Winter 2020

1824-1825 Le Grand Expedition

to

New Mexico, Chihuahua, Durango & Louisiana to

Missouri

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Missouri – Mexico trade 1824-1825 2 Prologue 3 Santa Fe Trail map 4 On the Trail 4 Trade Exchanges in Mexico 5-6 Geographic Dispersion 6 Expedition Returns to Missouri 7

Augustus Storrs Company 7 Braxton Cooper Company 7 Glen Owen Company 8 William Christian Company 8 XX Company 8 Marmaduke Company 9

Furs on the Trail 10 Epilogue 11 Appendix 12

Santa Fe & Taos Living Conditions 13 Cash is Scarce – No Money 14 Missouri Newspaper Articles 16-19 Answers of Storrs to Senator Benton 20-21 Senator Benton’s Speech to U S Senate (Excerpts) 22-23

End Notes 24-26 Bibliography 27

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TRADE with REPUBLIC of MEXICO

1824 & 1825

An excerpt from Augustus Storrs’ Answers to Senator Thomas Benton of Missouri concerning

trade with the Republic of Mexico nearly two centuries ago, … Few people have manifested more enterprise and perseverance than those engaged in this traffic. One company went out in February, another in May, the third in August to trade with the Mexican Indians, and the fourth in November. The last will encounter storms of winter in an open country, and without shelter. They will probably winter on the Arkansas, in which event they will have to subsist their animals on the inner bark of the cottonwood, to procure which they took drawing knives. Danger, privation, heat, and cold, are equally ineffectual in checking their career of enterprise and adventure.1

At least four expeditions launched from Missouri in 1824 to trade with Mexico, 1. The February expedition, no report of trade goods, probable return with mules. 2. The May expedition, Le Grand, $25,000 in goods, 81 members, 23 carriage caravan. 3. The August expedition with merchandise and alcohol for Indian trade, returned mules. 4. The November expedition with $18,000 2 in trade goods drew wholesalers to Santa Fe.

The February Expedition (1) lost everything of value and three deaths to Arapahos near the Cimarron river on their return trek spring 1825. The one year turnaround reveals barter with Indians for mules which apparently were rustled. This expedition returned in the time frame when Arapahoe struck a Santa Fe Trail expedition.3

The three companies from the Le Grand expedition (2) returning via the Trail could not have been the victims of the Arapahoe, arriving October 1824, January 5th and August 1825.

The August expedition (3) could not begin trade prior to October-November 1824 nor complete barter with Indian tribes to travel the Trail when the Arapaho attacked.

The November expedition (4), last to launch from Missouri, would arrive in Santa Fe before the attack on the Cimarron, unless they wintered on the Arkansas River. In either case, this expedition was not on the Trail spring 1825.

Two groups, Le Grand (2) and November expedition (4), collected hard currency from Mexican wholesalers. Storrs was back in Franklin by October 1824 when he forecast one hundred and eighty thousand dollars would exchange to expeditions from Missouri, exclusive of livestock and furs, and those returns would not complete until 1825. Twenty five early returners from the Le Grand expedition received approximately one hundred thousand dollars’ worth of Mexican silver pesos in August 1824 [allocated by outgoing trade goods value]. More than two and a half million dollars today.

In his classic Table, Josiah Gregg does not enumerate this level of Trail traffic. The merchants, wagons, trade goods of three additional caravans could double, at least, Trail traffic reported in Gregg’s Table for 1824 and 1825.4

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PROLOGUE

Not until September 1821, did word reach Santa Fe of Mexican independence from Spain. New

Mexican officials endorsed independence and reversed Spanish policy allowing foreign merchants to enter New Mexico villages.5

Between 1821-23, at least seven expeditions left St Louis and Franklin staffed with about a hundred and fifty Missourians, hauling trade goods worth perhaps twenty-five to thirty thousand dollars. Trail hands working these caravans multi-tasked as investors, teamsters, trappers, sentinels, scouts and sellers. They bought merchandise twenty to forty percent over east coast prices, loaded mules and sold two hundred to two thousand percent over cost to return before snow fell on the plains. That is, those not tempted to remain in the New Mexican province the coming winter trap seasons.

These early expeditions traded with plains Indians for safe passage and trapped virgin streams for supplemental income; mule or horse provided transportation. The four excursions led by Captain Becknell and Colonel Cooper achieved stunning results in trade. These parties organized and launched from the Franklin vicinity.

In 1819 it was a town of about one hundred and twenty log houses of one story, several framed dwellings of two stories and two of brick, thirteen shops for sale of merchandise, four taverns, two smiths’ shops, two large steam mills, two billiard rooms, a court house and a printing press issuing a weekly paper.6

Twenty-five investors from the Le Grand caravan, led by Augustus Storrs, arrived in Franklin four months after departure with an average return for each of four thousand dollars. 7 The remaining members did not succeed as these early return proprietors. The final seventeen returners, herding nearly five hundred mules, completed their journey August 1825 in St Louis about a year elapsed between first and final returns of the caravan.8

It was a raw, crude, boisterous, self-confident, adventurous, juvenile metropolis, this “little village under the hill” with fifteen physicians, twenty three lawyers, fort-nine grocers and tavern keepers, two printing offices, a gristmill , sawmill or two , one or more hotels of consequence and a population of four thousand, six hundred.9

St Louis also claimed title as fur trade capital of the United States, thousands of beaver pelt processed here until demand waned later in the 1830s.

The Le Grand Caravan achieved many firsts on its 1824 expedition into the Republic of Mexico. Established a new normal launching a twenty-three carriage caravan manned with eighty-one frontiersmen and merchants transported by one hundred and fifty-six mules and horses.10 Traffic increased so that two decades later the annual caravan required two hundred and thirty-nine wagons to transport the available merchandise.

Let’s begin the narrative on this ground breaking caravan to the new Republic of Mexico,

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SANTA FE TRAIL MAP

https://www.nps.gov/

ON THE TRAIL

Robert Morris, a Franklin merchant, publicized the first planning session held at a Shaw’s tavern early April. Alexander Le Grand chaired presenting outfitting orders while postponing a vote until the caravan coalesced. Recommendations from this session included … to be founded on experience of those who have performed the route. Members to equip with one good rifle, other gun, one pistolo along with four pounds of powder and six of lead plus twenty days provisions.11

After progressing to western Missouri near Fort Osage end of May, the caravan convened to transact business. Le Grand elected captain, Paul Anderson and Absalom Simpson lieutenants. A Committee of Five consisted of Augustus Storrs, Alexander Le Grand, Glen Owen, Absalom Simpson and Smith [Thomas L Smith, aka ‘Peg-leg’]. The Committee regulated conduct of the members towards each other, and their intercourse with the Indians.12 13

Meredith Marmaduke, a future governor of Missouri, provides a delightful rendition of the expedition’s two-month journey.14 He records entry into Santa Fe and summarizes impressions of the citizens, their traditions, manners and customs. His initial observations were endorsed by most Americans on first exposure to the New Mexican populace,15

July 28th, 1824, arrived at Santa Fe about dusk. … . The inhabitants appear to be friendly, and some very wealthy; but by far the greater part are the most miserable, wretched, poor creatures that I have ever seen, … Entered our goods and arranged VA taxes with the collector who appears to be an astonishingly obliging man as a public officer. May 31st, 1825, this day I left Santa Fe for the United States having remained in this country about ten months.

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TRADE EXCHANGES in MEXICO

Marmaduke’s observations may have been influenced by a lack of trading success in Santa Fe. Renting a plaza store to serve walk-in retail traffic suffered a common complaint among merchants throughout the province. Except for elites, hard currency did not exist among the majority of New Mexicans and precious little in circulation. There were successful approaches in play for selling Trail merchandise but retail sales from fixed locations seldom succeeded.16 17

General Thomas James and M. M. Marmaduke leased stores in Santa Fe two years apart, 1822 and 1824, yet suffered similar results. They joined a chorus of American traders bemoaning this lack of success in the early years.18 James transported ten thousand dollars of product to New Mexico and after seven months settled for a cash and barter deal to close out his inventory. Both traders left written records of their experiences in New Mexico,19

The spring was nearly gone and most of my goods remained unsold. Money was very scarce, and I had little prospect of selling them at any price. I offered them at cost, and at last found a purchaser of most of them in a Spaniard named Pino, who paid me one thousand dollars in cash and an equal sum in horses and mules. I was now ready to depart for home, having disposed or got rid, rather, of my goods and collected all my debts except one from the Governor.

After the well-publicized success of the Becknell and Cooper expeditions follow on American merchants, those not able to wholesale wagon loads, waged unsuccessful campaigns to retail merchandise. Hard currency did not circulate in the province of New Mexico before nor after the arrival of Missouri merchants. Trail traffic into New Mexico did not absorb circulating silver pesos to create the shortage, circulating currency did not exist in the province before the Republic of Mexico gained independence.20 A majority of the impoverished residents never owned specie to partake in Trail commerce, most citizens transacted by barter.

The province of New Mexico, however, offered limited long-term opportunities. Cash scarce, the population small. New Mexico had never been a wealthy province; in fact, over the years it had been just the reverse.21

Becknell, Cooper expeditions with multiple investors responsible for smaller stakes located consumers eager for new merchandise with the ability to pay. Perhaps mobility was the key, sources indicate merchants traveled to consumers outside Santa Fe.22 Travel to neighborhoods of New Mexican elites, residing north and south of Santa Fe on the Rio del Norte, paid off for some traders but a smaller market probably well stocked with American merchandise by summer 1824.

With the growth of trade, wealthier merchants soon dominated Trail commerce. Missouri merchants selling wholesale to Mexican vendors who met caravans on arrival in Santa Fe proved effective and profitable. These buyers exchanged silver coin and bullion for wagonloads of Trail commerce resulting in huge financial returns to Missouri.23 24 Wholesaling allowed twenty-five caravan investors to make a Santa Fe round trip in just over four months in late summer 1824 returning tons of Mexican silver.25

After contending and trading with the Spanish for two hundred years, Indians of New México welcomed frontiersmen and traders from the United States streaming into their homelands after 1821 to trade and trap. Contrary to Spanish objectives, these foreigners had no territorial

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ambitions. American traders soon recognized potential of numerous native American populations surrounding Santa Fe and Taos. Within weeks of General Thomas James arrival late in 1821, Ute, Comanche and Navaho urged him to visit their homelands to establish trading relationships.26

Indian trade required travel to remote, disperse family enclaves and, according to Josiah Gregg, a methodical barter approach often down to the individual warrior.27 Livestock returns to Missouri were, on average, the final component of an expedition. Southwestern Indians harvested a ready supply of livestock stolen from ranchos and haciendas in Mexican border states for barter exchange.28 29

These transactions occurred far from the Santa Fe plaza in covert surroundings devoid of publicity from Missouri newspapers, letters and journals. In contrast, Mexican journalists, government officials and clergy repeatedly and publicly condemned American trade providing incentive to Indians to raid and rustle that intensified death and destruction inflicted on Mexican citizens.30

Storrs identified a caravan departing August 1824 to trade with New Mexican Indians. Missouri traders sought out southwestern Indian Nations censused around thirty-five thousand by then new governor of the United States Territory of New Mexico, Charles Bent.31 Approximately the same number as New Mexican citizens except Apache, Ute, Navaho and Pueblo had currency to exchange for American merchandise. This exchange currency, the mule, circulated quite well.

GEOGRAPHIC DISPERSION

At the start of 1825, Senator Thomas Benton informed the U. S. Senate of trade opportunities for the United States when he described this caravan’s experiences, returning assets, hazards and risks as well as future potential. The Senator delivered a speech32 to secure approval of legislation to foster security of the Trail and caravanners as well as survey a path across the plains,

This gentleman [Storrs] had been on a caravan of eighty persons, one hundred and fifty-six horses and twenty-three wagons and carriages which had made the expedition from Missouri to Santa Fe in the months of May and June last. Instead of turning back from that point, the caravans brake up there and the subdivisions branched off in different directions in search of new theatres for their enterprise. Some preceded down the river to the Passo del Norte, some to the mines of Chihuahua and Durango, in the province of New Biscay.33 Some to Sonora and Sinaloa on the Gulf of California, and some, seeking new lines of communication with the Pacific, have undertaken to descend the western slope of our continent through the unexplored regions of the Multnomah34 and the Buenaventura.35 The fruit of this enterprise for the present year, amount to one hundred and ninety thousand dollars in gold, and silver bullion and coin, and precious furs; a sum considerable, in itself, in the commerce of an infant state, …

In answer to a query Augustus Storrs advised Senator Benton in November 1824, Never until last summer. About half of our company, not immediately realizing the profits they had anticipated, and, believing they could affect better sales, went to New Biscay. They have not yet returned, and I have no intelligence of the result of their adventure.

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In answer to another query, Storrs36 includes an update on the fur business describing recent trapping expeditions that launched north and west of New Mexico reaching as far as the waters of the Pacific,

… In connection with this subject, it may be proper to mention a valuable branch of business in that country, which is exclusively enjoyed by American citizens; I mean the fur business. …. Previous to the last winter [1822-3], their excursions were confined to the Snowy Mountains and the waters of the Rio del Norte. During the last winter [1823-4], they descended the western slope of our continent, and accumulate treasures on the waters of the Pacific. During the present season, their operations are on a more enlarged scale, their numbers having received a triple increase. Majority of them left Taos about the first of August, intending to go westward, thirty days’ journey, probably seven hundred miles, before they established quarters. … With ordinary successes, the proceeds of the present season will amount to at least forty thousand dollars. … Our pioneers are already on the Multnomah, and will soon be on the coast of the Pacific and at the mouth of the Columbia. The employment, however, is attended with much privation, labor and hazard.

Senator Benton combined both answers to suggest parties from the LeGrand Expedition travelled west as well as south from the New Mexican province. To be precise, at least three parties from the 1824 Le Grand trade caravan travelled south from Santa Fe, while trapping expeditions headed west and northwest from Taos.

EXPEDITION RETURNS to MISSOURI 37

Wholesale transactions on arrival in Santa Fe compensated around one hundred thousand dollars to twenty-five early returners. The other five returning companies earned approximately $35,000, principally livestock and fur sales.

AUGUSTUS STORRS COMPANY

Part of the company that proceeded from here to Santa Fe last spring, with merchandise, returned here 24th ult. [9-24-1824] They have been absent a few days over four months, have enjoyed excellent health, were received in very friendly manner both by the Indians and the Mexicans and were successful. A company of twenty-five separated from the waggons [sic], two hundred miles this side of Santa Fe, and arrived here in 60 days from this town; the waggons in seventy four days.

Storrs led this group on their quick return to Missouri, he was in Franklin in November composing Answers to Senator Benton. Captain Becknell stayed on in Santa Fe to lead a trapping expedition northwest of Taos the coming season. M. M. Marmaduke engaged in selling merchandise from a Santa Fe store during a ten-month residence in New Mexico.

These twenty-five quick returners, probably all investors on horseback, were joined by crew of teamsters, security and provisioning personnel transporting furs and Mexican coin to Missouri. This cargo would require six wagons loaded a maximum of fifteen hundred pounds, for optimum travel time across the plains. This round trip involving almost half of the entire expedition, completed in four months, ten days, by wholesale disposition of merchandise in a matter of days upon arrival in Santa Fe.38

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BRAXTON COOPER COMPANY

Mr. Cooper arrived in Missouri January 1825 crossing the Trail in dead of winter herding mules, Mr. Cooper returned with five persons left the province of New Mexico November last. Mr. Wixon, one of the five, was murdered by Osage Indians. Suffered from extreme cold and hunger and at times compelled to subsist on mules.

This is Braxton Cooper39 nephew of Col Benjamin whom Braxton accompanied on the second Cooper Expedition returning October 1823, four hundred jacks, jennies and mules, furs … enough certainly to pay rich dividends.

Returning from this 1824 expedition, Cooper chose to travel the most difficult season herding livestock with limited or no pasturage. On his second trek from Santa Fe, Cooper was aware of risk of Trail travel in winter and a small group of five herding livestock. There is no mention of specie nor number of mules returned, the MO Intelligencer quotes him … sales were very slow, goods now there should be adequate to the demand. Cooper left Santa Fe November 1824, just three months after first returners departed conveying tons of Spanish silver coin to Missouri.

GLEN OWEN COMPANY

A letter from a member of the expedition, William Christian, informed family and friends in Franklin of the death of Captain Glen Owen sometime early in 1825. The attack also killed a New Mexican and wounded Thomas Dudley of Boon County and five New Mexicans by Camanches [sic] and loss of one hundred and seventy mules near Precetynorth. A highly esteemed and respectable citizen of this county per the Intelligencer. Genealogical sources confirm Captain Owen’s death in Presidio County, TX, about three hundred miles south of El Paso. One border of this county comprises the Rio Grande river. Further confirmed by notice of public sale of Owen’s farm in the Missouri Intelligencer.

WILLIAM CHRISTIAN COMPANY

Mr. Christian verified the events of the Comanche attack in Precetynorth then continued to Alexandra, Louisiana arriving end of March 1825. Although unreported, Christian probably led another party from New Biscay province herding mules. What reason to return one thousand miles across Texas to Louisiana, other than sell mules among seven hundred sugar houses crushing cane grown on Louisiana plantations.40 Captain Owen’s fatal experience returning to Missouri via Louisiana confirms a financial incentive necessary to extend the return trip and the heightened risk of this route.

XX COMPANY

Another Missouri Intelligencer press report of 4/19/1825 from Santa Fe advised, It was also reported and believed at Taos, that six other Americans, returning to the United States, by the way of Chihuahua, Durango, and St Antonio, had been attacked in the interior of the country, and robbed of two hundred mules.

This is a third party of returning Americans heading across Texas for Louisiana sugar plantations.

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Three groups returning to Missouri lost, at least, three hundred and seventy mules and lives of members crossing Texas through Comanche territory. Later mule herders to Louisiana included James Kirker, a nefarious American resident of New Mexico, overseeing transport to Louisiana of mules bartered at Santa Rita del Cobre mine with Apache 1828 through 1835.41 David Waldo’s firm, prominent in Missouri trade, sold mules in Louisiana during the 1830s.42

An Intelligencer report the following year references the annual 1825 caravan led by Augustus Storrs,

About twenty to thirty of the company took the route home by way of Louisiana & c which appears to be a very circuitous one and it will probably be a considerable length of time before they return. [Ed Note: By this time, experience established larger companies, twenty to thirty or more, were indispensable for security of trader and stock crossing Comanche homelands.]

MARMADUKE COMPANY

A company of seventeen Americans herding five hundred mules and horses stopped off in Franklin the first of August 1825 where several residents ended their journey.

This returning company meets criteria for trade with New Mexican Indians. Large quantity of livestock returned, the only barter medium available to native Americans; twelve months to complete the tour due to barter complexity; and no mention of specie accompanying the returners. Return over the Santa Fe Trail an indicator travel not required beyond the New Mexico province for this company to turnover merchandise.

A party of twenty-three Mexicans joined the company for travel across the Santa Fe Trail into the United States. Don Manuel Simon de Escudero,43 a member of the provincial congress of the State of Chihuahua, led this Mexican contingent travelling with the returning American party. M. M. Marmaduke, a future governor of Missouri also returned with this company, perhaps inviting Don Manuel to join him travelling across the plains.

Five to seven hundred Osage returning from a buffalo hunt threatened the company quite close to the Missouri border. The party submitted to the most violent outrages since they possessed only twelve to fifteen effective men in their entourage. No fatalities occurred but the Mexican contingent was subjected to fierce beatings and some two hundred mules taken. Later the Osage returned some and agents for the New Mexican Road Commissioners saw to the return of additional stock in St Louis where the expedition arrived two weeks later.

SUMMARY

Five returning parties from the 1824 Le Grand expedition departed the Republic of Mexico herding mules to Louisiana or Missouri. The sixth, the Storrs party, provided wagon transportation for specie and furs with investors astride mustangs. The Storrs, Cooper and Marmaduke parties travelled the Santa Fe Trail to the settlements; the Owen, Christian and an xx group departed New Biscay province, now states of Chihuahua and Durango, with mule herds for Louisiana sugar plantation grinding mills.

Except for the Storrs group of forty to fifty hands, all parties experienced Indian attack and loss of personnel and stock. In this the third full year of trade with Mexico, return expeditions

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shepherding livestock were at heightened risk from roving, rustling bands of native Americans.44 No mention of silver peso return with any of these five elements of the Le Grand Expedition nor confirmation any mules arrived in Louisiana.

Newspaper records identify the Marmaduke company as successfully returning five hundred head of livestock for sale. Enroute they lost two hundred to the Osage had some, not all, returned by Osage and the Road Commissioners. This party probably left New Mexico with at least six to eight hundred mules.

The lack of overall success for the remaining four parties unable to trade for silver coin, then losing most stock traversing Indian territories exemplifies hazards in the nascent Mexican trade.45

As Missouri trade grew during the Mexican period, larger caravans traveling both ways on the Trail reduced many hazards for frontiersmen. In 1832 Captain Charles Bent returned to Missouri via the Trail with one thousand, three hundred and fifty two mules, jennies and jacks along with one hundred and ninety thousand dollars in silver specie without incident nor fatality.

FURS ON THE TRAIL

Three American expeditions were on the boundary of New Mexico trading and trapping when welcomed to the capital of New Mexico in the fall of 1821. Streams in New Mexico were untapped, native Americans and New Mexicans did not contemplate entering freezing waters twice in twenty four hours in the depth of winter a valued occupation. Lack of a viable market for beaver pelt in New Mexico a significant drawback.

Hundreds more American frontiersmen arrived via the Santa Fe Trail bent on making their fortunes in the New Mexican wilderness harvesting pelt. In just two years trappers had nearly depleted beaver in the Rio Grande and Pecos river valleys, their success drawing an even greater influx from Missouri. Josiah Gregg estimated hundreds of frontiersmen entered through Santa Fe those first two years.

The trapping community in New Mexico furnished manpower to merchants during Trail treks while supplying furs in exchange for Trail merchandise. Until the 1830s, a component of every returning caravan included beaver fur. This 1824 expedition included ten thousand dollars of fur trade.

Beaver fur prices would never be higher than in the first half of the 1820s. The Glen-Fowler party sold eleven hundred pounds for four dollars and sixty cents per pound in St Louis summer of 1822. 46 Other parties mentioned five and six dollars as their returns in the period. 47 Taos became the center for many trappers, away from officials of Santa Fe and closer to the mountain streams of the Rockies, at the end of 1824 six groups trapped the Colorado basin from Taos.

The success of foreign trappers led the Mexico City federal government in June 1824 to direct the governor of New Mexico to prevent trapping in his territory. Decrees emanating from State and Federal agencies had little effect in this remote northern province.

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EPILOGUE

The 1824-25 expedition to Mexico established a new normal of wagons caravanning to Santa Fe in addition to other innovations. The breadth and depth of source material available illustrating this two hundred year old excursion adds to its uniqueness. Augustus Storrs’s Answers to Senator Benton completed November 1824, Senator Benton’s January 1825 address to the U S Senate, Petition of Inhabitants of State of Missouri upon subject of Communication between said

State and The Internal Provinces of Mexico,48 Twenty-two Missouri newspaper reports of traders activities occurring two centuries ago,

principally the Franklin Intelligencer, Missouri and New Mexico state historical journals,

Storrs Answers to Missouri Senator Thomas Benton provide first person perspective of expedition activity by the twenty-five members who achieved stunning success returning to Missouri with tons of Mexican silver. As a member of early returners, his Answers reflect personal experience in Mexican trade with requirements and predictions for future excursions into Mexico. It is a unique article informing conditions in Mexico, and potential commercial opportunities between Missouri and The Republic of Mexico. A fourteen page document printed at the direction of the United States Senate.

Newspaper reports depict the Braxton Cooper party left soon after the early returners herding mules to Missouri while the third party, Marmaduke, arrived in St Louis August 1825 with hundreds of mules.

About forty members travelled south into New Biscay province to locate new markets for their merchandise as Storrs states,

… about half of our company, not immediately realizing the profits they had anticipated, and, believing they could affect better sales, went to New Biscay. They have not returned, and I have no intelligence of the result of their adventure.

Three parties identified in newspaper reports, after bartering for mules, endeavored travel from Mexico east through Texas to Louisiana sugar mills where the price for mules presumably higher than Missouri. These parties lost lives and hundreds of mules to Comanche raiders, the most fearsome American Indians of the southwest, whose homelands lay in their path. Some members reached Louisiana yet no confirmation that mules survived to arrive there. Members of this caravan expedition not accounted for in newspaper reports perhaps never survived to return to Missouri. Testament to the courage, determination and entrepreneurship of central Missourians.

Eighteen twenty-four was probably the first and last year parties as small as five or ten attempted travel south from New Mexico then east across Comanche homelands in Texas. The next year Storrs captained the annual caravan and took up the position as Consul for the U. S. in Santa Fe. The Intelligencer reported a party of twenty to thirty made a similar Louisiana trek but did not report on results nor returns.

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While gaps remain, no Missouri expedition in the Mexican period has more documentation than the Le Grand caravan.

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APPENDIX

Santa Fe & Taos Living Conditions 13 Cash is scarce - No Money 14 Expedition Transport 15 Missouri Newspaper Articles 16-19 Answers of Storrs to Senator Benton - [excerpts] 20-21 Senator Benton’s report to US Senate - [excerpts] 22-23

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SANTA FE & TAOS - LIVING CONDITIONS MISSOURI HISTORICAL REVIEW … VOL 4 ISSUE 2 JAN 1910 The Becknell Journal

… From all that we can learn from these travelers, the people of Santa Fe and of the internal provinces are exceedingly ignorant, destitute of commerce, and of all spirit of enterprise. Their domestic animals consist chiefly of sheep, goats, mules and asses. None but the wealthy have horses and hogs. Like the French, they live in villages; the rich keeping the poor in dependence and subjection.

MISSOURI HISTORICAL REVIEW … VOL 4 ISSUE 4 JULY 1910 The Santa Fe Trail … 312 Mr. Graham, U S Indian agent, gave evidence before the congressional committee regarding Santa Fe trade. He

spoke as a small trade, that the Spaniards at Santa Fe were miserably poor, and gave in exchange a small trade in furs. THE BORDERLANDS ON THE EVE OF WAR, … A Conversation With David J. Weber SMU

Given the sparse population of these northern provinces, one of the principal goals was to find more sources of populations. Living in Santa Fe, for example, imposed an isolation from the rest of Mexico. It was a 40-day journey from Santa Fe to Chihuahua. From Mexico City, the journey by wagon could have taken as much as six months.

COMMERCE OF THE PRAIRIES … Josiah Gregg, … Vol. l, pgs. 102-3 Santa Fe, the capital of New Mexico, is the only town of any importance in the province. Like most of the towns in

this section of country it occupies the site of an ancient Pueblo or Indian village, whose race has been extinct for a great many years. The population of New Mexico is almost exclusively confined to towns and villages, the suburbs of which are generally farms. Even most of the individual ranchos and haciendas have grown into villages, a result almost indispensable for protection against the marauding savages of the surrounding wilderness. The principal of these settlements are located in the valley of the Rio del Norte, extending from nearly one hundred miles north to about one hundred and forty south of Santa Fe.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN LIFE - Rufus Sage CHAPTER XXI. Sept. 25th. Again resuming our journey, we reached Taos on the 1st of October. Ushered into the

valley of Taos; and continuing in finds himself surrounded by a clan of half-naked Mexicans. There are no people on the continent of America, more miserable in condition than inhabiting New Mexico.

THREE YEARS AMONG THE INDIANS AND MEXICANS, Thomas James, Chapter l I had seen enough of Mexican society to be thoroughly disgusted with it. I had not supposed it possible for any

society to be as profligate and vicious as I found all ranks of that in Santa Fe. The Indians are much superior to their Spanish masters in all the qualities of a useful and meritorious population. … I now, on the first of June 1822, bade adieu forever to the capital of New Mexico, was perfectly content never to repeat my visit or any part of the country.

BENT’S FORT … DAVID LAVENDER, CHAPTER lll, pgs. 58,9 [1824] Articulate visitors (most of them Protestant and afflicted with prevalent American priggishness of the time)

found New Mexico benighted and contemptible. Ceran St. Vrain was French, with all the adaptability of the French voyageurs, he was also Catholic. Even he, after four months in Taos, wrote gloomily it was a “miserable place.”

THE SANTA FE TRAIL IS ESTABLISHED: FROM SFT ASSOCIATION Countless men from the Missouri frontier purchased goods, hired hands and headed for Santa Fe. Profits were

good, but by 1824 the little Mexican province of New Mexico was saturated with goods and the traders then continued down into Old Mexico to the states of Sonora, Sinaloa, and Chihuahua; to the towns of Chihuahua, Durango, San Juan de los Lagos, Guanajuato, Aguascalientes, Zacatecas, and Mexico City, and continued to make money.

SANTA FE STUDY BY NATIONAL PARK SERVICE Between 1821 and 1846 most New Mexicans remained destitute and continued to search for ways to improve their

circumstances. Although they took advantage of the economic opportunities the Santa Fe trade offered, they preserved the patterns of trade of their ancestors. New Mexico was politically still a part of Mexico, but it was slowly becoming dependent on the United States.

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‘CASH IS SCARCE - NO MONEY’ CIRCULATING CURRENCY STATUS – PROVINCE OF NEW MEXICO

MEREDITH MILES MARMADUKE’S JOURNAL OF A TOUR TO NEW MEXICO, 1824-1825

I remained in town endeavoring to sell goods, we find difficult to advantage owing to scarcity of money. JAMES, THOMAS. THREE YEARS AMONG THE INDIANS AND MEXICANS. NEW YORK:

I continued my trading, though without much success on account of the scarcity of money. The Spring was nearly gone, most of my goods remained unsold. Money was very scarce, and little prospect of selling them at any price.

LAVENDER, DAVID. BENT'S FORT. GARDEN CITY, N J: DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY, INC., 1954. … and the local residents (of Taos) were too poor [in 1824]) to do more than yearn over their offerings. Currency

was almost nonexistent. Mexican policy … drained hard money from Northern provinces, with the result almost all commerce had to be conducted by barter. CONNER, SEYMOUR V. AND JIMMY M. SKAGGS. BROADCLOTH AND BRITCHES: THE SANTA FE TRADE. COLLEGE STATION, TX AND LONDON, GB: TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1977.

… their retailing brought in basketfuls of small denomination copper coins that had no worth outside the province and could be exchanged for gold or silver only with the greatest inconvenience.

WEBER, DAVID J., ED. "A LETTER FROM TAOS, 1826.” NEW MEXICO HISTORICAL REVIEW 41 (1966)

… you may think I ought to have sent in more money but it is out of my Power [to] do it at present it is not in the power of man to sell goods where their (sic) is no money. [Feb 1826]. As for trunks I can barter them off to a good advantage but their (sic) is very little money in Country and they thought that the[y] would get them for nothing. Dr Weber added, William Workman was not the only Missouri trader to find a shortage of cash in New Mexico.

COLONEL STEPHEN COOPER REFERRING TO THE NEW MEXICAN ELITE, 1823. There was some gloom, even that first year of the trade. Stephen Cooper reported that a few businessmen were

unable to sell their merchandise on their arrival in Santa Fe. … "Cash is scarce here, or rather, it is in hands of a few, who are able to live without parting with it. ”

BOYLE, SUSAN CALAFATE. 1994. THE HISPANOS AND THE SANTA FE TRADE. SPECIAL HISTORY STUDY, SANTA FE: DIVISION OF HISTORY, NATIONAL PARK SERVICE.

The province of New Mexico, however, offered limited long-term opportunities. Cash scarce, the population small. New Mexico had never been a wealthy province; in fact, over the years it had been just the reverse.

LAVENDER, DAVID. BENT'S FORT. GARDEN CITY, N J: DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY, INC., 1954. Thirty-seven profitless days in a place like Taos were enough for Guerin. He sold out to St Vrain and in disgust

headed for St Louis. Taking note of the disillusioned hopefuls like Guerin, Niles Weekly Register reported 1825 trade completely overdone: “Mexican villages filled with goods from Missouri and no money to purchase.”

---------------------- As of August, more than two thirds of the merchandise that had been imported was sold. He estimated the excess

goods at an invoice value of about $60,000. “overall,” he concluded gloomily, “it appears that there is little prospect of a successful trade being kept up between the United States and this province.” That was 1825; yet the trade continued and generally prospered for a half century. But it is obvious that the people of New Mexico were short on specie. Therefore, merchants frequently resorted to battering for furs. Many ventured south into the interior of Mexico. Some, indeed, were to lose money. But the international commerce survived.

… many merchants were selling at a loss, and some were unable to dispose of their inventories at any price. The little cash that was in the country has been expended.

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EXPEDITION TRANSPORT

1839-RM Mexican 90.3% silver Mexican eight Reales piece struck at Durango facility.

Mint of Zacatecas

Weight: 27.07 grams, 0.930 Silver, 0.7859 oz asw [actual silver weight], 39 mm. Obverse: National Arms, Eagle Snake and nopal. Reverse: Radiant cap.

• Mexican silver peso and U. S. silver dollar equal in value, several grains differ in weight. • Approximately $100,000 in specie transported by Le Grand early returners to Missouri. • 100,000 silver coins @ .78 oz/coin or 78,000 oz. or 4,900 lbs. or two point four tons of silver. • 100,000 silver coins @ .95 oz/coin or 95,000 oz. or 5,900 lbs. or three tons of coins. • Return trek included two thousand pounds of beaver fur. • Each of six wagons would have been loaded no more than fifteen hundred pounds to allow

optimum travel across plains. Wagons required for silver, furs, security and logistical support crews. About fifteen crewmen in addition to twenty-five first returners including Augustus Storrs.

• Twenty-five investors separated from their return ‘caravan of coin’ to arrive two weeks earlier in Missouri. There were seven hundred miles and seventy-four days of wagon travel left for the balance of the expedition before reaching Missouri.

• Nearly five hundred mules herded to St Louis in the Marmaduke party. The total mules rustled, stampeded two centuries ago is not precise. Five returning parties from the Le Grand Expedition left Mexico with probably a thousand head of livestock. Reported loss of mules exceeded three hundred, however actual would have been greater, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.49

https://www.officialdata.org/us/inflation/1824?amount=140000

Raw data for these calculations comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index (CPI), established in 1913. Inflation data from 1665 to 1912 is sourced from a historical study conducted by political science professor Robert Sahr at Oregon State University. Following MLA citation for this page: “$180,000 in 1824 → 2020 | Inflation Calculator.” Official Inflation Data, Alioth Finance, 6 Jun. 2020.

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MISSOURI NEWSPAPER ARTICLES

MO Intell 3-20-1824 Invitation to meet at Shaw’s Tavern April 1st plan expedition to SF by Robert Morris.

MO Intell 4-3-1824. Rendezvous Mt Vernon, Mo. One good rifle or other gun, one pistolo, four pounds of powder,

eight pounds of lead, twenty days provision. MO Intell 5-15-1824.

Each member will be able to give three shots without reloading, Trade goods valued at $25,000. Probably 100 members. MO Intell 6-5-1824. Ten miles south of Ft. Osage, May 25th, 1824

McClure chaired, Dr. James Conley secretary. Committee of Five to conduct intercourse with natives and expedition members: Storrs, Le Grand, Owen, Simpson and Smith. Elected positions: Augustus Le Grand, Captain, Paul Anderson, First Lt., Absalom Smith, Second Lt. Company consists of 78 men, 23 carriages, wagons and dearborns and about 200 horses [and mules]. MO Intell 8-28-1824. Santa Fe

Party arrived Santa Fe 25th July. Understand expedition lost about sixty mules. MO Intell 10-2-1824. Franklin

Part of the company that proceeded from here to Santa Fe last spring, with merchandise, returned here 24th ult. [9-24-1824] They have been absent a few days over four months [May 22nd to Sept 24th], have enjoyed excellent health, were received in very friendly manner both by the Indians and the Mexicans and were successful. A company of twenty-five separated from the waggons, two hundred miles this side of Santa Fe, and arrived here in 60 days from this town; the waggons in 74 days. We are happy to correct the erroneous statement published in this paper last month, that the Indians stole sixty horses and mules from the company, on the Arkansas. They lost 26 only, which were frightened away by buffaloes. MO Intell 1-25-1825. Franklin

Mr. Cooper [Braxton, nephew of Colonel Benjamin Cooper], lately returned from SF with five persons left province of New Mexico November last. Mr. Wixon, one of the five, was murdered by Osage Indians. Suffered from extreme cold and hunger and at times compelled to subsist on their mules.

Cooper added that the company that left Franklin spring 1824, had not disposed of all of their goods. That sales were effected very slow and goods now on the way to that country, together with what are already there, will be more than adequate to the demand. From this it appears that the prospect held out to future adventurers to that country is very gloomy.

[Ed Note: Cooper group arrived in Franklin four months after early returners, see above, but experienced different outcome. The bitter cold conditions resulting from departure in November could not have been a surprise. Their reporting slow sales and unsold goods after six months may be the cause. Securing livestock and personal safety with a small party of five for a

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three-month period on the Trail is perilous. Quantity of mules or other trade returns or losses not reported.]

MO Intell 2-8-1825. Senator Thomas Benton’s speech to the Senate, From Washington, DC See Appendix

Mo Intell 4-5-1825. Santa Fe Rumor says that twelve persons lately on their way from Santa Fe to this place [Franklin] were

attacked on the Semerone [Cimarron] river in the Mexican dominion, by a body of Aripehoes [Arapahos], who robbed them of everything valuable and killed three of their number. We have not the particulars but do not doubt that something of this kind has taken place.

[Ed Note: This is the first of four expeditions to depart from Missouri settlements in the year 1824, three months prior to the Le Grande expedition. It was returning to Missouri spring 1825 herding livestock when attacked by Arapahos. See page 2 reference … February Expedition (1) ]

MO Intell 4-19-1825. Santa Fe Three other Americans have been killed in New Mexico: Mr. Nance by a Spaniard, and Messer’s

Foot and Hadley by the Indians. It was also reported and believed at Taos, that six other Americans, returning to the United

States, by the way of Chihuahua, Durango, and St Antonio, had been attacked in the interior of the country, and robbed of two hundred mules.

[Ed Note: This is the Le Grand Expedition xx party that traveled south from New Mexico to barter for goods in New Biscay province, were returning to Missouri herding mules to sell to sugar plantations in Louisiana.]

MO Intell 5-14-1825. Alexandra, Louisiana postmark of March 30th, 1825 Letter from Mr. William Christian, of the company that left this place last spring for Santa Fe,

to a gentleman of this town [Franklin] dated Alexandria, March 30. We have begun the painful duty of recording additional murders and robberies of our fellow

citizens trading in the Mexican dominions. We have been favored with the perusal of a letter from Mr. William Christian, [one of th company which left this place last spring for Santa Fe] to a gentleman of this town, dated Alexandra, Louisiana, March 30, which states that he left the vicinity of Santa Fe on the 1st of November, taking the route by the Precetynorth, that being the nearest. When he had arrived within twelve miles of the Precetynorth, he was met by five Spaniards at full speed, who related to him that a company of Americans had been defeated at that place, one of them killed and one wounded, and one Spaniard killed and five wounded, by the Cammache Indians. After receiving this information he changed course, and went into the town of the Precetynorth where he ascertained the Captain Glen Owen, [a highly esteemed and respectable citizen of this county] was killed and Thomas Dudley was wounded and one hundred and seventy horses and mules taken from the party by the Indians. Mr. C. finding it impossible to travel that route, proceeded by the way of Durango and after a long and fatiguing journey of nearly five months, arrived at Alexandria. He was to leave that place in a short time for Franklin, and upon his arrival, we shall lay before our readers such additional particulars as he may possess.

By this unfortunate tale society is deprived of one of its most valuable members and an amiable family of the best of men. Experience has now proven the necessity of preceding in large

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bodies to and from New Mexican provinces. Those cowardly wretches will never attack a large party so long as small companions continue to travel from that county, we shall be constantly pained by the recital of similar horrible outrages.

[Ed Note: Another unsuccessful party from the Le Grand expedition returning with mules for sale to Louisiana sugar plantations. Captain Owen was appointed to the Committee of Five at launch of Le Grand expedition May 1824.]

MO Intell 6/4/1825, Letter to Mo Intell from a Missourian posted Paseo del Norte 9/24/24. I will only say that in my opinion no person is justifiable in taking goods here, at this time, with

the expectation of selling for more than 100 percent, and that for mules and horses. Cash is scarce here, or, rather, it is in the hands of a few, who are able to live without parting with it. This trade is done, as all will inform you. Mules sell for $20 to 30, horses $10 to 20.

[Ed note: Written eight months before publication in the MO Intell, this letter posted probably by an expedition member referred to in Storrs Answers who travelled south to the Mexican state of New Biscay seeking improved trade prospects. Paseo del Norte is the [now] border town of El Paso, TX and Juarez, Mx [then] a stopover village between Santa Fe and Chihuahua, Mx, a forty day trek.

MO Intell 8-5-1825. Franklin, August 1. Following article from the Natchitoches Courier. A man belonging to an expedition fitted out for trading to Santa Fe from St Louis in 1822

[Probably the Baird-Chambers party fitted out in St Louis and left there fall of 1822] arrived here a few days since, by the way of Chihuahua, Durango and Saltillo, across the Rio Grande to San Antonio to Natchitoches, Louisiana. He left Santa Fe August 1824 and states that trade to that country is lucrative and inhabitants friendly to the Americans.

[Ed Note: This American travelled for one year to reach Louisiana, left Santa Fe south to Durango, Mx. destined for Natchitoches fifty miles from Alexandra, Louisiana. The destination for William Christian another Franklin resident and trader in Mexico.]

MO Intell 8-5-1825. Franklin, August 1. Part of a company of Americans and Mexicans, who left Santa Fe about the 1st of June last,

arrived in Franklin on the 1st inst. [August], with nearly five hundred mules and horses. … by which it will be seen that the company fell in with a large body of Osage Indians, at the

very threshold of our settlements, and plundered them, and otherwise ill-treated. … in this they failed, as the whole company manifested a determination not to involve themselves in difficulty whatever, choosing to submit to the most violent outrages, ... as it was but too evident that resistance would have been madness, there being in their own and our camp between five and seven hundred warriors and about twelve to fifteen effective men in ours. … During the evening of the 14th [July] when the whole cavalcade of Osages moved to our camp, they did return about fifty or sixty animals: retaining the best, to the number of about one hundred and thirty. Arkansas Gazette 8-30-1825. St Louis, August 13.

Several of our citizens, part of a company of forty individuals who left Santa Fe the end of May, have just arrived in this city. [St Louis]. The company consisted of seventeen Americans and twenty-three Mexicans, the latter from Passo del Norte, Chihuahua and province of Sonora. The party had about five hundred mules and horses.

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After crossing the Arkansas on 14th July, they fell in with an Osage tribe of about seven hundred men and families returning from their buffalo hunt. The party was robbed of one hundred and forty horses and mules and many, especially the Mexicans, were beaten to provoke hostilities as pretext for robbery and massacre. [See Missouri Intelligencer above]

On arriving at the first settlement the Mexicans stopped to refresh themselves and horses, after which they will come to this city. MO Intell 9-2-1825. Journal of Col M. M. Marmaduke,

This day I left Santa Fe for the United States , having remained in this country about ten months. [Marmaduke travelled with the last Le Grand company departing Santa Fe end of May 1825]. MO Intell 9-16-1825. From the New Mexican Road Commissioners.

We are happy to have it in our power to state that the horses, mules and other property stolen by the Osage Indians from the company lately arrived from New Mexico have, by the prompt and energetic conduct of our agent, have been given up. Many were lost at time robbery was committed, some died, the remainder, 61 in number, arrived at this place [St Louis].

Sources courtesy of: • Missouri Digital Newspaper Project, The State Historical Society of Missouri. • Additional newspaper reprints, The Santa Fe Trade: Selected Newspaper Articles, 1813-

1846; Gary Lenderman, 2011

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ANSWERS of AUGUSTUS STORRS to SENATOR THOMAS BENTON 50

NOVEMBER 1824

Query 2. Have you been engaged in that intercourse yourself? If so, at what time, and with what accompaniment of men, horses and carriages?

Answer 2. I was engaged in that intercourse during the last summer. Company consisted of eighty-one men, who had one hundred fifty-six horses and mules; twenty-three four wheeled vehicles, one of which was a common road wagon, and one piece of field artillery. Company adopted rules and regulations for its government; which rules created three officers, and specified the duties of the incumbents. They also regulated the conduct of the members towards each other, and their intercourse with the Indians.

Query 5. What time was occupied in going, accomplishing the object of the expedition, and returning?

Answer 5. Four months and ten days. Query 7. What is received, and brought back, in exchange for merchandise carried out? Answer 7. Spanish milled dollars, small amount of gold and silver, in bullion, beaver fur and

some mules. Query 8. What amount in silver, mules, and furs, are returned in a given period – say for the

year 1824? Answer 8. In response to this query, I shall include all the returns for merchandise, transported

to Mexico, during the present year, although these returns will not be complete until the year 1825. One company, conveying $18,000 worth of goods, did not leave this state until the 10th of November, ultimo; consequently, the returns will not take place until the next summer. Agreeably to this construction for the question, the returns, at the lowest estimates, will amount to $180,000. They consist, principally, in Spanish dollars and bullion. Exclusive of this, furs, taken in that country, by Americans, have already been returned, amounting, by actual sales, to $10,044.

Query 17. Have any of the adventurers from Missouri gone as far as the Province of Sonora, or the other Internal Provinces, bordering upon the Gulf of California?

Answer 17. Never until last summer. About half of our company, not immediately realizing the profits they had anticipated, and, believing they could effect better sales, went to New Biscay. They have not yet returned, and I have no intelligence of the result of their adventure.

Answer 18. … In connection with this subject, it may be proper to mention a valuable branch of business in that country, which is exclusively enjoyed by American citizens; I mean the fur business. …. Previous to the last winter [1822-3], their excursions were confined to the Snowy Mountains and the waters of the Rio del Norte. During the last winter [1823-4], they descended the western slope of our continent, and accumulate treasures on the waters of the Pacific. During the present season, their operations are on a more enlarged scale , their numbers having received a triple increase. Majority of them left Taos about the first of August, intending to go westward, thirty days’ journey, probably seven hundred miles, before they established quarters. … With ordinary successes, the proceeds of the present season will amount to at least $40,000. … Our

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pioneers are already on the Multnomah, and will soon be on the coast of the Pacific and at the mouth of the Columbia. The employment, however, is attended with much privation, labor and hazard.

… Few people have manifested more enterprise and perseverance than those engaged in this traffic. One company went out in February [attacked by Arapahos on return], another in May [the Le Grand Expedition], the third in August to trade with the Mexican Indians, and the fourth in November [conveying $18,000 worth of trade goods]. The last will encounter storms of winter in an open country, and without shelter. They will probably winter on the Arkansas, in which event they will have to subsist their animals on the inner bark of the cottonwood, to procure which they took drawing knives. Danger, privation, heat, and cold, are equally ineffectual in checking their career of enterprise and adventure.

The next caravan will leave this state about the first of May ensuing. [The Captain will be Augustus Storrs]

Yours, respectfully, Augustus Storrs, Franklin, (Missouri,) November 1824

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SENATOR THOMAS BENTON’S SPEECH TO THE SENATE, WASHINGTON, DC51

JANUARY 3rd, 1825

INLAND TRADE BETWEEN MISSOURI & MEXICO

Mr. Benton rose and stated to the Senate that he had received a paper which he took the liberty of presenting. It was a statement pf facts in relation to the origin, present state and future prospects of trade and intercourse between the Valley of the Mississippi and the Internal Provinces of Mexico.

Intending, for the year past, to bring this subject to the Senate and to claim for it a share of national protection, Mr. B said that he had felt the necessity of resting his demand on a solid foundation of facts. With this in view, he had addressed himself during the last summer to many inhabitants of Missouri who had personally engaged in the trade; among others to Mr. Augustus Storrs, late of New Hampshire, a gentleman of character and intelligence, every way capable of relating things as he saw them and incapable of relating them otherwise. This gentleman had been on a caravan of eighty persons, one hundred and fifty-six horses and twenty-three wagons and carriages which had made the expedition from Missouri to Santa Fe in the months of May and June last. His account was full of interest and novelty. It sounded like romance to hear of caravans of men, horses and wagons traversing with their merchandise the vast plains which lie between and Mississippi and the Rio del Norte. The story seemed better adapted to Asia than North America. But romantic as it may seem, the reality has already exceeded the visions of the wildest imagination.

The journey to New Mexico belatedly seemed a chimerical project, had become an affair of ordinary occurrence. Santa Fe, but lately the Ultima Thule of American enterprise, was now considered as a stage only in the progress or rather, the new point of departure for our invincible citizens. Instead of turning back from that point, the caravans brake up there and the subdivisions branched off in different directions in search of new theatres for their enterprise. Some preceded down the river to the Passo del Norte, some to the mines of Chihuahua and Durango, in the province of New Biscay52; some to Sonora and Sinaloa, on the Gulf of California, and some, seeking new lines of communication with the Pacific, have undertaken to descend the western slope of our continent through the unexplored regions of the Multnomah53 and the Buenaventura54.

The fruit of this enterprise for the present year, amount to one hundred and ninety thousand dollars in gold, and silver bullion and coin, and precious furs; a sum considerable, in itself, in the commerce of an infant state, but chiefly deserving a stateman’s notice as an earnest of what might be expected from a regulated and protected trade. The principle article given in exchange if that of which we bare the greatest abundance, and which has the peculiar advantage of making the circuit of the Union before it departs again the territories of the republic - cotton - which grows in the south, is manufactured in the North, and exported from the West. Mr. B said that the attention of the Senate had already been drawn to this subject and the Committee on Indian Affairs stood charged with an inquiry into the expediency of treating with Indian tribes between Missouri and Mexico, for the right of a safe passage through their countries.

The paper contained information essential to that committee. It contained precise information upon the route to be pursued with the tribes to be contacted. It continued with authentic details

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upon the extent and value of the trade and suggestions for its protection. It had been drawn up at his particular request and in answer to queries proposed by him. He deemed it the fairest and most satisfactory manner to convey ….

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END NOTES

1 (Storrs 1825, 14) Answers of Augustus Storrs, of Missouri, to Certain Queries upon the Origin, Present State, and Future Prospect, of Trade and Intercourse, between Missouri & Mexico 2 (Storrs, Answers of Augustus Storrs 1825) Answer # 8 3 (Lenderman 2011) MO Intell 4-5-1825. A twelve person party returning to Franklin, MO attacked on the Santa Fe Trail on the Cimarron River in spring 1825. The Arapahos robbed them of everything valuable and killed three members. 4 (Gregg 1954, 331) 5 (Weber, The Taos Trappers 1968, 52) 6 (Cleland 1952, 130) 7 See Appendix, Expedition Transport 8 Arkansas Gazette 8-30-1825, St Louis, August 13. 9 (Cleland 1952, 130) 10 (Marmaduke 1914, 3) 11 Mo Intell 4-3-1824, The State Historical Society of Missouri 12 (Storrs 1825, 3) 13 (Weber, The Taos Trappers 1968, 71) In the spring of 1824, he [Thomas Long Smith] joined the large Santa Fe caravan under Alexander Le Grand, taking along “a hunting horse and few mules packed with goods suitable for the market, besides Indians trinket, beads, buttons, awls and paints.” 14 (Marmaduke 1914, 1-10) 15 See Appendix, Santa Fe & Taos Living Conditions 16 See Appendix, Cash is Scarce, No Money 17 (Wharton 1927, 269-304) Some proprietors dispose of their goods by wholesale, others add to the stock of regular establishment in Santa Fee (sic), others stop at Taus (Taos), while there are many who, penetrating into the settlements more in the interior there, vend their merchandise &c by retail. 18 See Appendix, Cash is Scarce, No Money 19 (James 1846, Chapters lll & lV) 20 See Appendix, Cash is Scarce, No Money 21 (Boyle 1994, Chapter 2) 22 (Wharton 1927, 269-304) Some proprietors dispose of their goods by wholesale, others add to the stock of regular establishment in Santa Fee (sic), others stop at Taus (Taos), while there are many who, penetrating into the settlements more in the interior there, vend their merchandise &c by retail. 23 (Gregg 1954, 78) But the merchants generally were anxiously and actively engaged in their affairs striving who should first get his goods out of the customhouse and obtain a chance at

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the ‘hard chink’ of the numerous country dealers, who annually resort to the capital on these occasions. 24 (Moorhead 1958, 82) What kept such season traders in business was the arrival of Mexican merchants from the interior who met the caravans at Santa Fe and bought them in wholesale lots. This practice continued long after the Americans themselves began to seek the lucrative interior markets. … In one month alone, August of 1844, eight Mexican merchants took from Santa Fe more than $90,000 worth of American imports to sell in Chihuahua, Durango and Aguascalientes. 25 See Appendix, Expedition Transport 26 (James 1846, Chapter lV) 27 (Gregg 1954, 251) Josiah Gregg describes the process, We succeeded in purchasing mules which cost us between ten and twenty dollars’ worth of goods apiece. In Comanche trade the main trouble consists in fixing price of the first animal. This being settled by the chiefs; it often happen that mule after mule is led up and the price received without further cavil. Each owner usually wants a general assortment; therefore, the price must consist of several items, as a blanket, a looking glass, an awl, a flint, a little tobacco, vermillion, beads, etc. 28 (Weber, The Borderlands on the Eve of War, A Conversation with David Weber n.d.) New Mexicans thought of themselves as surrounded by hostile Indians, and indeed they were -- Navajos to the west, Utes to the northwest, Comanches to the northeast, Apaches to the south. One could go on and break these groups down into still smaller entities as the New Mexicans did, who understood Apaches, for example, by many different names — Gileños, Mimbreños, Lipanes. These totaled 20 or 30 different groups of hostile Indians that surrounded New Mexico. 29 (Griswold del Castillo 1982) …. Weber thus has broken new ground in this history survey. One example of this new ground is his view of the role that Americans played in undermining Mexico’s control of the Indian populations. Although the Mexican government continued Spain’s policy of buying peace with hostile Indian groups through trade and presents, Mexico’s military supremacy declined and Indian raiding increased primarily because of the activities of the American traders, who provided new markets for stolen Mexican goods and new sources of ammunition and firepower. Indian hostilities laid waste to the frontier defenses as far south as Chihuahua and made the region more vulnerable to a quick American conquest in 1847. 30 (Weber, The Mexican Frontier 1821-1846: The American Southwest Under Mexico. 1982, 95) The problem became so alarming that in 1826 Mexico's secretary of state asked the United States minister in Mexico City to stop the "traders of blood who put instruments of death in the hands of those barbarians. Years later, when the United States had still not stopped the traffic in armaments, one high-ranking Mexican official wondered if it was United States policy "to use savage Indians to menace defenseless Mexicans in order to force them to abandon their lands or request the protection of the United States government.” Perhaps more important than the weapons Americans furnished, however, was the market they provided for stolen property, thereby encouraging Indian raids on Northern Mexico. Little wonder that some of these American traders came to be charged, with "land piracy," even by their countrymen. Also see – American Westward Expansion and the Breakdown of Relations between Pobladores and Indios Barbaros on Mexico's far Northern Frontier, 1821-1846, New Mexico Historical Review, July 1981, V 56, #3, 224-225, Weber, David J.

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31 (Walter 1927, 111-116) 32 (Benton 1825) 33 Nueva Vizcaya, (New Biscay), the first province in the north of New Spain to be explored and settled by the Spanish. Consisted mostly of the area today the states of Chihuahua and Durango. 34 Multnomah river in now Oregon. 35 The non-existent Buenaventura River, alternatively San Buenaventura River, Río Buenaventura, etc. once believed to run from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean through the western United States. 36 (Storrs 1825, 11) Answers of Augustus Storrs, of Missouri, to Certain Queries upon the Origin, Present State, and Future Prospect, of Trade and Intercourse, between Missouri & Mexico. Fourteen page document published by the United States Senate, 1825. 37 See Appendix, Newspaper Articles provide sources identifying returning companies. 38 See Appendix, Expedition Transport. 39 (Duffus 1999, 83) 40 Benjamin Silliman, Manual on the Cultivation of the Sugar Cane and Fabrication, Refinement of Sugar. (Washington, D.C., 1833), pps 30-41 The oxen, horses, or mules applied power to the mill cylinder by means of a lever or beam arrangement. 41 (McGaw 1972, 95) 42 (Waldo 1972, 162) 43 Niles Register, 10-8-1825 44 Once across the Mississippi River, frontiersmen required a broad range of skill-sets to subsist. Those engaged in frontier commerce in this era were supreme survivalists endowed with exceptional self-reliance. Even so, of the one hundred and sixteen men who joined the Pratte expedition on the Santa Fe Trail summer of 1825, sixteen remained alive in the Mexican Provinces at the beginning of 1827. [Personal Narrative of James O. Pattie.] 45 See Appendix, Expedition Transport 46 (Weber, The Taos Trappers 1968, 56) 47 (Weber, The Taos Trappers 1968, 100) 48 (Storrs and Wetmore, Santa Fe Trail, First Reports: 1825 1960, 47-57) 49 (Zilhao 2020, 12) 50 (Storrs 1825, 1-14) Answers of Augustus Storrs, of Missouri, to Certain Queries upon the Origin, Present State, and Future Prospect, of Trade and Intercourse, between Missouri & Mexico. Fourteen page document published by the United States Senate, 1825. 51 (Benton 1825) Senator Thomas Benton's Speech to the U. S. Senate, 18th Cong., 2d sess., 1825. United States Senate, Washington: United States Congress.

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Boyle, Susan Calafate. 1994. The Hispanos and the Santa Fe Trade. Special History Study, Santa Fe: Division of History, National Park Service.

Cleland, Robert Glass. 1952. This Reckless Breed of Men. New York: Knopf. Duffus, R. L. 1999. The Santa Fe Trail. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Gregg, Josiah A. 1954. Commerce of the Prairies. Edited by Max L Moorhead. Vol. I & II. Norman,

Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press. Griswold del Castillo, Ricard. 1982. Review Essay, The Mexican Frontier, by David J Weber. Book

Review, Pittsburg: Latin American Research Studies Association. Holmes, Kenneth L. 1963. "The Benjamin Cooper Expeditions to Santa Fe in 1822 and 1823." New

Mexico Historical Review 139-150. James, Thomas. 1846. Three Years Among the Indians and Mexicans. Waterloo: War Eagle. Lenderman, Gary D. 2011. The Santa Fe Trade: Selected Newspaper Articles, 1813-1846. Amarillo. Marmaduke, Merideth M. 1914. "M M Marmaduke Journal." Missouri Historical Review 8 (4). McGaw, William C. 1972. Savage Scene, Kirker. Hastings House. Moorhead, Max L. 1958. New Mexico's Royal Road. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Storrs, Augustus. 1825. Answers of Augustus Storrs, of Missouri to Certain Queries upon the Origin,

Present State, and Future Prospect, of Trade and Intercourse, between Missouri and the Internal Provinces of Mexico, Propounded by the Hon. Mr. Benton, January 3,1825. Washington: United States Senate.

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