Thomas Fitzpatrick | |
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| Born | c. 1799 |
| Died | February 7, 1854 (aged ~55) Washington, D.C., United States |
| Resting place | Congressional Cemetery, Washington, D.C. |
| Other names | "Broken Hand" |
| Occupations | Mountain Man, trapper, guide, Indian agent |
| Spouse | Margaret Poisal |
| Children | Friday, Arapaho Chief (unofficially adopted) |
| Relatives | Chief Niwot (wife's maternal uncle) |
Thomas Fitzpatrick (1799 – February 7, 1854) was an Irish fur trader in America[1] Indian agent, and mountain man.[2] He trapped for theRocky Mountain Fur Company and theAmerican Fur Company. He was among the first white men to discoverSouth Pass,Wyoming. In 1831, he found and took in a lost Arapaho boy,Friday, who he had schooled inSt. Louis,Missouri; Friday became a noted interpreter and peacemaker and leader of a band of Northern Arapaho.
Fitzpatrick was a government guide and also led a wagon train of pioneers to Oregon. He helped negotiate theFort Laramie treaty of 1851. In the winter of 1853–54, Fitzpatrick went toWashington, D.C., to see after treaties that needed to be approved, but while there he contracted pneumonia and died on February 7, 1854.
He was known as "Broken Hand" after his left hand had been crippled in a firearms accident.[3]
Thomas Fitzpatrick was born inCounty Cavan, Ireland in about 1799 to Mary Kieran and Mr. Fitzpatrick. They were a moderately wealthy Catholic family with three boys and four girls. Fitzpatrick received a good education and he left home before the age of 17.[4] He became a sailor and left a ship atNew Orleans. From there, he traveled up the Mississippi River toSt. Louis,Missouri[5] by the winter of 1822–1823.[4]
Andrew Henry andWilliam Henry Ashley announced that they were searching for fur trappers for their company, theRocky Mountain Fur Company[6] by placing an ad in theMissouri Republican in 1822:
To Enterprising young men: the subscriber wishes to engage one hundred men, to ascend the river Missouri to its source, there to be employed for one, two, or three years.[4]
An experienced fur trapper and trader, Andrew Henry had builtFort Henry a trading post atYellowstone in 1822.[4] Fitzpatrick went to work for the fur traders, joining the likes ofJim Bridger,Jedediah Smith,Louis Vasquez,Étienne Provost, andWilliam Lewis Sublette.[6] He survived an attack on the Rocky Mountain Fur Company during theArikara War of 1823.[6] The Arikara were successful in preventing the trappers from traveling the Missouri River. Needing another route, Fitzpatrick and Jedediah Smith led 15 men to find an overland route over the Rocky Mountains.[7] He re-discoveredSouth Pass,Wyoming in 1824;John Jacob Astor's fur trading expedition of 1811–1812 (led byRobert Stuart) were the first known white party through the South Pass.[4] It became a route through the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean.[7]
From South Pass, their journey took them into theGreen River basin, which was a good source of beaver. Fitzpatrick made a return trip with a large stock of pelts. Fitzpatrick led two horse trains with goods and supplies over South Pass to trade for furs in the Green River area and he managed placement of bands of trappers.[7] The firstRocky Mountain Rendezvous was held on the frontier, which provided entertainment and a means for trappers to trade furs for supplies without traveling to a trading post.[7] In 1830, he became a senior partner of theRocky Mountain Fur Company with Jim Bridger and others.[6][7]
In 1832, Fitzpatrck rode ahead of the supply train and was chased by aGros Ventre tribe through the wilderness. The "harrowing" experience is said to have caused him to prematurely gray. He later led a group of allied Native Americans and trappers against the Gros Ventre in theBattle of Pierre's Hole.[7] The Rocky Mountain Fur Company dissolved in 1834 and he was a partner in two fur trading organizations. TheAmerican Fur Company bought one of the firms and Fitzpatrick worked for them as a band leader.[7][8]
In 1831, he found an Arapaho boy who had been separated from his band that had camped with the Atsina (Gros Ventre) along theCimmaron River in present-day southeastern Colorado.[9][10] A fight had broken out that led to the Arapaho chief being stabbed, and the Atsina chief was killed in retaliation.[10] He found the boy on a Friday, which became his name from that point forward. Fitzpatrick tookFriday in and enrolled him in a school inSt. Louis, Missouri that he attended for two years.[11][12] Fitzpatrick brought Friday along on his trapping journeys in the western frontier.[9] In 1838, Fitzpatrick and Friday met up with a band of Arapaho people. When a woman recognized Friday as her son, Friday returned to his life with the Arapaho.[9] He remained friends with Fitzpatrick until his death in 1854.[12]
When the fur trade was no longer viable, he became a guide.[13] He shepherded the first two emigrant wagon trains toOregon, including theWhitman-Spalding Party (1836)[6] and theBartleson-Bidwell Party (1841).
He was the official guide toJohn C. Frémont on his 1843 to 1845 expedition.[13] He guided Col.Stephen W. Kearny and hisDragoons along the westward trails in 1845[6] to impress the Native Americans with theirhowitzers and swords.
He accompanied Kearny's men in their invasion of Mexico in 1846 at the beginning of theMexican-American War.[14]
In 1846, he became an Indian Agent of the Upper Platte and Arkansas River Valleys (a sizeable portion of present-day Colorado),[3][13][15] and was well-respected by Native Americans and white settlers.[3] He negotiated withArapaho,Cheyenne, andLakota Sioux of the Central Plains.[7] Fitzpatrick was a negotiator for theFort Laramie treaty of 1851, at the largest council ever assembled of Native Americans of the Plains.[7] He was a negotiator for the Treaty of Fort Atkinson in July 1853 with thePlains Apache,Kiowa, andComanche.[3][7]
In November 1849, Fitzpatrick formally marriedMargaret Poisal, the daughter of a French-Canadian trapperJohn Poisal and Snake Woman (an Arapaho woman).[7][16] She was the niece ofArapaho Chief Land Hand (Chief Niwot).[16] Their son, Andrew Jackson Fitzpatrick, was born in 1850. Virginia Tomasine Fitzpatrick was born in 1854,[17] after her father's death.[7]
Poisal served as an important translator for the Arapaho peoples and often worked alongside Fitzpatrick at important meetings. After his death, Poisal served as the official interpreter for the Arapaho during the Little Arkansas Treaty Council in 1865.[16][18]
In the winter of 1853–54, Fitzpatrick went toWashington, D.C., to finalize the Treaty of Fort Atkinson,[7] but while there contracted pneumonia and died on February 7, 1854.[19][15] He was buried in theCongressional Cemetery there.[7]
In 2004, he was inducted into theHall of Great Westerners of theNational Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.[2]
In 1970,Broken Hand Peak in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of Colorado was officially named in his honor.[20]
In the 1966 episode "Hugh Glass Meets the Bear" of thesyndicatedtelevision series,Death Valley Days, the actorMorgan Woodward was cast as Fitzpatrick.John Alderson playedHugh Glass, who after being mauled by abear and abandoned by Fitzpatrick crawled two hundred miles to civilization.Victor French was cast as Louis Baptiste, withTris Coffin asMajorAndrew Henry.[21][22]
Fitzpatrick appears to have been confused or conflated with John S. Fitzgerald, who, according to theEncyclopedia of Frontier Biography, was actually the one who left Glass behind.[23]
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