The following letter from one Francis Smith, at Tenoxtitlan, offers an interesting glimpse of busy commerce at the westernmost settlement in Texas in the spring of 1832. Tenoxtitlan was established in pursuance of an order from General Manuel de Mier y Teran, commandant of the Eastern Interior States, to Colonel Elosua, principal commandant of Coahuila and Texas, dated April 24, 1830. 231 Elosua was instructed to send Lieutenant Colonel Francisco Ruiz from Bexar with the company of the Alamo to establish a post on the Brazos River west of the Bexar-Nacogdoches road. The garrison was to form a nucleus for a civil settlement of Mexican colonists; and the whole enterprise was a part of the general scheme of Mexican counter-colonization projected against the Americans by the law of April 6, 1830. On September 20, 1830, Teran approved the location of the fort six leagues west of the point where the Bexar-Nacogdoches road crossed the Brazos. This would place it near the present intersection of the Brazos river and the International &Great Northern Railroad. In December, Teran wrote the minister of relaciones that forty Mexican families were already settled at the place, 232 but this is somewhat doubtful. The troops abandoned the fort in August, 1832, during the general rising against the Bustamante forces.
The letter here quoted is addressed to Messrs. A. G. and R. Mills, Brazoria, Texas, and the original is filed in the Nacogdoches Archives in the Texas State Library. The census reports of the Department of Nacogdoches in this same collection estimate the value of furs and peltry exported from Nacogdoches as follows: 1828, eight thousand dollars; 1830, five thousand dollars “more or less,” the decrease in the trade being accounted for by the “multitude” of Indians coming in from the north, who “`diminished the catch” and presumably sold through other channels; 1831, six thousand dollars; 1832, “six or seven thousand dollars more or less”; 1833, seven thousand dollars; 1834, ten thousand dollars in a total export estimated at twenty thousand dollars for the year. Smith's vision of a forty thousand dollar profit in a year is probably too large, but it is evident that the Texas field offered attractive possibilities to a keen trader. Furs mentioned in the Nacogdoches census reports were beaver, otter, badger, bear, buffalo, deer and cattle. Census reports from Austin's Colony are generally lacking after 1828 and do not mention the fur trade when available. Reports from Bexar and Goliad show no trade of any kind.
Tenoxtitlan March 11th 1832 Gentlemen
I have been verry sick but am now in good health again I have wrote to you several times and I know not what I have wrote for I have always been in a hurry and full of business at the time I was going to send down pack horses I had wrote to you giving a full description of my ideas of the prospects of trade here &thousands of fortunes that is not yet made as the dates are old and I wish to see you before long I decline sending those letters A French Indian trader came in to night with 80 buffaloe robes he asks me $5.25 apiece for them he is offered $5.50 but he likes my goods best in the morning I expect to buy his robes.
My cart is now loaded with beef hides deer skins buffaloe hides &robes some leopard &beaver, my oxen are tyed to the wheels and are to start for Brassoria tomorrow morning
As the mail leaves here early in the morning I send this to let you know it is a great way to hawl goods and that a bad article is not worth hawling. the keg of tobacco I can not give to the indians. I have sold wine several times it has been returned as often. Sweet wine is the sort for this place cheap tobaco in boxes also. I now need soap whiskey sugar good orleans 2 barrels coffee 2 sacks 1 box tobaco, rice, raisins, almonds, sweet wine, annisseed ¾ white domestic, black silk hankfs. more of those fine bowls &pitchers with red flower on the side, a few small deep plates, fishing lines large &small, a few gimblets, spurs a few peices of good calico &c. Some tin cups axes &tomahawks
The beaver I have bought I had to pay half cash at $3.00 per lb on account of not haveing indian goods.
I have $450 on hand. the money is about done here untill more comes on I sell some for Bolets [bullets?].
I have learned that the common strouding is not good for those beaver hunters that they will not wear but tolerable good broadcloth. I wrote before for brass kettles &beaver traps I think I could sell 100 next fall &summer 3 or 4 dozen rifles would not come amiss between now and fall.
I want a carpenter to help build a skin press and a cistern to keep peltry in to save the cost of beating I want a baker, make out my load with flower, molasses I want.
If R has gone to Orleas please write to him to send to Cincinnati for a first rate large ox waggon for the road with an English bed well turned up before tire not less than 2 inches wide but more will do
I can not do without it I am willing to pay the price but I want one that will please me I have the money laid by to pay for it
French or Mc a Knaw blankets is all the sort that will sell here I think that 40 thousand dollars worth of Indian produce can be taken in here between now and the first of next Feby perhaps much more [for] the Cherokees, Shawnees, Delawares &Kickapoos have been very successfull at beaver this winter they say that they will all go and sweep them the next.
As I have in all my letters mixed every thing up togather please hunt through them &understand if you can
I know not how to get my money to you I can not shut up and go down for I am the only one that has any thing to sell of consequence
Some American hunters will be here in a few days with about 200 beef hides let we know soon if I had better pay part money to get them and what they are worth.
Francis Smith
If you can buy a large likly pair of steers for me unbroke not less than 4 years old let white put them in the team The pair of boots that is in the box please hand to Mr Young
Those prunella shoes would never sell here they have two faults no heels &square toes. Please never send me any square toes.
I send you one doz of them and keep the half doz to not be without shoes I think they may last me 17 years if I take good care of them I want some ladys shoes small size round toes and high heels.
Sperm candles that I can aford to sell for 12½ cts. awls all large size 4 or 5½ inch augers 2 doz strong negro shoes. open ended thimbles. 8 or 10 pieces of white Domestic 3/4 &4/4. 2 pieces stout Lowel. mens cotton socks white &colored 2 or 3 lb of flax thread strong large fish hooks
Small check calico yellow &other collours Jews harps iron and brass. Strait awls fire steels a small assortment of Pocket knives some good tin pans
Addressed:
Mr A G and R Mills
Brazoria
232. University of Texas transcripts from archives of the Department of Fomento (Mexico), Legajo 5, expediente 34.
How to cite:
"A GLIMPSE OF THE TEXAS FUR TRADE IN 1832 ", Volume 019, Number 3, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, Page 279 - 282. http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v019/n3/article_6.html
[Accessed Mon Nov 23 15:36:41 CST 2009]
