The Oregon trail

Prefatory Note

In this edition of ''The Oregon Trail" I have wished chiefly to give the book its proper place in the general setting of American life and histor}^ Of course the book may always be read by those who are attracted chiefly by the striking adventure and the descriptions of out-door life, but it is really a book belonging to a certain period of our national history, and that a most interesting one. The author, too, and his particular subject for study, the Indians, are connected with a larger and equally interesting field. So one loses much if he does not read "The Oregon Trail" with regard to its associations. The Publishers alone are responsible for the text.

Union College.

PUBLISHERS' NOTE

As this edition of Parkman's **The Oregon Trail" was prepared for the younger readers and for school use, some portions of the original text that are not essential to the narrative, as well as some redundant words and phrases, have been omitted or slightly modified. It is believed that these abridgments will make the volume more acceptable for its special purpose than the author's complete earlier version, which has been otherwise followed.

Contents

Page

Prefatory Note iii

Introduction

Parkman and His \York ix

The Explorers of the Oregon Trail xv

Parkman 's View of the Indians xxiii

Parkman's Route xxvi

Additional Reading xxviii

Suggestions to Teachers xxxi

Chapter

I. The Frontier 1

II. Breaking the Ice 10

III. Fort Leavenworth 21

IV. " Jumping Off " 25

V. The " Big Blue " SG

VI. The Platte and the Desert 49

VII. The Buffalo 62

VIII. Taking French Leave 76

IX. Scenes at Fort Laramie 91

X. The War-Parties 105

XL Scenes at the Camp 127

XII. Ill-Luck 144

XIII. Hunting Indians 151

XIV. The Ogillallah Village 172

XV. The Hunting Camp 192

XVI. The Trappers 215

vii viii CONTEXTS

Chapter Page

XVII. The Black Hills 225

XVIII. A Mountain Hunt 229

XIX. Passage of the Mountains 240

XX. The Lonely Journey 255

XXI. The Pueblo and Bent's Fort 274

XXII. Tete Rouge, the Volunteer 282,

XXIII. Indian Alarms 287

XXIV. Down the Arkansas 297

INTRODUCTION

PARKMAN AND HIS WORK

The story of Parkman's life is an inspiring one though it has little of striking event or interesting incident. It has less variety of incident and event than the lives of many men for two reasons that at first seem inconsistent, and which indeed were hard to harmonize. He was from early years earnestly devoted to one purpose, that of writing the history of the French in America. But he was also, and almost from his first venture in the world, so afflicted by disease that he was almost unable to do any of his self-appointed work, or, indeed anything else. These two reasons combined to make his life uneventful and without incident. His illness alone would have been enough to make his life monotonous, but when his devotion to his literary work gave every possible moment and every possible effort to that, we see that he could not well have done many things else that it would be interesting to chronicle. When in college he determined to write a history of the French in America and resolved to devote his life to the project. This necessitated a thorough knowledge not only of all sorts of books and other literary sources, but of the French Canadians themselves, of the American Indians, and of the vast and wonderful country in which the drama of conquest and settlement had been played. From this early time of his life, to his last years, when he finished the work, he gave himself up to preparing for his task and carrying it out. One of the most remarkable things about his life is the resolute spirit with which, in spite of obstacles that seemed insurmountable, he held to his work and finished it.

Francis Parkman was born in Boston, Sept. 16, 1823, the

ix

S THE OREGON TRAIL

son of Rev. Francis Parkman, a Unitarian clergyman and descendant of a long line of Parkmans, going back to the beginning of Colonial days. His father was a man of some property, so that Francis was well educated at the Chauncey Hall School and at Harvard where he was graduated in the class of 1844. During his youth his love of nature, for the woods and fields was cultivated by time spent at his grandfather's farm at Medford, near what is now called the Middlesex Fells. In college he soon began to devote his time chiefly to studies that would be useful to him in his chosen field of history, while in his vacations he made trips to various parts of the country that he would have to write of. In 1841 he made a camping trip through the White Mountains, Dixville Notch, and up the Androscoggin. The next year his excursion was through Lake George and Lake Champlain, and thence across the country to Connecticut Lake. In 1843 he made a trip to Canada, and also went to Maine to study the Indians near Bangor. In 1844 he went abroad and in 1845 he made a trip to St. Louis, coming back by the Great Lakes and that part of New York famous in Indian wars.

It A^as necessary for his purpose that he should know the Indian character thoroughly. The French in Canada and the AVest were so closely connected with the Indians that one could hardly know one without knowing the other. In Parkman's time, of course, conditions were widely changed even from the days of Montcalm and Wolfe, at the very end of his historical period. The Indians were no longer to be found east of the Mississippi in their primitive condition ; they were at best but small groups, isolated amidst the civilization of the whites. Parkman studied as much as he could in books, and, as we have said, he made some studies of the Indians themselves. He desired, however, to know more of the Indians in their savage state, and with this end in view he arranged the journey of which we have the account in ''The Oregon Trail."

By 1846 Parkman had obtained a knowledge by reading and by personal acquaintance of all the Indians left east of

INTEODLXTION XI

the Mississippi. It was only in the prairies of the west, however, in the Rocky Mountains and beyond, that the Indian in his savage state was to be found and Parkman resolved to seek him out in his home on the prairie and the mountain. With his friend Quincy Adams Shaw, he planned the trip of which our text gives the account. The name, "Oregon Trail," does not give an idea of the real purport of the book. Although he did go on the Oregon Trail as far as Fort Laramie, yet it was not with any view of Oregon that he went. He made the trip as a part of his preparation for writing the history of the Indian in America, to study "the manners and customs of Indians in their primitive state." In reading tlie book we want to remember this as still one of the points of chief importance. The book is of interest now in part because it gives us a picture of a period in American history that has long since passed away, a phase of the western emigration that must be interesting to all who like to hear of their country's greatness, because it pictures a form of American scenery now changed in many respects, and because it gives us pictures of the wild life in the open now more than ever attractive to American readers. But its chief topic of importance is the picture of the Indian.

In order to know the Indian as thoroughly as w^as possible, Parkman sought out an Indian village and for several weeks almost alone so far as white men were concerned, lived in their lodges and saw their life close at hand. He attained his object but the cost he paid for it was very great. The hardships and exposures of his trip and especially of his life with the Indians made serious inroads on his health which was not at that time very robust. He had had from early days a strong constitution, and had carefully trained himself by exercise and exposure to be able to carry out the studies in savage life and wild scenery that were necessary to his plan. But in this case he went too far. As we read the book we shall see how, as he went on he began to suffer from a disease that even if carefully attended to would have been serious. He was not

Xll THE OREGON TRAIL

only unable to give it any attention whatever, but he was obliged constantly to live in such a way as to aggravate it. An out-door life is in itself good for any ailment, but when its necessary conditions are constant wetting and invariable eating of meat only, we can easily see that it may be more harm than good.

The two years following "The Oregon Trail" Parkman spent in taking care of himself, and trying to regain his lost health. In this effort he was unfortmiately not successful. Not only did his general health remain poor, but his eyesight became impaired. Still he remained true to his literary ambitions. He wrote ''The Oregon Trail" for the Knickerbocker Magazine, for which he had already written several sketches of Colonial history, and he carried on his studies on the conspiracy of Pontiac, that great effort of the Indians of the country to unite against the British. He included in his book a kind of summary of the French and Indian history of a century before.

At this time (1850) he married Miss Catherine Bigelow. The next year, being much helped by his wife and her sister who acted as secretary, he published his ' ' Conspiracy of Pontiac." He also wrote somewhat for the reviews and in 1856 published a novel named ' ' Vassall Morton. ' ' In these years he had three children. In 1857, however, he lost his son, and the next year his wife died. As his own health had now become seriously impaired, his sister-in-law. Miss Bigelow, took his two daughters to her home, while he for the moment made another effort to regain his health. He went abroad and took the advice of the best authorities he could find. They advised him to give up every kind of literary work. He had not yet made a beginning on the task he had planned, for the ''Pontiac" was only a sort of conclusion and summary of the long course of French and Indian history which he hoped to write. He was now in a miserable condition. His health was apparently ruined, it seemed as if he was to be a permanent invalid ; his family life was broken up ; and his historical work appeared impossible before it was begun. Yet he did not lose courage. Fortu-

INTRODUCTION XUl

nately lie was of independent means and was not obliged to labor for a mere livelihood; on his estate at Jamaica Plain he turned his attention to gardening, especially to cultivation of roses and lilies. Being unable to write or study he gave up his whole time to this charming occupation and became an eminent grower and exhibitor. He not only exhibited much and gained many awards, but he became active in the i\Iassachusetts Horticultural Society, in which at a later time he became an officer, serving from 1871-74 as Vice-President, and from 1875-78 as President.

In time he was able to continue his historical studies if only at the rate of an hour a day or less. It was not till 1865 that the first volume of his historical series appeared, and in the succeeding years he was able to bring out others, as follows : —

1865, ' ' The Pioneers of France in the New AYorld. ' '

1867, ''The Jesuits in North America."

1869, ''La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West."

1874, "The Old Regime."

1877, "Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV."

In 1884 he published the final book of the series, "Montcalm and Wolfe" in two volumes. This left still untreated a considerable period which he was able to fill out in 1892 with the two volumes of "A Half Century of Conflict," at last finishing the task he had set himself in youth. These seven parts in nine volumes, tell the story of the French in America from the discoveries of Champlain to the death of Montcalm on the Plains of Abraham. The work was finally and definitely accomplished. From all sorts of sources, many of them manuscript, and all kinds of personal knowledge and information, Parkman created a historical narrative which has been accepted as authoritative and final. It also, however, has characteristics which go far beyond the historical ; its imaginative and literary qualities, while they are never allowed to impair the historic accuracy, are of the highest order; he brings back the life of the past and makes it as fascinating as the imagination of the novelist.

SlV THE OREGON TRAIL

All this magnificent work was done in the face of almost insurmountable difficulties and intolerable trials. He had, it is true, almost everything required for his undertaking, leisure, money, learning, energy, genius. But he lacked one thing, namely his health. Anyone who reads "The Oregon Trail" and remembers how he himself feels when he is really sick, will wonder at the determination with which Parkman sat for hours in the saddle when he could not have stood up had he been afoot, and lived in an Indian wigwam eating nothing but unsalted meat when he really was in condition for a quiet, private room in a hospitak This determined spirit he kept up through life. At first he could hardly use his mind at all without danger. Later conditions improved so that he could read a little and write somewhat. But he was never able to give more than two hours a day to real work and even that had to be divided up into short periods.

It was only by the use of every possible means that he was able to finish his work. He had copies made for him of all sorts of manuscripts, whether in this country or abroad.^ He had constant help from readers and amanuenses, both secretaries and friends and relatives. But the main part of the work was done by his own resolute determination to finish his work, a determination carried out cheerfully and definitely.

In such a life it was but natural that there should be but few events, yet Parkman by no means lived entireh' to himself. We have noted his activity in the ]\Iassaehusetts Horticultural Society. More important were his services to Harvard College, of which he was an Overseer, 1868-75, and afterward Fellow or member of the corporation from 1875-1888. He kept up a real interest in politics though he was never what would be called "active." He became a member of various learned societies though he was obliged to decline holding office on account of his health. He economised his powers and applied them to that particular work

1 The Massachusetts Historical Society has seventy vohimes of MS. sources, given by Parkman.

INTRODUCTION XV

which he had judged would be the best thing he could do, and thus in spite of immense discouragement, completed it. He died Nov. 8, 1893.

THE EXPLORERS OF THE OREGON TRAIL

*'The Oregon Trail" takes its name from the great path of western emigration in the forties. The name Oregon stood for all of the United States north of California and west of the Rocky Mountains. .Real emigration to Oregon had, at the time of Parkman's book, been going on for a few years only, under the impulse of the discussions and negotiations with England concerning the Northwest Boundary. A few years afterward the great tide of emigration turned to California under the attraction of the gold discovery in 1848. Parkman's trip was just at the time that Oregon was the chief object of emigration. The Oregon trail left ''the settlements" at Independence, Mo., turned first to Fort Leavenworth, now in Kansas, struck out for the Platte and followed that river to the junction of the North and South branches. Here the trail took the North Branch and came to Fort Laramie, of which much will be read in the following pages. Parkman followed the Oregon Trail no farther ; his object was not emigration but a study of Indian life and character, and from Fort Laramie he struck off into the Black Hills to find an Indian village in which to stay for a time. Afterwards he turned to the South and came home on the Santa Fe trail. The Oregon trail continued from Fort Laramie up the North Branch of the Platte and crossed the Rocky ^Mountains by the South Pass in Wyoming. The chief stations after that were Fort Hall and Fort Boise and Fort Walla Walla in the present state of Washington. The end of the trail was the valley of the Willamette and Puget Sound.

The story of the discovery and exploration and settlement which gradually formed this great trail across the mountains is a most interesting chapter in American history. The first settlements in the Northwest were made

XVI THE OREGON TRAIL

on the Pacific Coast in the interest of the fur trade, and the first settlers came by sea. The settled part of the United States in the early days of the nineteenth century hardly extended to the Mississippi, and there were few who had traveled on the Western prairies, not to mention the Kocky Mountains or the Pacific slope. There were even those who thought that the United States might as well content itself with the Mississippi as a boundary. In 1803, however, the purchase of Louisiana which extended to the northwest along the Missouri to the Rocky Mountains, led to a desire for exploration which took form in the famous expedition of Lewis and Clark. In the autumn of 1803 Capt. Merriwether Lewis and Capt. William Clark, under instructions from Jefferson, then president, recruited a party of about forty men, and wintered near the mouth of the Missouri. In 1804 they went up the Missouri and by the next winter had reached the IMandan villaoe north of the present city of Bismarck, where they spent the winter, and starting the next spring crossed the Rocky Mountains, explored the Snake River, and found the Columbia, by which they reached the sea. The next spring they returned, reaching civilization in Sept. 1806. Thus was the Pacific slope north of California first explored by the United States.

This exploration, however, was not at once followed by settlement. In 1808 a party was sent out overland by the American Fur Co., which had already established Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River by sea. They followed the ^Missouri route and in spite of great hardships succeeded in reaching the Pacific. The war with England, however, put an end to Astoria for the time, and even though at the peace it was restored to the United States, the enterprise was not immediately continued.

In spite of this failure, however, the fur traders were constantly pushing out to the Northwest, both in the United States and in the British Dominions. There was great rivalry between the British companies and the American. The British trade was practically monopolized by the Hudson's Bay Company which already had flourishing posts on

INTP.ODLXTIO^ XVii

the Pacific. In the United States, after the War of 1812 the trade languished, until in the twenties efforts were made by Gen. W. H. Ashley of St. Louis, to reach the Pacific fur trade by overland travel. In 1823 he left the Missouri by the Eiver Platte, following nearly the same course that Parkman 's party took twenty years later. He went up the North Branch of the Platte Avhich had not then been explored, and in another expedition the next year he crossed the mountains by the Southern Pass. He established posts and was prosperous for several years. He was followed by a number of men whom he had trained to his own intrepid vigor in exploring the w^ilderness, especially William Sublette, Peter Campbell and — Smith, whose first name seems to have dropped out of history. In 1830, these with others purchased the interests of Gen. Ashley and formed the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. This company every spring sent its agents out to a general rendezvous in the mountains at w^hich gathered all the trappers and traders with their winter's get of peltry. In this way the company by its agents and trappers explored the whole mountain region and the Pacific slope as well, although their observations w^ere, of course, unscientific and their results were never regularly published. In 1835 Mr. Robert Campbell built a trading post at what was then called Laramie Fork which he named Fort William, after his partner, William Sublette. The fort was acquired by the American Fur Company some years afterwards and was in their hands when Parkman visited it. The next year it was sold to the United States.

These two companies sent out their agents all over the western country, the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific slope, to collect the furs taken by the various trappers. Otherwise the country was unsettled and of these trappers there were rarely more than a few hundred in all the vast region north of the Mexican line, and between the Missouri and the Pacific. Their work covered new fields and therefore developed new kinds of workers. The trapper of earlier days worked chiefly on the rivers; he was a

XVlil THE OREGON TRAIL

voyageuVf to use the Canadian term, and his means of progress was the canoe and paddle. The Rocky Mountain Company developed the ''mountain man." Washington Irving in his ''Captain Bonneville" gives a good account of "the traders and trappers that scale the vast mountain chains and pursue their hazardous vocations amidst their arid recesses. They move from place to place on horseback. The equestrian exercises, therefore, in which they are engaged, the nature of the country they traverse, vast plains and mountains, pure and exhilarating in atmospheric qualities, seem to make them physically and mentally a more lively and mercurial race than the fur traders and trappers of former days, the self-vaunting men of the north. A man who bestrides a horse must be essentially different from a man who cowers in a canoe. AVe find them accordingly hardy, lithe, vigorous and active; extravagant in word, in thought and deed; heedless of hardship; daring of danger; prodigal of the present and thoughtless of the future. ' ' ^ These trappers were very commonly French Canadians by origin. It will be noticed in Parkman's narrative that almost all the trappers and hunters w^hom he met had French names, beginning with Henri Chatillon and Deslauriers of their own party. This sprinkling of French mountain men was, of course, the result of the old French possession of the country. The territory of Louisiana had been bought of the French in 1803, but the American settlers did not for a long time penetrate much beyond the present state of Missouri. But the Fren-h had in early times showed themselves well adapted to the life of the wilderness, and although they had been politically unable to keep the territory which they had explored and settled, yet many of them had wandered far over the prairies and the mountains, and constituted the greater part of the very small white population of the region.

By means of the fur-trading companies and the few hundred hunters and trappers who worked for them, the

1 The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, Chapter I., p. 35.

INTRODUCTION XIX

most remote regions of the Rocky ^Mountains and of the Pacific slope north of California became known. No real settlements, however, were made. There were several trading posts like Fort Laramie, but beyond these posts there was nothing permanent: there were no American settlements in Oregon and naturally no emigration to the country, and therefore no Oregon trail, though the route up the Platte had become well known.

In 1832 Captain Bonneville crossed the mountains on an exploring expedition. He brought with him wagons with which he went up the Platte, passed Laramie Creek, went on further over the South Pass and down the Colorado : he is said to have been the first to carry a train of wagons across the mountains. In the course of his journe}^ he fell in with Nathaniel Wyeth who was proposing to establish a salmon-fishing industry on the Columbia River.

Wyeth was the first, who, properly speaking, followed the Oregon Trail. He was a Cambridge man who planned a party to settle in Oregon. They left Independence, Mo., with William Sublette who was going to a rendezvous of the Rocky IMountain Fur Co. and in Pierre 's Valley ( Colorado) they fell in with Bonneville. Leaving him, AVyeth continued to the northwest and reached first Fort "Walla Walla and then Fort Vancouver in the fall. He was able to make no settlement, however, and in the spring went back to Boston overland. The year after, he led another party with greater success: they built Fort Hall in eastern Oregon and made a settlement on the coast. Although his ventures were unsuccessful, and his possessions were finally sold out to the Hudson's Bay Company, yet Wyeth is an interesting figure to the reader of "The Oregon Trail." "He it was," says H. H. Bancroft,^ "more directly than any other man, that marked the way for the ox teams which were so shortly to bring the Americanized civilization of Europe across the roadless continent. ' '

In 1839 there were enough settlers in Oregon to petition

1 History of the Northwest Coast, II., 598.

XX THE OREGON TRAIL

Congress to extend the jurisdiction of the United States over that district, and Jn the year following there were so many that McLoughlin, chief factor of the Hudson Bay Company at Vancouver, wrote to the English government that if they wished to keep Oregon they must settle it. By that time another interest had turned American emigration to the Northwest. In AA^yeth's expedition of 1834, went five missionaries sent by the Methodist Church in answer to calls that had come from the Indians on the Pacific slope, for teaching in the white man's religion. They reached Fort Vancouver, and determined to settle in the Willamette Valley in what is now Oregon. A ship had been sent around to meet them laden with useful stores. Other parties were sent out by sea in 1837, so that by 1838 there was a considerable number in the Willamette Valley, where there was already something of a settlement of old employees of the Hudson Bay Company. In that 3^ear Jason Lee returned overland to the States to stir up further interest in Oregon. He presented a memorial to Congress signed by thirty-six settlers, showing the small but real beginnings of what are now great commonwealths. In 1840 he brought back another party of missionaries and settlers which more than doubled the little settlement in the AA'illamette Valley. By this time other religious bodies had joined in the work, interested by the reports of Rev. Samuel Parker ^ and more particularly of Rev. Marcus Whitman. AVhitman established a mission station at AVailipaka, near the present AValla Walla. These missionaries w^ere not only preachers of the gospel; they were, and had to be, practical men and women who could clear the forest, plough the land, build their houses, and do all that was necessary to support life in the wilderness. The British sent only fur traders to Oregon; the United States sent men who were bent on settling down and living there, that they might make Oregon a Christian country.

In spite of the labors of the missionaries there was a

1 who published an account of " An Exploring Tour beyond the Rocky Mountains." Ithaca, N. Y., 1838.

INTIiODUCTION xxi

feeling in the home boards that their work was not sufficiently productive to warrant its cost. Fearing lest the missions might be recalled or at least that their support might be curtailed, and full of the idea that Oregon must be colonized for the United States, AVhitman started back to the East. He crossed the continent in winter, and succeeded at once in restoring confidence and arousing interest. There was already a spirit of emigration to Oregon, and in 1843 fully a thousand emigrants crossed the continent and reached the Columbia.

At this point the political conditions became important. The Oregon country was claimed both by the United Statesand by Great Britain. The Mexican possessions ended with the northern line of California : Kussian America came down to 54° 40'. The intermediate country, which had been discovered and explored by the United States and Great Britain, had for several years been occupied jointly by both, pending a settlement of the boundary. The boundary between the United States and the British possessions east of the Eocky Mountains had been settled at the 49th parallel, and in 1825, President Adams had made an oifer of this line west of the Rockies to the Pacific. Great Britain, however, claimed the line of the Columbia, and had occupied the territory for many years, though only by trading settlements of the Hudson Bay Company. The United States, since its offer of the 49th parallel had not been accepted, was inclined to claim all the coast up to 54° 40'. At this time with all the interest in the work of fur trades, missionary, and settlers, the question found its way into politics. The next year w^as the year of a presidential campaign and the Democratic Party came before the country with Polk as a candidate, and Oregon and Texas as a policy. Then arose the campaign cry of "Fift^'-four Forty or fight. "1