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The Snake River Plain was the scene of an international rivalry forfurs in the early nineteenth century. American, French, and Britishtrappers, agents of far-flung empires, competed with each other for ashare of the lucrative fur trade. European men fancied the stove-pipehats made of slick beaver fur, and thus primarily fashion stimulatedtrappers to fan out across North America and enter even the remote SnakeRiver country in search of beaver pelts. Although American fur trappersadvanced this enterprise across the Rockies and created a wedge fortheir nation's commercial expansion, they were no match for theBritish-owned Hudson's Bay Company. By the 1820s, the Hudson's BayCompany controlled the trade in the Snake River country and held themonopoly until beaver numbers declined and silk replaced beaver hats bythe mid-1850s. Fur trappers, however, left more than a legacy ofdecimated beaver populations. These mountain men, as they were otherwiseknown, were also forerunners of an American imperialism that wouldeventually conquer the West and its native peoples. Fur trappers alsocontributed substantially to the geographic knowledge of the West andthe Snake River Plain, for they blazed trails across, and provideddescriptions and maps of, the region for the first time. [1]
The fur trade followed on the heels of the Lewis and Clarkexpedition in 1805, which passed through northern Idaho on its missionto locate a route to the Pacific. The trade received further impetusafter David Thompson, geographer of the Montreal-based North WestCompany, explored similar territory in 1809. But establishing fur tradeoperations in southern Idaho was no simple task. Lying between themountains and the Snake River was the Snake River Plain, twenty thousandsquare miles of lava landscape. Trappers had to contend with its aridenvironment, severe weather--harsh winters and hot summers--remoteness,and Indians. [2]
Andrew Henry, of the Missouri Fur Company, ventured first into theSnake River country. In 1810, he built Fort Henry on the upper SnakeRiver, on Henry's Fork, near what is now Rexburg. It was the firstAmerican fur post west of the Rockies, yet an extreme winter dashedHenry's hopes for a fur business, and he abandoned the post thefollowing spring. Epitomizing the environmental adversity associatedwith travel on the plain was the Pacific Fur Company expedition in 1811.Known also as the overland Astorians, the party crossed southern Idahoon its way to establish a fur post at the mouth of the Columbia River.Led by Wilson Price Hunt, the party suffered greatly through its ownbungling and its contact with the hostile surroundings of the SnakeRiver Plain. Game was scarce. Members of the party attempted but failedto navigate down the Snake in boats and instead set out for the Columbiaby land. The bedraggled group, which had separated into several parties,eventually reached Fort Astoria where it was reunited in February 1812.[3]
After enduring incredible hardships, members of the Astorian partywere more impressed with the barrenness of the Snake River Plain thanits potential as good beaver country. Hunt, for one, characterized theregion as a "dreary desert of sand and gravel." It was a place to passthrough. Within a year, for example, a small group of Astorians led byRobert Stuart marched eastward for St. Louis across the plain,undergoing similar trials as the first group. Stuart thought the countrywas terribly poor, barely able to sustain the native peoples who livedthere. Stuart's contribution, ironically perhaps, was not in hisassessment of the plain for beaver but in the route he chose; iteventually became the Oregon Trail. [4]
Nevertheless, at least one Astorian saw the region differently.Donald Mackenzie saw some promise for hunting beaver in the Snakecountry and for this reason led the first Snake River brigade for theNorth West Company in 1818. He built a trading fort at the confluence ofthe Columbia and Walla Walla rivers, and setting out from there to theeast, trapped the tributaries of the Snake. The brigade system provedhighly successful because it did not rely on seeking trade with Indians.Mackenzie's men trapped their own furs, used horses for transportationand carrying supplies, and lived mostly off the land. Mackenzie alsosucceeded because he maintained good relations with the Nez Perce andSnake country Indians, and because the brigade system provided safety inlarge numbers and trapped unexplored and unexploited country. Mackenzieheaded the brigades until 1821 when the North West Company merged withthe Hudson's Bay Company. [5]
Realizing profits were to be made through the brigade system, theCompany established it as a regular part of the trade in the Columbiadistrict. Among Mackenzie's successors were Alexander Ross, Peter SkeneOgden, and John Work. Over the next decade, their expeditions carriedout the Hudson's Bay Company's dual purpose in the Snake River country:profit as much as possible from the beaver trade, and deplete the beaverin order to prevent Americans from coming to the region. The Companyattempted to do both as quickly as possible, and by the early 1830s hadachieved these goals. [6]
Undaunted by the Company's power and presence, opportunisticAmericans hunted furs in the Snake River country as well. ThoughAmericans outnumbered Company trappers and possessed a peculiar blend ofadventurer and businessman, they could not match the Company'sorganization, its capital, knowledge of the territory and trade, and itsrapport with Indians. Expectant capitalists, for example, such asWilliam H. Ashley and Jedediah Smith, who numbered among the variousowners and operators of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, challenged butnever threatened the Bay Company's monopoly in the 1820s and 1830s. By1834, the Rocky Mountain Fur Company succumbed to the pressures of theHudson's Bay Company and rival American Fur Company and closed itsdoors. [7]
Independent trappers, represented by Captain Benjamin L.E.Bonneville and Nathaniel J. Wyeth, were beset by similar difficulties intheir attempts to profit from the fur trade. Bonneville entered the furtrade after taking leave from the army in 1831, although some historiansbelieve he was sent under cover to explore the frontier. Leadingexperienced trappers, Bonneville hunted furs in the Snake River regionbeginning in the winter of 1832. He left and returned to the plain in1833, working toward the Columbia River Valley by 1834. Bonnevilleproved no match for the Hudson's Bay Company and produced little to showfor his trapping ventures. Exploration seemed to suit him better; he ledthe first wagon party through South Pass, dispatched parties to explorethe Great Basin, and reconnoitered the Snake River Plain. [8]
At first Wyeth, a Boston ice dealer, tried to establish afur-trading enterprise on the lower Columbia in 1832. Failing, he turnedto the Rocky Mountain region and the Snake River Plain, hoping there tohave some success. He contracted to supply trade goods to the furrendezvous held on the Green River in 1834, but St. Louis suppliers beathim to the sale, arriving first and stealing his customers. Saddled witha large supply of merchandise, Wyeth salvaged his commercial venture andthat year constructed Fort Hall on the Snake River, a trading post northof what is today Pocatello. Yet nothing seemed to go right for Wyeth.Plagued by disaster and the control of the Hudson's Bay Company over thelower Columbia, he was unable to supply Fort Hall successfully. In 1836,he retired from the fur business and offered to sell his fort to the BayCompany, which bought the post in 1837 and assumed charge of it a yearlater. Around this same time the Bay Company obtained Fort Boise,located at the mouth of the Boise River. [9]
The acquisitions of these fur posts signaled the end of the brigadesystem. By 1832, the Company considered the Snake country a "furdesert," and the roving expeditions were sent elsewhere. From forts Halland Boise, the Hudson's Bay Company began operation of a profitablesupply business for mountain men and overland travelers for more than adecade. In addition to depleted beaver populations, changing fashionexacted a further toll on the fur trade with the switch from beaver tosilk hats. International diplomacy changed the nature of the furbusiness as well. Great Britain and the United States had agreed tojoint occupation of the Oregon country in 1818. But with the OregonCompromise of 1846, the region was assigned to the United States,leading to the gradual withdrawal of the Hudson's Bay Company fromsouthern Idaho. With its abandonment of forts Boise and Hall in 1855 and1856, respectively, the Company's presence vanished from the plain andwith it the fur trade. [10]
Throughout the West, the fur trade produced a lasting legacy, not incommerce, but in geographical knowledge. Competition for furs drovetrappers into the remote and isolated reaches of southern Idaho.Trappers primarily covered the perimeter of the crescent-shaped SnakeRiver Plain, following the Snake and exploring its tributaries in themountains abutting the plain's borders. In the process, Snake brigadeleaders such as Donald Mackenzie blazed some of the first routes acrosssouthern Idaho. Mackenzie was known for locating the route from theBoise River through Camas Prairie and the Wood River Valley to Day'sDefile and the Big Lost River. From there the route crossed south towardthe Snake River (and later Fort Hall), passing Big Southern and Twinbuttes, and connecting to routes up or down the Snake. Alexander Rosslikewise explored routes through the Salmon River and Sawtooth countryfor the first time. Similarly, Bonneville produced two valuable maps ofhis western travels, one of which included the Snake River country.Driven by utilitarian goals, though, fur traders rarely entered thedesert region except out of necessity to reach mountain rivers rich inbeaver. [11] On the whole, fur huntersignored the Craters country, describing it with little interest, for itheld little value for them, being merely a place to cross andsurvive.
Native Inhabitants |The Fur Trade |Explorations and Surveys |Overland Travel |Settlement Patterns]
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