Chittenden appears to have changed the date as given by Inman to fit the information which he obtained from the Missouri Intelligencer and Peters. The statements of both authors are incorrect at least in part. Inman was probably right, as will be shown later, in placing the departure of St. Vrain's expedition in May, 1826, but he was wrong in supposing that Carson accompanied the expedition, for Workman's advertisement, which appears to be good evidence, shows that Kit was in Missouri until about September 1. Chittenden unfortunately changed the only correct part of Inman's statement.
Let us now abandon the historians and examine the documents. On August 29, 1826, Antonio Narbona, governor of New Mexico, issued at Santa Fé the following passport: “For the present freely grant and secure passport to the foreigners, S. W. Williams and Seran Sambrano [Ceran St. Vrain], who with thirty-five men of the same nation, their servants, pass to the state of Sonora for private trade; by all authority to my subordinates, none are to offer any embarrassment on this march.” 143 We cannot be certain of the exact date of the arrival of St. Vrain at Santa Fé, but if we accept Inman's statement that the expedition left Missouri early in May, it is probable that the arrival in the Mexican settlements occurred in the latter part of June. This would give them two months to dispose of their merchandise and unravel the red tape connected with the procuring of a passport.
As to the number on the expedition, the passport which states that there were thirty-five besides the leaders, would seem to be good evidence, but in a letter from Narbona to the governor of Sonora, written two days after the issuance of the passport, the number is given as about a hundred. A complaint made on October 26, 1826, by James Baird to Alexander Ramírez, the president of the El Paso district, stated that there were over a hundred on the expedition. Ramírez in a letter to José Antonio Arce, the vice-governor of Chihuahua, on December 20, 1826, wrote that the reports which he had gathered showed a discrepancy in numbers, but that most of them agreed that there were not less than sixty. Owing to the detailed information given by Narbona to the governor of Sonora and to the fact that the statements of Narbona and Baird practically agree, it seems safe to conclude that there were about a hundred in the expedition. 144
As to the personnel the documents disclose eleven names: Williams, whose initials are variously given as S. W. and J., Ceran and Julian St. Vrain, E. Bure, Alexander Branch, Louis Dolton, Stone, John Rueland or Roles, 145 Miguel Robideau, Pratt, and Joaquin Joon. 146
It is impossible to determine the exact route of the expedition to New Mexico. It probably crossed the plains from Fort Osage to the neighborhood of Pawnee Rock, a well-known point on the Santa Fé Trail, 147 then by an uncertain route to Taos, the point of entry of most of the early expeditions. 148 As to whether the whole party went to Santa Fé, it is also uncertain. In the Glenn expedition the trappers remained at Taos while the leader went to Santa Fé. 149 The same thing may have occurred in this instance.
At Santa Fé or Taos, and probably the latter, the expedition was divided into four parts, no doubt for convenience in trapping on the various streams. Williams and Ceran St. Vrain led one party of twenty-odd, Robideau and Pratt one of thirty-odd, John Roles a third of eighteen, and Joaquin Joon one of similar size. 150 Having organized, the four parties made for the uninhabited regions of the west to trap on the Gila, San Francisco, and Colorado rivers. 151 In the documents we hear of them at various points, now at the Santa Rita Copper Mines, 152 now twelve men appear at Zuñi, now near Tucson. 153 On October 28, 1826, information arrived at the presidio of Tucson that sixteen men were in that region. A troop of soldiers was sent out to find them. Near the Gila the party met seven Indians who had been hunting in the neighborhood, who reported that the foreigners had gone by the Apache trail three days before, and that because of their start, it was useless to follow them. 154 It is evident from this that at least part of them had gone into the Apache country, which lay north of the Gila.
The documents from which we have gleaned these facts also throw much light on the methods, not only of these traders, but of other expeditions of the period. Of these documents, the most illuminating is the complaint of a Missourian named James Baird, made at El Paso on October 21, 1826. The full bearing as well as the humor of this document cannot be appreciated until the past history of Baird is known. In 1812 Robert McKnight, Samuel Chambers and James Baird went from Missouri to Santa Fé. They were arrested by the Spanish authorities and sent to Chihuahua, where they were imprisoned for nine years. In 1821, when Mexico attained her independence, John McKnight, a brother of Robert, obtained their release. 155 In 1822 Baird and Chambers led an expedition of fifty men from Franklin, Missouri, to Santa Fé. 156 At this point Baird drops out of sight as far as the historians are concerned. But the following complaint made at El Paso shows that he remained in New Mexico and became a Mexican citizen, that he engaged in the fur trade and in 1826 was trying to keep Americans out of the field. The statement that for fourteen years he had been a citizen of Mexico and the frequent reiterations of his fidelity are highly humorous in view of the fact that nine out of the fourteen years were spent in a Mexican jail.
Baird's statement is as follows:
For fourteen years I have resided in the provinces, wherein, according to the plan of Yguala, I entered upon the enjoyment of the rights of Mexican citizenship, devoting myself for some time to beaver-hunting, in which occupation I invested my small means with the purpose of forming a methodical expedition which might bring profit to me and to those fellow citizens, who would necessarily accompany me in the said expedition. I was moved to this project by the protection afforded by the laws to Mexican citizens in the employment of their faculties to their own advantage and which excluded by special decrees all foreigners from trapping and hunting, which they might undertake in the rivers and woods of the federation, especially that of beaver, since it is the most precious product which this territory produces. And although it is known to me that for a year and a half past they have clandestinely extracted a large quantity of peltry exceeding a $100,000 in value, I have kept still, knowing that this exploration had been made by small parties; but now, being ready to set out upon the expedition of which I have spoken, I have learned that with scandal and contempt for the Mexican nation a hundred-odd Anglo-Americans have introduced themselves in a body to hunt beaver in the possessions of this state and that of Sonora to which the Rio Gila belongs, and with such arrogance and haughtiness that they have openly said that in spite of the Mexicans, they will hunt beaver wherever they please; to protect their expedition, they are carrying powder and balls, in consequence of which no one is able to restrain them. In view of these circumstances, I believe that it is a bounden duty of every citizen, who has the honor to belong to the great Mexican nation, to make known to his superior government the extraordinary conduct which the foreigners observe in our possessions, which transgressions may be harmful, both on account of the insult which they cast upon the nation by despising our laws and decrees as well as through the damage which they do the said nation by the extinction which inevitably will follow of a product so useful and so valuable. I ought to protest, as I do, that in making this report, I am not moved so much by personal interest as by the honor and general welfare of the nation to which I have heartily joined. In view of the foregoing, I beg that Your Excellency may make such provisions as you may deem proper, to the end that the national laws may be respected and that foreigners may be confined to the limits which the same laws permit them, and that we Mexicans may peacefully profit by the goods with which the merciful God has been pleased to enrich our soil. . . . 157
The complaint of Baird brought prompt action on the part of the Mexican officials. Alexander Ramírez, the president of the district of El Paso, informed the governor of Chihuahua, who sent back orders that Ramírez was to report concerning the expedition as to numbers, passports, places visited, and destination. 158 Similar orders were sent to the alcalde of Tucson, 159 and to the comandante general and jefe político of New Mexico. 160
On December 20, 1826, Ramírez wrote to the government at Chihuahua that he was not certain of the numbers and that he had heard that they were hunting near the Real de San Francisco in the state of Sonora. “Up to the present time,” he said, “they have not been at other points in this state in the present year, but in the previous years they have hunted all along the river of this jurisdiction [the Rio Grande], securing a quantity of beaver peltry, without having been disturbed by the former judges, or even made to pay a tax for their extraction.” He confirmed the statement of Baird that they had talked in an insolent manner. 161
Even before the complaint of Baird was lodged, the actions of the traders had disturbed Governor Narbona. Two days after the granting of the passport to Williams and St. Vrain he had warned the governor of Sonora that the Americans were going on a secret hunting trip to the rivers of Sonora “to the known injury of our public treasury, in infraction of our laws.” He stated that his suspicions were aroused by the large number and by the questions which they asked when they demanded passports. He further observed that they were “all without trade or other visible object.” 162 On September 30 Narbona wrote to the Minister of Interior and Foreign Relations, “I am suspicious that the Anglo-Americans, who are returning to their country, are lingering a long time, as they are retiring from the inhabited places along the banks of the rivers in the pursuit of beaver trapping and they do the same in the center of the states of Sonora and Chihuahua.” He complained of a lack of cavalry to patrol the frontier, saying that with the greatest difficulty he had maintained ten men in the neighborhood of Taos. He also said that unless something were done at once the beaver would soon become extinct in that region. In the letter Narbona betrays his anxiety. He had granted the Americans a right to trade, but now was trying to make the authorities at Mexico City believe that he had granted the traders a passport to leave the country and that they had violated their privileges by trapping instead of leaving. 163 In a letter to the governor of Chihuahua on February 14, 1827, Narbona again pointed out the inadequacy of his forces to patrol the frontier. He said that there were many foreigners in the country without permits, a condition which had existed since 1822, the year, according to the governor, that Americans began to penetrate into the country. 164
Still further light is thrown on the operations of the traders and on the Santa Fé officials in a report from Chihuahua made to the central government in 1831, but which was based largely upon observations made in 1827. The report in part says, “The taking of peltries of beaver is a branch of trade profitable only for the Anglo-Americans, who make up hunting parties and also establishments for them which last several months; as a result the specie will soon be destroyed.” In the report was embodied a statement from Don Rafael Sarracino, who had been in New Mexico in 1827. Sarracino's statement ran as follows:
The Anglo-Americans, well provided with arms and instruments for hunting, particularly for beaver, are purchasing of the inhabitants of Santa Fé the license which they in their name obtain from the judge of that capital, for making a hunt for a certain length of time and in certain places, which the same judge designates for many leagues distance in the mountains and deserts which the Rio Bravo [Rio Grande] washes; with the subterfuge of the license, the Anglo-Americans are attacking the species without limit or consideration and are getting alarming quantities of peltries, frequently without paying even an eighth of the customs to the treasury. Formerly they refused [to pay] so much that in 1827 (I being in Santa Fé), I was acquainted with an arrangement which they made with a wretch named Don Luis Cabeza de Vaca, the miserable fellow, that he should receive smuggled goods in his house which he has in the desert; and a man of like ilk, for resisting the attack on that [house], was unfortunately killed by a bullet wound which was directed by the soldiers who assisted the alcalde in capturing [it]. The alcalde succeeded in getting twenty-nine tercios [tierces] of very valuable beaver skins, which were forfeited in the season of that summer in the storehouses of the deputy commissioner of the territory. 165
The letters of Narbona, the complaint of Baird, and the resulting inquiry aroused the Mexican government. In March, 1827, the vice-governor of Chihuahua sent the documents, which had been collected from the officials of New Mexico and Sonora, to the Secretary of State and Foreign Relations, and on April 5 a protest was made to Poinsett, the United States Minister, in which he was asked to have his government restrain the traders. On the 9th Poinsett replied, expressing his regret at the infraction of the laws by citizens of the United States, and assuring the Mexican government that he would submit the request to his government, “with full confidence that it will adopt measures, as the laws permit, to stop the repetition of similar acts on the part of citizens of the United States.” 166 I have found no evidence to show, however, that the United States took any action to restrain the traders.
In the light of the evidence, it seems fair to assume that the history of the Santa Fé trade must be revised, giving the fur trader his place beside or ahead of the merchant. St. Vrain's expedition was only one of many similar enterprises. It was chosen as the central theme of this paper because the documents, which have thus far been gathered, are more complete on this expedition than on others. But the archives of Mexico have only begun to give up their stores. The writer has seen enough in these and other documents to convince him that the history of the Santa Fé Trail has not yet been written.
132. Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies (New York, 1845), I, pp. V-VI. The most accessible edition is in Thwaites, Early Western Travels, XIX-XX.
133. The books used by Gregg were Irving, Tour of the Prairies (Philadelphia, 1835), Murray, Travels in the United States (London, 1839), and Hoffman, A Winter in the West (New York and London, 1835). See Early Western Travels, XIX, 161.
134. Chittenden, The American Fur Trade of the Far West (New York, 1902), 3 vols.
135. The Journal of Jacob Fowler, Elliott Coues, ed. (New York, 1898).
136. The Personal Narrative of James O. Pattie of Kentucky (Cincinnati, 1831.) Reprinted in Early Western Travels, XVIII.
137. H. H. Bancroft, History of Arizona and New Mexico (San Francisco, 1889), 297-299, 332-338.
138. Henry Inman, The Old Santa Fé Trail (Topeka, 1914), 406-410. This work also appeared in earlier editions.
139. Chittenden, The American Fur Trade of the Far West, II, 508-509.
140. Ibid., II, 538-9.
141. Dewitt C. Peters, Pioneer Life and Frontier Adventures (Boston, 1873), 30.
142. Edwin L. Sabin, Kit Carson Days (Chicago, 1914), 27.
143. Archivo del Gobierno del Estado de Sonora (Hermosillo), Tomo 42, No. 7, 1826.
144. Archivo de Gobernación (Mexico), Comercio, Expediente 44. The importance of this is realized when we find that according to Gregg (Commerce of the Prairies, II, 160) in 1826 the total number engaged in the Santa Fé trade was a hundred men.
145. Archivo del Gobierno del Estado de Sonora (Hermosillo), Tomo 42, No. 7, 1826.
146. Archivo de Gobernación (Mexico), Comercio, Expediente 44. As to the identity of these men we have some data. The St. Vrains were later partners of the well-known firm of Bent and St. Vrain. Robideau or Robidoux was a famous fur-trader. Pratt was known as a caravan proprietor. Of Williams we cannot be so certain. An Ezekiel Williams was a fur trader who was the hero of Coyner's Lost Trappers, a fanciful tale of the early traders. A Lewis Dawson, perhaps the Louis Dolton of the documents, accompanied Glenn and Fowler in 1821, but according to Fowler's Journal he was killed by a bear in November of that year. This may be a convenient way of accounting to the people at home for the disappearance of one of the party.
147. Inman, The Old Santa Fé Trail, 406.
148. Fowler, Journal, 104-106; Narbona to the Minister of Interior and Foreign Relations, September 30, 1826, in Archivo de Gobernación (Mexico), Comercio, Expediente 44.
149. Fowler, Journal, 95, 137.
150. Narbona to the governor of Sonora, August 31, 1826, in Archivo de Gobernación (Mexico), Comercio, Expediente 44.
151. Narbona to the Minister of Interior and Foreign Relations, September 30, 1826, in Ibid.
152. Ramírez to the governor of Chihuahua, December 20, 1826, in ibid.
153. Archivo del Gobierno del Estado de Sonora (Hermosillo), Tomo 42, No. 7, 1826.
154. The alcalde of Tucson to the governor of Sonora, November 4, 1826, in Ibid.
155. Chittenden, The Fur Trade of the Far West, II, 496-497.
156. Ibid., II, 504.
157. Archivo de Gobernación (Mexico), Comercio, Expediente 44.
158. Ibid.
159. Archivo del Gobierno del Estado de Sonora (Hermosillo), Tomo 42, No. 7, 1826.
160. Archivo de Gobernación (Mexico), Comercio, Expediente 44.
161. Archivo de Gobernación (Mexico), Comercio, Expediente 44.
162. Narbona to the governor of Sonora, August 31, 1826, in Ibid.
163. In Ibid.
164. In Ibid.
165. Ygnacio Madrid to the Secretary of State and Foreign Relations, April 14, 1831, Archivo de la Secretaría de Gobernación (Mexico), Jefes Politicos, 1831-1833, Expediente 1, Leg. 59, ff. 28.
166. Archivo de Gobernación (Mexico), Comercio, Expediente 44.
How to cite:
Marshall, Thomas Maitland, "ST. VRAIN'S EXPEDITION TO THE GILA IN 1826 ", Volume 019, Number 3, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, Page 251 - 260. http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v019/n3/article_3.html
[Accessed Mon Nov 23 11:54:46 CST 2009]
