Chapter II: Preface

In this volume I have endeavoured to present a review in chronological order of the important events which contributed to breaking the Wilderness that so long lay untamed west of the Mississippi, mentioning with as much detail as possible in a single popular volume the principal persons and happenings in proper sequence, but paying special attention to the trapper and trader element, which, more than any other, dispelled the mysteries of the vast region.

I believe this to be the first book so fully to treat the subject as a consecutive narrative. By means of it, not only may the story of the struggle to master the Wilderness be examined, but the place of the trapper and trader in the work of its reduction, and that of Coronado, Mackenzie, Lewis and Clark, Frémont, Powell, and similar explorers, may be determined with reference to each other as well as with reference to the general order.

Many people seem to know little about Western history; about Coronado, Cabeza de Vaca, or even about Mackenzie; and others are by no means clear as to where in the historical scale these characters belong. While the name of Daniel Boone is familiar to every child, names of men equally eminent in the same pursuits, like Jedediah Smith, Bridger, Fitzpatrick, etc., are scarcely known at all. Nor have many persons a just appreciation of the numerous attempts that were made to explore the Western Wilderness, or of the extremely early period in the history of North America when these attempts began. Many are surprised, therefore, to learn that the first European entrance into the western part of the United States occurred over three and a quarter centuries ago. At least partly, this vagueness is due to the one-sidedness up to the present of the usual works dealing with American history, most of which are only histories of the eastern part of the country, with mere offhand references to the important events of the region beyond the Mississippi. Numerous details are presented of early Virginia and of New England, but the happenings in New Mexico and in California, and the great West generally, are dismissed with a few superficial notes.

Within the last year or two much has been written about Lewis and Clark, and consequently their grand exploit is well known, but its relation in the popular mind as to accomplishment and position with reference to other explorations is often quite uncertain. It therefore appeared to me that a single volume which should tell the Wilderness story in unbroken sequence, with special emphasis on the trapper and trader, would be of value. I have consequently shown the first attacks by sea and land, and the gradual closing in on all sides, through the matchless trail-breaking of the trappers and traders, down to the year when Powell practically finished this particular white man's task by his bold and romantic conquest of the Colorado,—the year when the first railway trains crossing the continent began a new era. In order that the subject might be still clearer and more comprehensive, I have gone farther and have told the story of the chief denizens of the pristine Wilderness: the beaver, the buffalo, and their close associates, those indomitable, iron-nerved people, the Amerinds; the North-Americans of yesterday.

Sometimes it is difficult to describe with precision the route of an explorer without searching his original story, and, in my studies, this has not always been practicable. For example, I do not know where the journals of Hunt and Bonneville now are, if extant. Irving's interpretation seems fairly accurate, but as he was entirely unfamiliar with the region west of the Rocky Mountains, his description is not always clear. In other cases, especially in that of Verendrye, I have relied on the transcripts of others. The trail of Coronado I have long studied with special care, and I have reached the conclusions embodied in the map on page 115,—conclusions entirely at variance with all accepted authorities, but which I feel confident, nevertheless, are in the main correct.

One early explorer in the Minnesota and Hudson Bay regions I have not mentioned. This is Radisson, who, it is claimed, saw the upper Mississippi before Marquette. The omission was an oversight. Miss A. C. Laut has given a convincing account of his travels in her _Pathfinders of the West_, to which I take pleasure in referring the reader for information on this point.[1]

A completed book is the mirror of the writer's shortcomings. I hope the reflections which may fall to my lot in this one will not be too painful, for I have had in contemplation others to fill in a general scheme. One starts with a desire for perfection, but without the resources of a Carnegie he is apt to fall so far short of the mark that he fears to look in the glass at all.

With the Wilderness, however, I can claim some degree of familiarity, for I may be said to have been "in at the death," as I was one of Powell's companions down the Colorado on his second voyage, 1871-72, and have been over portions of almost every one of the principal historical trails. I have travelled there on foot, on horseback, by boat, by waggon, and by railway,—even by Pullman "Palace" car. I have lived under its open sky through summers and through winters; its snows, its rains, its burning heat, have baptised me one of its children. In some cases my footsteps have been among the first of our race to break the surface; and if I have not visited every nook and corner of it during the last thirty four years it is the fault of my purse, not of my spirit.

My remarks on supplying whiskey to the natives may by some be deemed too severe, but in my own opinion there is no expression of condemnation adequate to denounce the debauchment of the American tribes by this foul means. It was a crime against civilisation, against humanity; a cruel, dastardly outrage against these people who by its means largely have been reduced to the lowest degree and are sneered at by those who have profited by their debasement. In the final chapter I have thought it desirable to add a footnote to the effect that I am neither a teetotaler nor a prohibitionist for the reason that my condemnatory remarks might otherwise be attributed to the prejudice of zeal, rather than to indignation at the low devices resorted to by white men to work the Amerinds for their own profit. A great deal that is base and mean is now excused on the ground that this is a commercial age, but I can only remark that if there is to be no standard for measuring modern conduct but financial profit, the white man's footsteps are surely on the wrong trail.

The reader in following these pages must remember that comfort is generally relative, and that what appears hard from the chimney corner may have been comparative luxury. I have never slept more comfortably anywhere than under a foot of snow.

I have had much kind assistance and am grateful for it. I am particularly obliged to Mr. William J. Schieffelin for the generous and unlimited use of valuable books from his library; to Mr. E. H. Harriman for transportation favours; also for the same to Mr. S. K. Hooper; to Mr. F. M. Bishop for the loan of a volume on Jacob Hamblin not otherwise obtainable; to Mr. O. D. Wheeler and the Montana Historical Society for cuts; to Captain E. L. Berthoud, Edgar A. Rider, and Jack Sumner for manuscript notes; to Mr. L. H. Johnson for manuscript notes and photographs; to Mr. B. L. Young for a special drawing of the rock pecking of a buffalo in southern Utah; to Mr. R. H. Chapman, Mr. J. B. Lippincott, Mr. J. K. Hillers, Mr. E. E. Howell, Mr. Delancy Gill, for photographs; and to the United States Bureau of Ethnology for the use of illustration material. I would also here thank my publishers for their constant consideration, for presents of books pertaining to my subject, and for the loan of others; and Mr. H. C. Rizer, chief clerk of the United States Geological Survey, for assistance and courtesies extending over a long series of years. Finally I wish to express my renewed thanks for many favours to the veteran geographer and explorer, A. H. Thompson, of the United States Geological Survey, to whom I have the honour of dedicating this book.

Frederick S. Dellenbaugh.
New York, December 7, 1904.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I PAGE

Extent of the Wilderness—The First White Man—The Backbone
of the Continent—A Vanished Sea and a Petrified Ocean—The
Biggest Trees—The Spike of Gold 1

CHAPTER II

The Intelligent Beaver, Chief of the Rodents—A
Four-footed Engineer—A Builder of Houses, Artificial
Canals, Dams, Ponds, and Lakes—Beaver Meadows—A Masterful
Woodchopper—A Tail for the Epicure—Muskbogs—The Fatal
Trap 13

CHAPTER III

A Monarch of the Plains—The Hunchback Cows of Cibola—A
Boon to the Frontiersman—Wide Range of the Bison—Marrow
Bones for the Epicure—Washington Irving a Buffalo
Hunter—The Rushing Run of the Bison Herd—The Sacred White
Buffalo Cow Skin—A Calf with a Bull Head—Wolves and White
Bears 32

CHAPTER IV

The People of the Wilderness—Men without Rights—Killing
by Alcohol—Change in the Character of the Native—Growth
of the War Spirit—Classification by Language—Dwellers
in Tents and Builders of Houses—Farmers and
Hunters—Irrigation Works—The Coming of the Horse 54

CHAPTER V

Three Conditions of Wilderness Life—Farming in the
Driest Country—The _Cache_—The Clan, the Unit of the
Tribe—Hospitality—Totems and Totem Marks—Dress—An
Aboriginal Geographer—The Winter Life—The War-path,
the Scalp-lock, and the Scalp-dance—Mourning the Lost
Braves—Drifting 75

CHAPTER VI

Lost in the Wilderness—Cabeza de Vaca, Great Medicine
Man—The Wilderness Traversed—Spanish Slave Hunters—The
Northern Mystery—The Monk and the Negro—The Great
Coronado Expedition—The Settlement of New Mexico and the
Pueblo Rebellion—California Missions—Escalante to Salt
Lake Valley 103

CHAPTER VII

Soto and the Mississippi—The Gate to the Wilderness—The
_Voyageur_—Champlain to Mackinaw—Pandemonium of Wars—Down
the Mississippi to Soto's Grave—Louisiana—La Salle and
his Death—_Coureurs de Bois_—First Sight of the Northern
Rockies—Where Rolls the Oregon—The American Revolution 126

CHAPTER VIII

The United States Borders the Wilderness—American Ships
to the Pacific Coast—The North-West Company—Mackenzie
Spans the Continent—Meares and Vancouver Baffled by
Breakers—Captain Robert Gray, Victor—The Columbia at
Last—The Louisiana Purchase a Pig in a Poke, and a
Boundless Wilderness—Claims All Round to the Centre—The
Perfidious Napoleon—The Spanish Sentinel Steps Back 144

CHAPTER IX

Jefferson's Hobby—Two Noblemen—An Indefinite
Transaction—Expedition to the Wilderness—Fort Mandan—The
Roche Jaune and the First View of the Great Range—The
Long-lost Sister—Depths of the Unknown—Starvation
on the Trail—Music of the Breakers—Fort Clatsop—The
Return—Medicine Men Again—Two Natives Shot—Premature
Death of the Captain 156

CHAPTER X

The Metropolis of the Far Wilderness—James Pursley
Arrives—Pike up the Mississippi and across the Plains—A
Spanish War Party—A Breastwork to Mark the Site of
Pueblo—Polar Weather and No Clothing—Pike Sees the
Grand Peak—San Luis Valley—The Americans Captured by
Diplomacy—Pursley Finds Gold—Malgares, the Gentleman—The
Pike Party Sent Home 175

CHAPTER XI

A Race for Life—Colter Wins—The Missouri Fur Company—The
American Fur Company—The Pacific Fur Company—A Great
Project Foredoomed—Disaster at the Columbia Bar—The
Destruction of the _Tonquin_—Hunt Starts for the Columbia
Overland—The _Voyageurs_ Baulked—The Caldron Linn—Dog
Steak at a Premium—Misery and Danger—Success at Last 193

CHAPTER XII

Eastward from Astoria—The War of 1812 on a Business
Basis in Oregon—Astoria Becomes Fort George—The Pacific
Fur Company Expires—Louisiana Delimited at Last—The
Expedition of Major Long—A Steamboat on the Missouri—The
First Man on Pike's Peak—The Elusive Red River Refuses to
be Explored—Closing on the Inner Wilderness—The Spanish
Sentinel Turns Mexican 215

CHAPTER XIII

The Wilderness Breaker—Lisa Closes his Account—General
Ashley Takes a Hand—The Religious Jedediah—Green River
Valley—What a White Bear could Do—Ashley Navigates Red
Canyon of Green River—Discovery of Salt Lake—Ashley
Retires Rich—The Rocky Mountain Fur Company—Sylvester
and James O. Pattie—Pattie's Journey in the Valley of
the Colorado—The Great Circuit of Jedediah Smith 229

CHAPTER XIV

A Brood of Wilderness Breakers—Kit Carson the
Dauntless—Campbell, 1827, Santa Fé to San Diego—Becknell
and the Santa Fé Trail—Wheel Tracks in the Wilderness—The
Knight in Buckskin Dies—Pegleg Smith the Horse
Trader—The Apache Turns Forever against the American—New
Mexico the Dreamland—Wolfskill Breaks a Trail to the
Pacific—Bonneville, Captain Courteous; and Wyeth, Leader
Hopeful—Bonneville Forgets a Duty 253

CHAPTER XV

Bonneville Dropped from the Army—Indian Shooters—The
Mythical Rio Buenaventura—Bonneville Twice to the
Columbia—Wyeth Again—The Oregon Trail—The Big Thunder
Canoe—A Wilderness Whiskey Still—Missionaries to
Oregon—The North-West Boundary Settlement—Decline of the
Beaver—Through the Canyon of Lodore on the Ice—Frémont,
the Scientific Pathfinder—The Spanish Sentinel Turned to
the Wall—Fortune's Blindfold 276