A Port at the Edge of the World V

John C. Fremont & The California and Oregon Trails (1841 – 1845): As the fur trade collapses, mountain men push into Oregon, carrying violence and disease in their wake. California, thinly held by a faltering Mexican government, stands exposed—vast, remote, and still largely unknown. Into this shifting frontier rides John C. Frémont, an obscure topographical engineer with powerful political allies, tasked with mapping the Oregon Trail but drawn ever southward. With the election of expansionist James K. Polk, Manifest Destiny becomes national policy and Texas is absorbed into the union. As clouds of war between Mexico and America begin to gather, what future awaits California on the edge of empire?

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 You are about to listen to episode five of a multi-part series. On Westward expansion.

And the history of California and San Francisco leading up to the Gold Rush.  If you haven't listened to the previous four episodes, you probably want to do that. this season is chronological, so each episode feeds into the next,  but I don't wanna stop you. If you have your reasons for pushing ahead early.  If you've made it this far and are enjoying the podcast,  please consider following or leaving a rating or review.  It really helps spread the word.

 Now episode five, the first season of the Savage West,  A port  at the edge  of the world.

   Beneath the surface.

Beyond the wild lie

the untold stories. America's

savage beginnings.

These are those stories. This. This is the Savage West.

As I was researching this episode.  I kept thinking about one of my favorite poems  titled The Calf Path by author Sam Foss.   written in the mid 19th century.

A cover is one of the most popular topics among philosophers and writers in paths,  mental paths, physical paths.    Since this episode will cover  perhaps the most famous path in American history,  I thought starting with this poem would lay a strong foundation for what's to come.  So if you'll indulge me,  I'm gonna read it to you now, 

quote,  one day  through the primeval wood.  A calf walked home as good, calves should,  but made a trail all bent to skew  a crooked trail as all calves do.  Since then, 300 years have fled.  And I infer  the calf is dead,  but still he left behind his trail  and thereby hangs my moral tail.  The trail was taken up next day by a lone dog that passed that way, and then a wise bellwether sheep pursued the trail or veil and steep  and drew the flock behind him too as good bellwether as always do.

 from that day, or he'll englade  through those old woods,  a path  was made.  And many men wound in and out and dodged and turned and bent about and uttered words of righteous wrath because TWA was  such a crooked path,  but still they followed.  Do not laugh.  The first migrations  of that calf.  And through this winding Woodway stalked  because he wobbled  when he walked  the forest path, became a lane that bent and turned and turned again.

 This crooked lane became a road where many, a poor horse with his load  toyed on beneath the burning sun and traveled some three miles in one,  and thus a century and a half.  They trod the footsteps of that calf.  The years passed on in swiftness fleet.  The road became a village street,  and this before men were aware,  a city's crowded thoroughfare.  And soon the central street was this a renowned metropolis  and men, two centuries and a half  trod  in the footsteps of that calf.  Each day, a hundred thousand route  followed the zigzag calf about  and or his crooked journey went  the traffic  of a continent.  A hundred thousand men were led  by one calf near three centuries dead.  They followed still his crooked way  and lost 100 years a day  for thus such reverence is lent  to well established  precedent.

 A moral lesson this might teach  where I ordained and called to preach  for men are prone to go it blind along the calf pass of the mind  and work away from sun to sun to do what other men have done.  They follow in the beaten track  and out and in and forth and back and still their devious course pursue  to keep the path  that others do.

 They keep the path a sacred groove along which all their lives they move.  But how the wise old wood gods laugh,  who saw the first primeval calf?  Ah,  many things this tale might teach,  but I'm not  ordained  to preach.  End quote. 

The origin of past  is always from an unexpected place.

 Oftentimes a place we didn't consider before.  Not necessarily the best routes,  but the most well traveled routes. 

In terms of this episode,  we will be covering the Oregon  and California trails.

 And like all paths,  they originated from unexpected places.

 Since we can't go back indefinitely,  I thought we'd instead focus on the institution  that is perhaps more responsible for the creation of those trails than any other  in the American fur trade.

 This is a quote from Pulitzer Prize winning historian Bernard Doto.  In his work  across the Wide Missouri 

quote.  The beaver men had made a geographic conquest of the west long before soldiers or settlers arrived  their rendezvous and trails. The routes cut to buffalo and beaver and the mountain passes. They discovered  these were the highways by which immigration must come.  The Rocky Mountain Fur Company By pushing wagons across the plains to supply its summer pack trains  had pioneered the very method settlers would adopt.  When the fur trade collapsed in the 1840s,  many of its trappers became guides and scouts.  The terrain they had opened up became the Oregon and California trails,  and these men,  once solitary hunters,  led the flood of immigrants that followed.  End quote. 

We covered the Spanish settlement of the West in the first few episodes of this season.  Their focus being mainly silver and gold. There are some for a trade, but it wasn't a global for a trade.  If you wanna understand the origins of the American fur trade,  you really have to look at the northeast.

 And even In the very first accounts of explorers to land in those areas,  we see evidence of the fur trade.  this account  is from Italian Explorer, Giovanni Da Veno,  the first man to explore the Atlantic Coast north of Florida. In 1524  quote

 The people we found are very friendly and peaceful.  They brought us many gifts such as skins and pelts of various animals, which they wear as clothing and trade among themselves.  They showed great interest in our iron knives, beads and cloth, trading them gladly for these items.  We exchange goods with them  receiving many pelts of animals, which I believe will be valuable in Europe.  End quote.

 These initial fur traders weren't mountain men in the traditional sense.

 They were more traitors.  They would sail in,  find these Native American tribes, a lie with them.  When word begins to spread to these Native Americans that  if you see a ship coming in  filled with these Europeans  and you have furs,  they'll give you this material that's called steel, that cuts better than anything. We have way better than stone.  more natives  join this fur trade.   Trapping with the intention of trading with these Europeans when they come and sail into the east.

 Native Americans doing the fur trapping European setting up. Forts where these Native Americans can come and bring their furs in exchange for goods these Europeans know  Native Americans find highly valuable.

 When they go back to Europe, they'll resupply  come back to the Americas, well stocked.  Bring those supplies, to their forts. So when the Native Americans come, they have this exchange and it seems like a fairly even trade.  Both sides think they're getting the better part of the deal.  Native Americans have a surplus of  furs. Europeans have a surplus of,  steel, copper, these materials that the Native Americans desire.

 this exchange Completely changed the cultures of Native Americans in these regions.

Now they're trapping specifically to trade with Europeans, which reduces a lot of the animal populations  these furs that were popular  and changes the evolution of these tribes that align with the Europeans.  The first to make a footprint 

in the fur trade, 

is the French.  their main region was the Great Lakes area

 They've been coming there since, just after Columbus and  will settle Quebec in 16 0 8,   unlike Jamestown, which was a settlement for colonization,   quebec was settled specifically for the fur trade,  they'd set up  forts,  bring in supplies,  make alliances with Native Americans,  eventually we'll set  trading posts spanning from Quebec all the way down to New Orleans.  Not many. This territory is still largely unpopulated, but their main concern wasn't settlement.   It was  to dominate the fur trade  as Native American cultures evolved based on the fur trade,  so too  did the French culture.   Its existence was dependent upon Native Americans.  This is a quote from the Journal of french Explorer samuel Day, Champlain in the early 16 hundreds.

 Quote.  All our profit in this country consists in Native American friendship.  For without them, we should not obtain the skins, nor know the places where they are.  It is the Savages who show us the way.  Who carry our baggage, build our cabins, hunt and fish for our food, and without whom we should not be able to explore this country  or even live in it.  They are therefore not only useful to us, but altogether necessary. If we wish to push farther our discoveries and enterprises.  End quote. 

A second country. To enter the fur trade  was the Dutch.

 They arrived around 1609.  Henry Hudson, sailing On behalf of the Dutch East India company, you may know from the slave trade  first real global trading economy,  he discovers the Hudson Bay.

 begins trading with Native Americans in the Hudson River Valley and make alliances with the Iroquois,  then set up the Dutch West India company   specifically for the fur trade.   Their first permanent settlement is in 1624  at a location they called  New Amsterdam.  on the island of Manhattan.

 For roughly 40 years, you have these two main powers in the fur trade, in the Dutch and the French,

 the Dutch focusing on the Hudson River Valley   the French focused north of the Great Lakes.

 Who is that competition with both of these countries?  The English.  While the French and the Dutch had been building out their fur trading empires   the English had been focused on settlement. 

By the mid 1660s,  the English population in the Americas was around  50,000  strong  comparatively to the Dutch and the French,  focused on the fur trade.  The Dutch had a population of around 9,000, the French, roughly 3000.  The English in terms of population were dominating in the east of the Americas.

 around this time that the English think  we need to get in  on this fur a trade.  We're in competition with the French and the Dutch. We're seeing all these profits they're making.  We have way more people in the Americas than they do.  We went in on this for a trade  and we want to take it from them if we can.

 So the King of Ing England as a birthday gift to his brother,  the Duke of York

 awards him with the Dutch Colony of New Amsterdam.  The English don't own  New Amsterdam, 

 so the Duke of York, really the Duke of York's men, 'cause the Duke of York didn't participate in this expedition, sail into New Amsterdam, which is on an island not well fortified by sea and end up conquering new Amsterdam in a bloodless conquest.  The King of England grants his brother a Royal charter, which he names the Hudson's Bay Company. Essentially giving him a  fur trade monopoly in the Americas, in the name of England,  then rename New Amsterdam,  New York  after the Duke  of York,  The Dutch, are now removed from the Americas as a major power  and the French and English will remain in competition in the fur trade for the next century.  The French occupying what is today Canada.  The English occupying the colonies, and then the Hudson's Bay Territory.

 This will go on until the French and Indian War in 1763.

  Over the fur trade, but also international competition between France and England.   Both major superpowers trying  to outdo the other,  the English end up winning they take over all the French territory in the interior.  The French fur trading company will dissolve,



 Within this power vacuum, a new company forms  called the Northwest Company  no longer under the oversight of the French government,  the English remain in power until the American Revolution in 1776  and still will remain in power in the Canadian territory,  while the Americans take over what is today the United States.

 while this is all happening on the east,  the west coast of what is today, the United States is just being explored.  The Portola Expedition in 1769 is the first Overland Expedition into California,  really the first settlement expedition into California.

 You have virtually no Europeans. And what is today the continental United States on the West coast at this time. 

Then even still in 1776, the northernmost territory of Mexico's rule is San Francisco,  and we'll remain so  over a hundred years.

 Beyond that.  The Pacific Coast of America is virtually unknown.  Hardly any ships have traveled in that region. The interior, even more unknown.  No one knows what Native American tribes are there, and no one knows what  animals are in those regions.  you have some explorers that have ventured into that territory like. Sir Francis Drake in 1592.   After Sir Francis Drake 

 No other ships land in the Pacific Northwest for 200 years.  No ships at all.  That seems nonsensical .   If you are exploring this territory and you as a nation realize that this land is undiscovered and you can take it.  Why wouldn't you go back?  travel is extremely difficult at this point.  It's really hard to get your foothold into one of these regions without overland travel or an easily accessible region.  It's like that beach wave .  You build this trench into the sand and eventually that small trickle of migration becomes a torrent.  But there's no trench into the Oregon territory There's no path into that region.  It's just these ships  All on the coast.  We haven't been to the moon since the 1950s.  No other men have landed on it.

 Our technology has advanced but still, there's no easy path to get to the moon.  At least not yet.  Same is true of Oregon at this period in time,  So in the West,  this territory  that is known as the Oregon Territory,  which is not just Oregon, but also Washington state, pieces of Canada, Idaho, even sections of Wyoming  Completely unmapped and unknown.  If you look at maps at this time, it literally listed as unexplored territorY.

 

  By  1776, when  America Takes Over in our Revolution,  ' there is this sense of urgency to get out to the Pacific and to claim this territory north of. What is then Spain and what will become Mexico   much like the Northwest passage, there's all these theories of a great river in the West that these nations are trying to discover.  This is a period of finders, keepers. The first ones there  stake your claim in. It's ours.  Even still, it's like what territory are you really claiming?

 If you put a flag in an whole continent, can you claim the entire continent?  The person who puts the flag in will probably say so, but other countries will probably say there's a limit to this.  There has to be a border.  If they can get in and put their flag in  and  build up their population like the English did on the east  the Spanish did on the West,  then they get a more secure claim to that region.

  In the late 1770s, we have  a handful  of explorers making their way into the Northern Pacific territory.  Begins with Captain Cook, the famous English explorer. Who lands in British Columbia.  He will later be killed in Hawaii.  Once he passes, Captain Vancouver. Land in the Pacific in 1792  and what is today Washington State, the region of Puget Sound.

 At this very same time,  the Americans are beginning to explore the Pacific.  In 1790,  a man named Captain Gray Lands in what is today the actual state of Oregon.  Captain Gray is not a pure explorer.  He's sailing on a ship that is meant to trade with China,  the porcelain trade is booming at this time, so he's trying to land in the Pacific.  

Ideally to collect fur pelts  Hoping to go to China to trade those pelts for porcelain and then to bring those back to the United States  While he is sailing the coastline,  he begins to notice muddy water emerging from what he believes to be a great river into the interior.  It's too dangerous for such a large ship.  He continues sailing up north  and  ends up running into Captain Vancouver.  Even though the English and the Americans were at odds  if you're a captain on the far side of the world, you're not really at war with any individual unless your countries are at war.

 Captain Gray explains to Captain Vancouver that he had found what he thought  to be the great river of the interior.  Vancouver and his journal writes that he doesn't believe that this is possible.  After this exchange,  captain Gray goes back  to that river.  Sending a smaller ship to find a navigable route into its mouth  charts safely into the interior  begins trading with these Native Americans.  Ends up coming outta there with 450 pelts,  continues on to China,   then returns to the United States.  After his ship, the Columbia Ti Viva,  he calls this river.  The Columbia  River,   it is the great river  of the West,  if you're familiar with it. It's an enormous river. Reaches through the interior,

connects to the ocean.  This will be what a lot of pioneers raft down along the Oregon Trail

 This landing.  By Captain Gray will become the basis for the disputed claim of the Oregon territory between England  and the United States.

 Captain Vancouver learning of this exploration  will go back and chart more of the river. In fact, he charts the entire Columbia  now he says, because we have charted the entire Columbia, I claim this land in the name of England.  There's this continued back and forth 

Where, one region will say that they had charted the Columbia. The other will say that they charted it more, or first or more extensively, whatever their claim might be. Again, trying to attach some idea of rightness or morality, or whatever you wanna call it,  to the taking of this land.  Now, continue with the loose and Clark Expedition.

In the 18 hundreds, they'll  map out a section of the Columbia.   Both of these countries now eager to claim this territory  because the Columbia 

is flush with fur rich animals. 

 News of the Columbia's discovery travels slowly, mostly to these far frontier towns and to see travelers.  But this discovery does catch the ear of the most prominent fur trader in the east,  a man by the name of John Jacob Astor,  

if you're a student of American history, that name Astor  probably sounds familiar  for generations. The Astor family will have a say in American politics and culture '  cause of their enormous wealth.

 John Jacob Astor is that figurehead who establishes generational wealth for his family.    he immigrated from Germany.  Just after the revolution,  he starts in a butcher shop, begins seeing these English merchants trading with Native Americans for fur pelts.  On his own, he begins setting up trade negotiations with Native American tribes,  he builds a relationship with the Northwest Company,  establishes contracts with their traders.  By the early 18 hundreds, he's accrued around $400 million in today's money.  Which at that time especially for an American, was unheard of.  When he hears this news of the Columbia,  he makes a play to establish a fort out in the far west.  Astor himself will never travel to the Pacific Northwest. These are all his traitors and henchmen,  and they will resort to brutal tactics to get their way.

 America has this competition with English especially for the Oregon territory.  So Thomas Jefferson, the president at that time in 1810  Grants John Jacob Astor, a monopoly on the fur trade in the west,  hoping to hedge against England's power  he establishes the Pacific for a company.  His merchants set up a fort called Fort Astoria on the Columbia River,

 The first permanent settlement in the Oregon territory. Now you have three prominent fur trading companies  and competition with one another, but also working with each other  

the Pacific Fur. A company under Astor Control and the American Control,  the Northwest Fur, a company. It created out of that vacuum with the French leaving,  made up of a number of different nationalities, mainly has an alliance with England  and the Hudson's Bay Company  given to the Duke of New York  Now  mainly operating in Canada.  

This leads to, the war  of 1812. I.  A silly war. The English capture sailors from an American vessel the Americans because of this tension growing with England, declare war.  There's a series of skirmishes fought over reasons that we won't get into here.

 John Jacob Astor  seeing that the English are about to take over  abandons his fur trade in the West,  Astor will go on  to grow his empire through opium trade and real estate.  By the early 1830s he would become what was thought to be the very first entrepreneur,  billionaire equivalent in the world.  

Wealth amounting to with inflation  around $1.4 billion in today's money. 

The population at that time was just over 1 billion people   billionaires to billion people, there was a one-to-one ratio  today our population is just over 8 billion people    there are currently around a 3000 billionaires in the world today.  One  to 370 ratio  The wealth equivalency of billionaires.  In the 1830s around 1.3 billion. Just John Jacob Astor's Wealth  Today, all the billionaires put together  have a total wealth

 of 

16 Trillion.  Comparing it to modern times, you have these Elon Musk's, mark Zuckerberg's, bill Gates' who have amassed incredible wealth, hundreds of billions of dollars,  thinking about the age of discovery, one assumes there might be others like that at this period in time that would finance these expeditions,  which is not the case.

 These types of men didn't exist at this time.  There was huge wealth disparity, but it was designated to royalty.  but still the royalty of the time did not have the wealth equivalency of the wealthiest people of today.

 Entrepreneur billionaires who have been brought up largely on stock companies.  Think of the first joint stock company

 Dutch East India company 

where men invest in an expedition  and then accrue wealth based on that success. Or they could lose all their wealth if they invest and properly.  I look at modern companies as a combination of those first joint stock companies  and the fur trade  with people like John Jacob Baster first international trade where John Jacob Baster isn't doing in the majority of the work. 

He is financing traders and other people to do this work for him, then taking a large amount of these profits.  Then he getting this money can invest in other ventures with less risk because he's accrued more wealth.  Today you see that more and more  where people of enormous wealth, it's less risky for them to invest in other companies and therefore they can do it freely.  And accrue this massive wealth like no other time before us. 

When the war of 1812 ends,  this competing claim to Oregon will continue between the Americans and the English.  The Russians are still in the west. Fort Ross about a hundred miles north of San Francisco,  they still have forts in Alaska.  But they will not be major players in this fur competition 

it's really between the English and the Americans,  still finder's keeper's territory.  The English and the Americans  realizing that neither side has the resources to keep the other out of the Oregon territory,  come to a joint ownership resolution at the conclusion of the war of 1812.   This joint ownership is more like a ceasefire, temporary,  both sides jocking for positioning when the time comes to take Oregon from the other.  They wanna be best prepared and also to dissuade the other country of having an interest in the Oregon territory .

  The American president at the time, James Monroe,  puts out the Monroe Doctrine essentially saying, I agree to this joint ownership of Oregon with English,

 but there's no more settlement allowed by any European nation in the Americas,  any such settlement will be seen as a declaration of war .



 The English trying to keep their foothold in the west.  Order the Northwest Company to merge with the Hudsons Bay Company,  creating this English monopoly. They established forts along the Columbia, including Fort Vancouver, which was that fort that John Sutter passed through on his way to San Francisco. And models. Sutter's Ford after.  They  create something they described as a fur desert in the Pacific Northwest region.   they were trying to kill off all fur bearing animals that might be appealing to the Americans,  under the assumption that if there were no fur bearing animals in that territory,  there'd be no reason for the Americans to try to settle that region. That was the only thing driving settlement at this time.  This is a quote from Sir George Simpson,  the Hudson Bay Company's governor in chief in 1825.

 Quote,  it is not only expedient,  but absolutely necessary that the beaver should be exterminated to prevent the chance of competition  to affect this object. No exertion must be spared.  Our trappers must clear the snake country and every stream south of the Columbia.  Or we may bid farewell to our monopoly  end quote,

 the English almost succeed and exterminating the beaver and south of the Columbia 

but this is all really just maneuvering 

 Because from 1812 to 1841, neither the Americans nor the English will have the capabilities to establish a foothold in the Pacific Northwest.

 So why is there such limited settlement? '  from the last episode when we left off it seems like there are these publications writing about California.  most people don't read these accounts.  Books are scarce at the time. News is limited to one, maybe two newspapers in a region if you're in a city perhaps more. But it's largely local news.  If a reporter isn't writing about California  or Oregon  then no one is gonna care.   you have Texas, an independent state which is dominating a lot of their focus.  Oregon is being mentioned more and more , but.  The majority of Americans at this time, have no idea what lies in California. Still  in this year of 1841.

 This is a quote from William Heath Davis describing that very point in his work,  75 years in California, which we have covered in great detail.  , Davis was that young  half Hawaiian sailor who led Sutter into the interior.  Quote,  California was as unknown to the American people as Siberia. Or the heart of Africa  in quote.  No maps  The great American desert in between   The Oregon trail hasn't yet begun. just these trapper trading routes.  If you don't have a clear path somewhere it's gonna be hard to inspire people to migrate to that particular place. Especially if the region you're trying to convince them to go to, is as unknown as the heart of Africa.  



 To compound things.  There is this heightened Native American threat.   Particularly one tribe  that was said to be the mortal enemy of the mountain man  in the Black feet.   thinking about,  the most notorious Native Americans you traditionally think of like the Sioux, the Comanche Manchi,  prominent PLES tribes, horse riding tribes.  at this point they're not well known at all.  Still evolving largely in isolation.   I try to track down the origin of why the Blackfeet in the mountain men were such notorious enemies  you can actually trace it back to what was thought to be the first encounter and the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1806?

 It's during the return journey,  after Lewis and Clark had made their way to the Pacific and are coming back east.  You have to remember, it's a small group of men, they're reliant on Native Americans for trade, food, and direction.

 They've met different tribes,   the Europeans have likely traded with the Blackfeet by this point.  But this encounter is thought to be the first between Americans and the Blackfeet.  What happens is Merriweather Lewis breaks off  from Clark and his men  with only three men looking for an ulterior route east.

 They spot a group of blackfeet   They end up camping with them and trading with them for food.  What happens next? Is a matter of debate,  because we are getting this perspective only from Merriweather Lewis and his men,   this is  their account  of that first encounter with these Blackfeet Indians while they are camping with them,  quote.

 As I was looking around,  I saw the Indians attempting to drive off our horses.  I called to the men,  bring your guns,  and ran after the Indians.  One of them left the horses and ran directly toward me.  I drew a pistol from my belt and told him to stop, which he did not do.  I then shot him through the belly.

 He fell and died.  The others continued to run.  One of them had Dreier's gun,  he turned, pointed it at Drer and snapped it, but it did not go off  Dreier then shot him through the head and he fell dead.  We pursued the others for some distance, but could not ever take them.  One of the Indians who seized child's gun was wounded by a shot from Childs.  After this Wounded Indian turned upon him about to fire  reuben Field ran up and stabbed him through the heart with his knife, and he fell dead.

 We collected our horses, which had been scattered in every direction and returned to the camp.  I now had time to reflect on the conduct of these wretches and then gratitude. They had manifested after being treated with the utmost kindness  we had given them food when they were hungry, shared with them our fire and shelter, and yet they attempted to rob and murder us.  We left the camp immediately and traveled with all possible expedition.  I'm convinced that these Indians were part of the Blackfoot nation.  This was the first and only time we were compelled to shed blood on this voyage  end quote

 from that account,  it seems like Lewis and his men had a right to shoot these men.  If everything they say is as they shared it,  but it's hard to take it at face value, especially when they say stop, don't run here, and the Native Americans keep doing it. Or stop taking our horses because they can't speak English.

 There's also a matter of were they stealing these cattle and horses or were they looking at them? Did they think they were a gift? Was there some misinterpretation? As is often the case.  You wonder why first impressions are so important and driven home in American culture.

 It's important to have good first impressions  and this first impression  of the Americans to these Blackfoot Indians or the Blackfoot Indians to the Americans, depending on who you think was at fault here. If there was one side that was in fact at fault.

 was pretty damning  and will lead to centuries of bloodshed between the Blackfoot nation and the Americans.

 The interesting thing about this encounter that I read in David Roberts'. Brilliant book called Newer World  on John c Fremont and Kid Carson's Relationship and Migration Westward.

 Was that  the Blackfoot Indians, had a very different story that was passed down verbally of what happened  at this first encounter.  They thought  that guns had been given as a gift  and that these Americans had tried to recant those gifts,  then ended up stabbing one of them in the heart.  from this point onward,  the Blackfeet  will refer to Americans  as the big knives  and that man that was killed  he that looks at calf.

 The result of this encounter,  is generations of  hatred between these Blackfeet and the Americans.  Every year around 40 to 50 trappers will be killed by the black feet.  5% of trappers that enter the far west.  Those are the main impediments to westward settlement,  the Great American desert.  No trails leading west  and the threat of these Native Americans.



 By the 1840s  events are  slowly conspiring that lead to westward migration.  The first is the discovery of the Southern Pass, which is this break  in the Rocky Mountains,  which allows these trappers and traitors to cut through without having to traverse difficult

altitudes and conditions.

 That was discovered in 1810, but really popularized in the 1830s, which makes Western travel much easier,   news of the Southern pass isn't spread rapidly, so it's just known to these trappers and traders at this point.

 The second factor.  Is the Methodists.

 In 1829, a report  comes out from Hawaii from the Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.  The report states that there are upwards of 34 unconverted tribes in Oregon,  these reports are published back in the East.  This is from 

a Boston newspaper,   stating that the natives wanted to quote,  be received in the country where the Great Spirit resides and live forever with him.

 End quote.  

This leads to  an 1834  overland migration  

by 

these Methodists. into the organ territory.  they'll start in Independence, Missouri.  Follow this unnamed trail,  much of it connects with the Columbia River.  If you played the Game Oregon Trail on the computer where everyone dies of typhoid fever or malaria,  that river that you raft down to get to Willamette Valley, which is where all these men are aiming,  is the Columbia River.

 Willamette Valley  is like a smaller version of the Central Valley in California.  Central Valley is the size of Tennessee.  Lumette is about a third the size of the Central Valley, this enormous flush valley,  incredibly fertile.  That's where these men are aiming,  and they have know about it because of these trappers and traitors that have been spreading these reports.

  These first settlement expeditions are these Methodists. Into Oregon.  This is not the Oregon Trail time.  the game, the Oregon Trail that takes place in 1848, 

 14 years later,  early days. No  trail to follow.  Travelers in the dozens.   this is how the first women  reach the west.  The first children  reach the west, 

 They have difficulty settling.   Difficulty making friends with these Native Americans who aren't as eager to convert to their religion as these reports make them out to be.  There are a number of slaughters that we can't get into,  Still that danger crossing through Blackfeet territory. 

Fear of the Native Americans, I, equate it to the jaws effect  shark attacks. Represent five deaths per year.  Because you have this movie franchise highlighting shark attacks that becomes widely popular  and our lack of understanding of their lives and their territory. In the deep dark ocean.  The same effect happened with the Native Americans  . We didn't know  their territory. We didn't understand their cultures,  therefore we as humans we're frightened of them.

 That's a part of our human nature. We are frightened of things we don't understand,   even though these Native Americans.  We're not the main cause of these settler deaths  the way we portrayed them  in the media , and by word of mouth, because we didn't understand them,  we interpreted things like protection or  defense as attacks, as  vindictiveness. As sneakiness.  Sometimes it was of course.  As it was on the settler side too. Sometimes it was vengeance and all this stuff, but  the point is that  we heightened this fear of the Native Americans in popular culture and in the media because we didn't understand them.  If you look throughout history,  the statistics of Native Americans killing settlers is far below what you might expect.  In fact, I was looking up scalping, trying to find statistics on how many Native Americans actually scalped settlers.  One historian, and I can't remember his name, I, I should give him credit,  was talking about how the vast majority of scalping happened from. Settlers Europeans traveling west as opposed to Native Americans against settlers.  That practice spiked, when there was a push to eradicate Native American tribes from these regions.  Settlers were paid by the scalp of tribes. The American government was trying to get rid of  vast majority of these deaths . I just wanna be clear,  were not Native Americans, but there is this Native American threat.  It's not just Blackfeet,  other tribes were threats as well.  Particularly in these early days when these past weren't fully established,  that's when the threat was at its highest.  These Blackfeet, were threat number one.

 Towards the late 1830s.  The threat of the Native Americans would diminish greatly in the interior  due to a smallpox epidemic  how this epidemic starts, no one really knows it's thought to be these blankets that were shared from Missouri   Native Americans will die in mass. In the interior.  The Blackfeet may have gotten it the worst.  This is from Father Pierre Jean de Smit. the first Catholic priest to celebrate mass among the mountain man,  and describes the Shoshone preparing war with the Blackfeet.

 Quote.  If they take any women prisoners on these expeditions, they carry them to camp and hand them over to their wives, mothers and sisters.  These women immediately butcher them with their hatchets and knives, vomiting on the poor, wretched in their frantic rage, the most crushing and outrageous language.  Oh, Blackfoot bitches, they cry. if we could only eat the hearts of your young ones and bathe in the blood of your cursed nation  in the quote

 that is a marrow deep hatred.  The Blackfeet had a number of enemies, the Americans being one of 'em, the Shoshone being another. 



  During this smallpox epidemic,  that same Shoshone war party spots a Blackfeet village from an overlook and is waiting to attack.   Looking for someone to come out and move among the village that seems to be deserted. 

When they realize that no one is gonna walk around, they go into the village  and  find the black feet dead or dying of smallpox.  Not knowing any better, they think it is a message from God.  And  cheer the death of all these black feet   Of course, they all get smallpox, go back to their tribe, and their tribe dies out.  It's unknown how many Native Americans died from this particular epidemic,  but it's thought that two-thirds of the Blackfeet population died  in 1837.  The threat of them for any. Settlers that are traveling west diminishes by two thirds.  This doesn't stop the mountain men and Shoshone from continuing to kill the Blackfeet. To new extinction in the coming years.

 After the smallpox epidemic.  The Methodists call  for reinforcements out to Oregon in 1837.  A Sutter comes over and one of these reinforcement parties in 1838, if you remember that description in the last episode. He's with a party of around 14 Methodists.  Word spreading what is out west,  this trail that's becoming more consistent

 The final conspiring event,  which really ties all these others together.  is the end of the age of the American Mountain man.  It lasts from 1822 to roughly 1840, a decade and a half.  A very, very small window.  Began with Ashley's 100  . if you remember the Revenant movie that describes that first expedition , led by William Ashley, the then governor of, Missouri.

 Towards the late 1830s.  The demand for beaver in Europe will plummet due to a rising interest in silk.  Beaver become more scarce  the fur market collapses.   there's no official death of the American fur trade and the American Mountain man.   If you wanna put a stamp on it, as many historians like to do,  they point to the last mountain man rendezvous in 1840.  That large annual gathering of mountain men we described every year, and usually the Wyoming territory

 at this gathering in 1840  conditions are looking bleak.  The mountain men have begun to sense that their world is coming to an end.  One of the old heads, a man named Robert Newell,  gives a speech to all these mountain men waiting.   This 

Is what Newell supposedly says.

 Quote.  We are done with this life in the mountains,  done with waiting and beaver dams and freezing or starving. Alternately,  done with Indian trading in Indian fighting.  The fur trade is dead in the Rocky Mountains and it is no place for us now if it ever was. We are young yet and have life before us.  We cannot waste it here. We cannot or will not return to the states.  Let us go down to Willamette  and take our farms,  end quote,

 Hardened men   the mortal enemy of the Blackfeet.  Experienced in battling  formidable plains tribes  now migrating into Oregon  where you have all these unconverted tribes, many of them having never had contact with Europeans before.

 You can imagine what's gonna happen.  These mountain men are gonna be incredibly brutal towards these Native Americans.  That's what they've been taught.  That's what they've lived by  they're part Native American themselves, more Native American culturally than Americans, really,  which is why many of them, and you heard in that speech, aren't gonna go back east to join up with these cities and the American culture.

 It's more foreign to them than living as a Native American would. But when they go to the West, these Native American tribes having never had contact with Europeans at all, are much more easily corrupted, slaughtered,  killed, out, if you remove them, there's less competition,  and that is what many of these mountain men that migrate into Willamette will do.

They will be some of the most brutal toward Native Americans during the Gold Rush era.  When these mountain men that have migrated into Willamette in Oregon,  head south to the gold fields and find that the Native Americans have beaten them to it  for the rest of the mountain. Men that don't go to Willette,  finding that the fur trade has collapsed, now they need to reinvent themselves.

 Some will turn into hunters as settlers begin to trickle westward, some will become these horse thieves, which we've described before.  We'll go into California and try to make these enormous horse raids  taking thousands, tens of thousands of horses from these ranches. then crossing through that old Spanish trail, south into the Nevada deserts.

 Not crossing the Sierra Mountains coming in south of the Central Valley.  Some will start their own forts like Jim Bridger.  you've ever seen the show, American Prime Evil, Jim Bridger is that main character  that owns the fort. Those Mormons are trying to take over.  He's also the young boy in the Revenant movie.

Who Witnesses Fitzgerald tried to kill Hugh Glass, Leonardo DiCaprio's character

 other mountain men.  Almost by accident. End up turning into guides for the United States government  leading, charting expeditions into the far West.  As the government begins to try to encourage settlement, 

that brings us to roughly  1841 as to where things stand in the far west, california  still this far off place that no one's really ever heard of. .  We will get to California in a moment  before we do,  let's turn our attention to the political mechanisms in the east  and how ideas of manifest destiny are spreading.



 Remember, we still have these big lies  that have continued to be spread throughout the past decade or so.  texas is still an independent state, high priority on news and the population's mind.  Still painting the Mexicans as the oppressors, the Americans, as the oppressed.

The repetition of these big lies beginning to paint this picture of the Mexicans as being kind of evil in the American mindset.  We see residuals of that today.  Think of how many politicians have spoken negatively about Mexicans based off of really nothing.

 I see a lot of crossover the negative stories that are being spread at that time, still penetrating the American mindset today.  And again, some of it's true. There are some negative things about the Mexicans treatment of the Americans, such as

those battles in the Mexican American war where they slaughter Americans like Goliad, which we mentioned in the last episode.  But for the most part,  we are the oppressors.  Mexicans are the oppressed.  Texas is the main focus.  There are only a handful of politicians and people that really know the Oregon territory and even less than know about California.

 And while there are many mechanisms going on that will begin to bring Oregon and California into the mindset of these politicians,  the torch bearer  is a senator from Missouri  by the name of Thomas Hart  Benton,  said to be the architect of manifest destiny.

 Senator Benton was one of those old firebrand senators you hear legends about.  A dualist fighter, screamer  kind of guy that would yell threats in Congress, and act on those threats.   if you look at him, he is a formidable figure.

 Huge ugly man. Round chested. Round belied.  This large protruding nose that seems to steer his face around.  That glean in his eye of I'm gonna get what I want no matter what.   

His nickname in politics was old Bullon for support of hard currency,  and in his youth, he was a notorious dualist list.  He got in a melee with future president, Andrew Jackson  jackson had overseen a dual against one of his friends and Benton's brother  Benton wasn't there, but Criticized Jackson's participation  calls him out.  Jackson says that if he ever sees Thomas Hart Benton, he's gonna take out his horse whip and whip him.  They don't live in the same state,  but exchange threats.

 During the political season, both of them happened to be staying in New Orleans.  Jackson gets word that the Benton brothers are staying at a tavern nearby,  he gathers up a posse, rides over to their tavern with a horse whip in hand,  searching for Thomas Hart Benton to whip him like he said he would for the things he said about him in the press.

 The Benton brothers see him come in,  Thomas Hart. Benton falls down a stairwell after Jackson tries to whip him 

his brother then shoots Andrew Jackson in the shoulder, nearly killing him,  he will have that bullet lodged in his shoulder throughout the rest of his life.  Miraculously, Benton and Jackson make amends, and when Jackson becomes president, the two will become ardent allies.

I,

 Benton is also unique  in that as the Missouri Senator. The western most state in the union at that time.  He knows more about the west than perhaps any politician, and is always eager to hear reports of these mountain men and explorers that come through his state on the way back East.  In a book called Blood and Thunder by writer Hampton Sides.  Benton's Mansion is described as this meeting point 

quote.  Where the puzzle of the American West came together.  Explorers would haul their dog-eared maps and their field specimens, their Indian relics and their folios of charcoal sketches.  Benton would ply them with good food and drink and make them stay up late on the porch, telling stories fresh from the western wilds.

 End quote  benton's Favorite topics in the Senate were Oregon and Texas.  It says one of his quotes on the Senate floor,  quote,  I want Texas. Not the Texas of New Dimensions, stretching from the head springing to the mouth of the Rio Grande,  but the Texas of LaSalle and of Jackson with all the dismembered country between the Red River and the Arkansas.  I want this Texas and this region  and mean to get it when I can  End quote. He's been pushing for this for years .  American presidents had been hesitant to bring Texas into the union.  There was the even slave and free states bringing Texas in could threaten that delicate balance, potentially lead to civil war.  There's also the threat of war with Mexico, European retaliation.  Because the Americans weren't supposed to acquire new land, so they're trying to attach some moral rightness to this.

 

With the death of William Henry Harrison. There is an opening.  He was inaugurated in the spring of 1841.  A month after his inauguration, he dies of supposed pneumonia.  his symptoms suggest contaminated water was more likely the case. 

His vice president. John Tyler, also from Virginia  ends up ascending to the presidency.  He had been brought on to the wig ticket, which William Henry Harrison led to garner support from non wig party members.  Tyler wasn't an ardent wig  and the WHI party, once he ascends the presidency, ends up ousting him.

' cause a lot of his policies were counter to their beliefs  and they nicknamed him  his accident sea.  He still has, almost four years of a term where he has not been elected

 He's trying to figure out a way to build support  win reelection  and prove that he wasn't an accident

 Benton already has his ear  and begins telling him that if he wants to overcome his nickname  if he wants to re win the presidency.  Look West,  there's Texas,  there's Oregon,  and there is the shifting of the American mindset.

That it is morally right to take these territories.  It is our manifest destiny  but to take Oregon,  he needs settlement .  He needs to make a path to show people the way.

 Benton suggests to Tyler  that he begins mapping out a trail  that will extend from Independence Missouri in his home state, an area he's very familiar with as being this jumping off point for the West  into the Oregon territory.

 Essentially mapping out the Oregon Trail,

 It just so happens the perfect candidate to map out that trail  is Senator Benton's son-in-law,  a virtually unknown second lieutenant of the Topographical Engineers  by the name of John.  See  Fremont. 

If Benton is the architect of Manifest Destiny,  Fremont is his main instrument. . . 

 Fremont Rose out of relative obscurity.  His mother had grown up in Richmond, Virginia at the time a very

prominent city  married, a much older man who was a socialite in the Richmond scene.  She ends up having an affair with her French teacher man, with the last name of Fremont, 

they flee eventually landing in Charleston, South Carolina,  john c Fremont is the child of that scandal  He's not as wealthy as his contemporaries, but he grows up surrounded by high status social setting in Charleston.  aspiring to escape this life of dandyism,

 He loved reading Robinson Cruso type books.  Naturalists and explorers,  . Men like Autobahn and Alexander Vaughn Humboldt,  their works were incredibly popular.  Narratives as much as they were scientific  One could imagine traveling in the eyes of these naturalists, going places that no men had ever gone before. No men had explored before.  to try to discover different species, different types of humans, different places  these were the works that Fremont was drawn to

 in his own words. His favorite books were those quote  

Of men who made themselves famous by Brave and Noble deeds are infamous by Cruel and Bass Acts.  End quote.

 His main ambition is engineering.  He thinks he can have this naturalist exploratory career if he becomes an engineer. . He's handsome , piercing blue eyes.  a ladies man,  one of those young men that always has women pining for him, and breaks a lot of hearts.

 He's kicked out of Charleston because he spends too much time with his girlfriend that he is supposedly told he's going to marry,  when he breaks off the relationship, it's this huge controversy .  While in Charleston,  he finds these wealthy backers and mentors  his main backer in Charleston ends up getting a position in

government. As the Secretary of War. perhaps.

I can't remember exactly,  He brings Fremont with him as the second Lieutenant in the Topographical Engineering Corps,  serving under this French prodigy, a man named Nicolette, who teaches Fremont about mapping, botany naturalism. he goes on some expeditions in the east, but he's not a well weathered topographical engineer by any stretch of the imagination. 

it's through this backer that Fremont ends up meeting Benton  and  his daughter  Jesse .

She was 15 when she meets Fremont,  already showing a rebellious streak.  She would wear men's clothes, ride with men, accompanied her father into political settings, writing his speeches often,  she too was influenced  by this romantic writing about nature and chivalry.  During the inauguration of John Tyler  Fremont invites Benton and his daughter to his office in Washington to watch this inaugural parade.

 it's during this meeting.  That he professes his love to Jesse  Fremont is below someone who would typically marry a senator's daughter,  second lieutenant in the topographical Engineering Corps. An unknown man,  but Jesse is taken with him as most women are,  and they end up eloping secretly.  the social scandal of the summer in Washington. 



 At first, Benton is enraged.  His favorite daughter married someone of low status in the Army, 

when he realizes his daughter, who is as hardheaded as he is, will leave. If he doesn't accept Fremont,  he ends up accepting the marriage and bringing Fremont into his house  According to one historian,  Fremont's greatest achievement wasn't his explorations,  wasn't his run for the presidency, which will be much later,  but was marrying Jesse Benton.  It's one year after this  that Benton recommends Fremont lead, this topographical engineering expedition into the Far West to chart out this first part  of the Oregon trail.,  The first expedition Fremont has ever led 

Fremont hops onto a steamer down the Missouri. Eager to recruit 25 men  on that steamer. He begins asking around if anyone knows of a good guide   lead him out west, people , he speaks with, point him to this one particular man.  By the name of Kit Carson,  who also happens to be riding that same steamer.

 Kid Carson Had been one of those mountain men. Left to fend for himself.  When the fur trade collapsed, he had joined up with one of these forts as a hunter,  had hardly scraped up. A living, married, a Native American wife, he was thought to be in love with.  When his second daughter was being born, his wife dies and childbirth,  that youngest daughter ends up dying too.  Falling in a vat of tallow being boiled.

 he's coming back to Missouri after 16 years as a trapper, a broken man.  He had brought with him his one surviving daughter to leave with his family in Missouri,  when Fremont encounters him on the steamer, he is just leaving to go back out west, not really knowing what's next for him.  Fremont.

Picks him up  for this expedition.  In the fall of 1842.  Fremont sets out into the Wind River region of Wyoming,  the third or fourth, the government funded expedition into the Far West.

 Much of this trail has already been known of, they're really reaffirming this route, at least the first part of the route.  The most notable part of this expedition is the ascension of Fremont Peak, which is according to Fremont, the tallest peak and the Rockies. It's not actually the tallest peak and the Rockies, but Fremont believes it is.   the ascension of Fremont Peak is a remarkable mountaineering feat., There hadn't been anyone who had ascended a higher elevation.

There was known of, in the United States at that time.  Fremont believes this is one of the most incredible things man has ever done and writes about it with his romantic flare later.  

quote,  we had accomplished an object of laudable ambition,  and beyond the strict order of our instructions.  We had climbed the highest peak in the Rocky Mountains and  standing where no human foot had stood before,  felt the exaltation of first explorers.  End quote.

 Fremont Restricts journals from being written on this first expedition   a German on this trip, a map maker  keeps a secret journal it seems to directly contradict Fremont's account 

 quote.  we found remains of Indian lodges. They were called root eaters because they subsist chiefly on all sorts of roots in small game squirrels,  rats, beavers, et cetera.  They have no horses and therefore frequent the regions  end. The quote,

 Fremont returns after roughly a year in October of 1843,  having mapped out this route into the Wind River region,  and has to write this report for the government.

 Benton is hoping to use this report as fodder in the Senate. To continue mapping, this route out west.

 Fremont begins to write  and  is struggling mightily.

 He has intense writer's. Block is said to have suffered nosebleeds. Just thinking about this, stressing over it.  Unable to write these accounts himself,  his wife, Jesse,  the daughter of Senator Benton,  classically trained on the romantic writers,  Keats cooler Ridge, Shelly,  knows politics well,  had written her father's speeches .  suggest to her husband to dictate the report to her  and that she will write it herself.  Fremont agrees  while he paces.   Jesse writes,  This report is infused with romantic flare that is common of Jesse's writing.

 Here is a passage on the landscape, which a previous explorer Zebulon Pike, described as the Great American desert. 

Quote.  The valley stretched out like a great green ocean bordered by the towering walls of the mountains, as if nature had carved this place for the future. Homes of free men.  End quote.  If you're Senator Benton and you're trying to defend expanding westward,  this type of writing, you must be salivating over.  Here's a quote on mountain men.  Quote,  these men of the wilderness, rough and exterior, and untutored in the graces of life, possess a native dignity and courtesy, which would've graced the halls of chivalry.

 End quote,

 this last one. Is on Kit Carson himself,  quote,  

Without Ostentation or display,  Carson possesses those finer qualities of character which shine most in the wilderness, where men are stripped of artificial distinctions and judged by their true worth. His life has been one of constant peril and hardship, but through all, he has preserved a clear sense of justice and humanity.  The living for years among wild Indians, he has ever acted with that high sense of moral duty, which commands respect even from those whose natures are rude and untamed.

 End quote.

 This is the account that is being spread to the American public.  The romanticized version of all these events interpreted by Jesse Fremont.  that's an important asterisk   these were hardened mountain men even Kit Carson,  may have had some good qualities, but the world they lived in was not chivalrous.  The world they lived in was harsh. 

 Remember that 

German 

mad maker,  it's great to have his journal because it contradicts Fremont's in so many ways.

 This is an account that Matt Maker had of Kit Carson on this expedition. 

Quote.  Kit bought an Indian boy of about 12 or 14 years for $40.  He's to eat only raw meat in order to get courage, says Kit.  And in a few years, he hopes to have trained him with the Lord's help so that he will at least be capable of stealing horses.  He actually eats the raw marrow, with which kit supplies him plentifully.  He belongs to the Paiute Nation, which subsists on mice, locusts and roots,  and such a life as the present. Must please him very much  in the quote.

 Mountain men were rough, un hardened men.  Nightly. I would not describe them chivalrous. That's a stretch,  but that's how Jesse describes them . That's how the American public will picture these mountain men .

  This is the first report,  just the first section of the Oregon Trail.

 printed in March of 1843 It's incredibly popular.  Written like those naturalists of old that Fremont admired, and the pin of Jesse Benton with that romantic kind of flair.  This naturalist narrative combination, the public eats it up. Fremont and Carson slowly begin to become celebrities in the American mindset, unbeknownst to them. Two months after the report comes out,  Fremont Heads West again to map out the remainder  of the Oregon Trail,  just as his and Carson's  celebrities are growing.

 Now  let's turn our attention back to California,  we left off in 1841 with that gram affair.   All this chaos,  all this commotion  the powder keg ready to blow.  1841

Also Happens to be the first year an Overland expedition arrives in California  in the Bidwell Beatles, and Party.  This is a description of how these men find out about California from John Bidwells memoir,  echoes of the Past about California,

 quote.  While I was still teaching school in Platte County, Missouri, I  came across a Frenchman named Robuck who said he had been to California.  had been a traitor in New Mexico and had followed the road, traveled by traitors from the frontier of Missouri to Santa Fe.  His description of California was of the superlative degree favorable,  so much so that I resolved if possible, to see that wonderful land  at that time when a man moved west. As soon as he had fairly settled, he wanted to move again,  and naturally every question imaginable was asked in regard to this wonderful country.  Robux described it as one of perennial spring and boundless fertility  and laid stress on the countless thousands of wild horses and cattle.  He told about oranges and hence must have been at Los Angeles or the mission of San Gabriel.  Every conceivable question that we could ask him was answered favorably.  Generally. The first question, which a Missourian asked about the country was whether there was any fever or malaria.  I remember his answer distinctly.  He said there was, but one man in California that had ever had a chill there, and it was a matter of so much wonderment to the people of Monterey that they went 18 miles into the country to see him shake.  Nothing could have been more satisfactory on the score of health.  He said that the Spanish authorities were most friendly  and that the people were the most hospitable on the globe.  That you could travel all over California and it would cost you nothing for horses or feed.  Even the Indians were friendly.  His description of the country made it seem like 

a paradise  End quote.



 The Bidwell party like Sutter  had traveled with a Methodist missionary Recruitment Group heading for Oregon.  32 men,  one woman and a child end up breaking off for California.  the first expedition into California over what will become the California trail   The second expedition, Everett, across the Sierra Mountains. still incredibly dangerous,  struggling over the Sierra Mountains, nearly dying, leaving their wagons and pack trains behind.  When they get into the valley, they land at the ranch of John Marsh,  a settler on the foothills of Mount Diablo,  and stay at his ranch to recuperate. The arrival of the Bidwell Beatles party  is important in a number of different ways, and I think mainly important 'cause of this account we receive from John Bidwell.  But there are instances  we can infer what might have happened between the Native Americans  these Americans  more first impression scenarios, much like the big knife story    tribes in the Sierras still had yet to have European contact    in each one of these encounters, there seems to be some misunderstanding or some fear-driven reaction.

 That will lead to this poor first impression of the Americans, toward the Native Americans or the Native Americans. Toward the Americans. Often both.  We saw that would jeopardize Smith when he first crossed the Sierras  

Smith thought a Native American group had stolen one of his  beaver traps.   Instead of rooting out who he actually believes is the perpetrator,  he finds the next group of Native Americans and he kills a few of 'em,  retribution eye for an eye, but he has no idea if those were the Native Americans that stole his trap.

 The next group of American Mountain men to enter California  in 1830.  With Ewing Young,  take the Gila route south of the Central Valley and enter into Los Angeles region.  That party describes going on an expedition to retrieve runaway Native Americans at the San Gabriel Mission.  These are mission Native Americans that have gone back to their tribes in the interior,  Youngs men. Accompany the Presidio soldiers going in and killing off these Native Americans, re kidnapping the Native Americans that were a part of the mission and bringing them back  the captured Native Americans that was probably their first time seeing Americans.

 Not a great first impression

 at Marsha's Ranch. Where the Bidwell, Party is now staying, at least for the time being.  When he first settled his ranch, it was raided by Native Americans, his horses and cattle stolen,  so marsh lines with a number of ranch men 

they ride into the valley  and the first Native American group they see with horses,  they kill,  11 men murdered  then they steal around 500 horses and cattle, not knowing if they were actually marshes, horses and cattle.

 Not a great first impression. If you're one of these tribes in the mountains experiencing these men for the first time,  this group of white settlers that walks through the mountain range,  maybe you stay with them at a campfire trade, some goods. There's some misunderstanding. Either a miscommunication among languages or a false accusation   then those same men that you just camped with come in and kill your tribesmen,  you're naturally not gonna trust these men.  You're gonna want to lead them away from whatever group you have, whatever your campsite might be.  If you can,  probably want to kill them  and take their horses and cattle, because that's what these men have been doing to you throughout the decades.   

Furthermore,  in 1833, we have this disease that ravages all these wild tribes.

 Which we described in the last few episodes. It  kills off, I think it's around two thirds of the wild population. No one will really know what the numbers are.  It makes sense if you're a Native American  living in the Sears or the surrounding hillsides. To avoid any trapper, trader, traveler, or settler that you might see, or any way you can dissuade them from joining your party.   Want to do that.  You want to get these people away because  White skin means death.

 On the settler side,  they're looking at these Native Americans as being tricksters  each group they meet is a different party. So some of them they'll note in their journals are  noble and intelligent. Some of 'em are actually farmers.  Some of them are eating beetles and bugs.   They named these tribes after their initial reaction.   One of 'em is called the Shakers  because they shake when they saw the white men for the first time.  from then on they'll be called the Shakers or the stutters 'cause they stutter when they talk 'cause they were so fearful.

 Another will be called the Digger Indians because they dig for their food.

 Or the fools or goat eaters.   These names are pretty demeaning,  but those are the names that are shared through their accounts  and people read them back east, they have this impression of what these Native Americans are like.  Settlers too,  they see these Native Americans flee. They probably read that as a sign of weakness, not a sign of them trying to protect the tribes that they live within  because they've had these past experiences with other settlers, and if they haven't,  their ancestors have told them about these experiences.

 White skin means death.  The Bidwell party has the same kind of experience  when they get lost in the Sierra Mountains.  They're starving,  unable to find their way.  They hire a Native American pilot to show them through the mountain range.  Who knows if this is by force or if it was by some trade.   We're going off of one man's account and Bid Well's Journal.  supposedly, this old Native American who was supposed to be their pilot to lead them outta the mountains  ends up taking them to a remote region.  And abandoning them  hoping that they might die. At least according to Bidwells account.  Members of the Bidwell party go and find this pilot that had abandoned them,  kill him  in front of other tribesmen who flee.  A few nights later, some of their horses are stolen.  Think of the Bidwell party having gone through these experiences.  Barely surviving, crossing the mountains,  having these Native Americans supposedly lead them to die,  going off and killing a few of them. Then arriving at Marsh's Ranch  where he has  largely enslaved these Native Americans.

 they will see what Marsh does to these Native Americans. They'll see how he treats them, how he is like the futile lord of this area of the Bay,  according to Marsh

 quote,  many of these men would settle their farms near Indian villages, and in a short time, they would have a whole tribe of surfs.  End quote.

 These settlers will learn how to, oppress these Native Americans. After being taught by people like Marsh  and also  Sutter  because the Bidwell party will leave Marsh for Sutter's Ford at a very precarious time. .  Marsh doesn't end up treating them well.  He doesn't give them a whole lot of supplies.

Even then they're starving  they hear through word of mouth that Sutter is much nicer to travelers.  So they leave Marsh's Ranch and stop at Sutter's Fort.  Sutter needs these types of people.  If you remember where we left him  he was trying to manage all these Native Americans.

 A lot of the Europeans coming to his fort  these beach comers and these derelict kind of men  trappers traders. They're really transitory,. Sutter by this point has gotten his grant from Alvarado, has gotten his grant from the Mexican government.  He has built out his fort to include these Native American slaves workers and also this Native American army.

 He has that  metal hole punch system, if you remember.  A lot of people called him the best quote unquote Indian tamer they ever met  as to how Sutter's Fort has progressed .  actually have an account from, the Dulo Dero, who is that French attache.  We've read from his account in previous episodes, but this is one of the only firsthand accounts of such fort during this time I could find.

 And it comes from, uh, Frost's work  exploring the territory of Oregon, the Californias, and the Vermilion Sea in November, 1841. So this is just before Bidwells party arrives at Sutter's Fort

 quote.  New Veia houses, 30 white men, including Germans, Swiss Canadian, Americans, Frenchmen and Englishmen engaged in cutting wood operating forges, or in carpentry.  All the men lived with Indian or Californian women, and the colony totals no fewer than 200 souls.  The largest structure is intended for Sutter's family, whom he intends to bring out with some additional Swiss colonists.  End quote.

 Things are moving along.  200 souls is a lot,  The largest populated area of this region. more than San Francisco.

 Most of these Europeans, they're very transitory, a lot of them are violent. He needs reliable settlers,  when Bidwells party comes,  he employs them as needed.  Many of them will go on to build out ranches with these Native American surfs.

'cause they'll see how Sutter and how Marsh treat these Native Americans

 Sutter and all these ranch owners  Completely reliant on this Native American labor.  It's not just farms and these ranches, it's really the entire California economy.  This is a quote from Salvador Viejo,  general Vallejo's brother

 quote.  The Native Americans tilled our soil, pastured our cattle, sheared our sheep, cut our lumber built our houses paddled. Our boats made tiles for our houses, ground our grain, killed our cattle and dressed their hides for market and made unburnt bricks.  All the Indian women made excellent servants, took good care of our children. Made every one of our meals.  End quote.

 Another settler had a more succinct take,  writing quote.  The natives in California are in a state of absolute silage, even more degrading and more oppressive than that of our slaves in the south.  And quote, court.

 The entire California economy has propped up on these Native Americans that had been a part of these missions that had been the entire workforce of these missions. Now, they've transferred their workforces to these ranches and forts. Subservient to the fort owners.  for Sutter, this is a precarious time that the build roll party has arrived  because he's now engaged in a feud between Alvarado and Vallejo,   there had been this rivalry between Vallejo and Sutter since Alvarado gave him wall authority in the Northern Territory in the Central Valley.

 Now there is more conflict.  Sutter, seems to be jealous of Vallejo's authority in the North wants to have that himself, thinks himself deserving because he is built out this fort.  If you remember, the Russians have their own fort. About a hundred miles north of San Francisco.  They understand that at some point, one of these nations is gonna take that fort from them,  and they don't have the means to defend it.

 They end up trying to sell it to Alvarado and Viejo.  Alvarado thinks they have exclusive buying rights  so he low balls 'em  thinking that if he doesn't buy it, then they're just gonna leave it.

 Sutter sees an opportunity,  he goes around Alvarado and Viejo  purchasing Fort Ross from the Russians, on credit.  To do so, he mortgages his fort.

 Now if Sutter defaults to the Russians,  they have an excuse to take Sutter's fort from him,  thus building out a stronghold and the interior of California.

 Now there is an additional threat of the Russian invasion.

 Santa Ana questions Alvarado as to why he gave Sutter this fort  and now why the Russians might have cause to go in and take it from him, 

 Vallejo writes to Santa Ana, that Alvarado is emboldening Sutter,  According to Vallejo's letter,  Sutter makes seditious threats as your excellency will see in the enclosed letter.  French worships, they say, only wait his sign to take possession.  End quote.

 It's not necessarily true that the French are on Sutter's side.  If you remember that account from the Dulo demo Frost, the sub diplomat of France,  he notes in his account that he is not sure why Sutter has such an allegiance to the French and believes they have closely aligned objectives. This is from the Godfather of this California history,  Herbert Howe Bancroft.

 Mexico, quote,  deemed desirable to get possession of Sutter's Fort and Sutter would not sell except at an exorbitant price.  And his inability to pay his debts was well known.  It was in contemplation to buy the Russian company's mortgage as the cheapest and surest way to secure the post  in the quote. santa Ana has had enough of this.  So in early 1842,  he decides to retake power in California.  Remember, Alvarado has already taken power back from Mexican rule. We've had so many Mexican rulers versus California rulers. There's still this natural strife between Californias and Mexicans.  He sends one of his generals from the Texas Revolution,  a man named Micko Tona, governor Micko Tona into California to take power from Alvarado.  Mickel Tona heads north with 300 convict troops and ends up ousting Alvarado.

They arrest him and then they release him. Micko Tona is constantly on guard.

There'll be one point where he removes himself into the interior under the rumor that a country either England or America, is about to come and take California from the Mexicans.  He's trying to fortify himself in the interior,  whose rumors turn out to be untrue.  This type of thing is happening week to week, to month to month.  That's how fragile things are  Any instigation can lead to California's conquest,

 It's gotta be getting in the psyche of these people.  This feeling that at any moment their gonna be conquered. And again, at this time,  California is so sparsely populated.  Most Europeans are on the coast.  San Francisco still the northernmost territory of Mexico.  

Such a bizarre time to be living there  because the Californians don't have any real allegiance to Mexico.  You'd had this culture that had been growing in this far off post, like the, the deep frontier.  They themselves really wanna break off and join England. France, America, depending on who you're talking to.  Valejo, for instance, really wanted to be taken over by the Americans.

 Sutter, has this alliance with the French it seems,  , it's just this period of uncertainty.



 It's difficult to get a firm grasp on San Francisco during this time 'cause there are so few firsthand accounts.  Many of them you have to get in microfilm, meaning you have to go to a physical location and view this microfilm in a viewfinder to read it.  It is not digitized and so not easily accessible, but  I did find one account  by a man named John Brown that I think is incredibly helpful for understanding what this  period  was like in San Francisco and also just in general of these traders and travelers getting to San Francisco.  He was in this region from 1844 to 1845,  starts off at Sutter's Fort,  makes his way to Yoruba. Buena  then returns to Sutter's Ford,  and he himself is a traitor who had heard of California by word of mouth.

 In 1843, he is trading with a Cherokee for their skins  when winter hits. He finds himself too far from one of his home forts to return,  so he's trying to find suitable quarters when he accidentally arrives in Sutter's Fort.  This is from his memoir

titled REMS and Incidents of the Early Days of San Francisco,  and this first account is on how he got there.  quote. We determined to return to Fort Bridger,  but finding it impossible made for Fort Hall belonging to the Hudson Bay Company where we hoped to remain during the winter.

 Upon our arrival, however,  factor Grant who had command of the fort informed us that we could not stay there as there were already a larger number than could be accommodated,  during our stay. A person arrived by the name of Greenwood.  Upon asking him what he considered the best course for us to take,  he advised us to go to California. Giving us all the necessary directions for doing so and accompanying us himself. As far as Hooter's Dam, where he left us after repeating his directions as to our route,  we reached our winter quarters about the last of November in an area now called Yuba County.  Game of all kinds was plentiful.  We'd be camping about three months when one day, very much to our surprise, two persons came into camp from whom we learned that there was a whole settlement at a place called Sutter's Fort where we could obtain supplies or anything else we required.   End quote. 

 The year after that,  he returns to California and stays in Sutter's Fort.  Works there about a year, goes to San Francisco, can't find work,  returns to Sutter Ford as a cook and scribes. A lot of the dramas that take place there.

 A murder or somebody trying to kill him the transitory workforce.   in 1845, he's given a position from one of the saloon owners in town.  This is the description of. San Francisco in 1845  from John Brown,

quote.  When it first came to the city,  there was only one vessel in the harbor.  The bark, Emma  of London, England.  They were on a whaling trip and stopped at Yerba Buena for supplies, et cetera.  The only pay the city officials received for their services was that raised by fines,  most of which was taken from sailors.

He would remain on the shore after sunset.  The fine for this offense was usually five or $10.  as the case might be,  and the money thus received was equally divided between the authorities.  Captains and first officers were permitted to remain on shore as long as they pleased.  I was in the employee of Fitch and Thompson,  having charge of the bar  and also keeping the accounts.

 Mr. Fitch was a man of, but little education.  In fact,  could neither read nor write.  And he had a particular way of his own in keeping accounts.  He had an excellent memory for names  was in the habit of noting any peculiarity about a person as regards to his dress or general appearance.  Captain Hickey wore brass buttons on his coat was represented on the books by the drawing of a button.

 A certain Sawyer in the place was represented by the drawing of the top saws of a saw pit  and many others were thus represented according to their very characteristics or callings.  I remained with Fitch about three weeks  during that time and became acquainted with Robert t Ridley, the proprietor of a liquored and billiard saloon.

 made me an offer of $50 per month to take charge of his place.  I accepted the offer and commenced my work there.  The billiard room was at that time the headquarters for all strangers in the city, both foreigners and Californians.  All persons wishing to purchase lots would apply to Ridley  as the first map of surveyed land was kept in the bar room.

 The names of those who had lots granted were written on the map.  The map was so much soiled and torn from the rough usage it received  that Captain Hickey volunteered to make a new one. he tried several times, but being very nervous, he could not succeed in making the line straight.  So he got me to do the work according to his instructions.  End quote.

 still bears, wolves, and coyotes.  Still this sleepy port with around 60 to 70 people  most of the transient beach comers and Native Americans,  about 12 buildings in the town. No proper roads. Portsmouth Square is the centerpiece of the original San Francisco. Now in Chinatown in San Francisco today.  A ways from the water, but at that time it was very close to the waterfront. Most of downtown San Francisco, as we described before, is now landfill. 

  think of living in San Francisco in the 1840s, like living on a cold, windy beach.  If you've ever been to San Francisco, you know how windy it can get, how foggy it can get.  The weather is fairly moderate, but it can change and shift almost momentarily.  You always need some extra layers to protect against sudden changes in the weather,  or you know, the emergence of this fog 

 The rainy season, it would get muddy, difficult to travel. Not a whole lot of vegetation,  not a whole lot of running water.  San Francisco is not a pleasant place to live at this point. You don't have the infrastructure we have now  no certainty that San Francisco was gonna be the main port in the Bay Area.

 If you remember Richardson, that first settler of San Francisco Bay.  Now at this point, the Port Master still of San Francisco will be through the Gold Rush.  He's relocated his family to Sausalito and built a ranch in that area thinking that Sausalito will be the main port where ship's land because that area  is more protected from the wind.

 On top of that,  There's no consistent overland travel into San Francisco or Northern California.   most of these expeditions we've been talking about have from coming south of the Central Valley, so into like Los Angeles region.  The only two parties to have crossed the Sierras  are Jedi Smith and the Bidwell Bartles party.

 We do have consistent migration into Oregon, which we just described,  beginning with that call for the Methodist to come and convert these unconverted tribes in the  1820s. The  first settlement won't arrive in Oregon until the 1830s, but then it's, you know, people in the dozens,  and 1840, there'll be around 13 settlers into Oregon.  18 41 30  starts to tick up from 1842 onward.  125 settlers in 1842.  And then roughly 900  in 1843.  That is the year of the great migration into Oregon.  After the fur trade has collapsed, all these traders trappers are making their way into the Oregon territory,  most of the people coming overland  are either these Methodists  traders and trappers  or pioneers from these far western states in Missouri, Illinois territory.

 There's no consistent settlement still into California  1841. There is roughly 32 people with the Bidwell party.  There'll be no overland settlers into California in 1842  and in 1843, only 38.  Members of the Bidwell party will go back to these far Western states after they've arrived in California  and start spreading word of what lies in California, bringing over first friends and family.

  they'll pass that word along.  So it's this slow trickle,  no consistent settlement into California.  

That will begin to change in March of 1844  when in the dead of winter. handful of ragged naked American settlers stumble into Sutter's fort   This is how John Sutter describes them in his memoir

From the Bancroft History of California Volume four,  quote.  They were nearly famished  their clothes and tatters  their animals all dead.  Some came in advance and I sent out relief to bring in the others who were still in the mountains.  They looked like skeletons  in quote,

 This is John c Fremont and his men     after their charting of the rest of the Oregon trail.  As winter approached, rather than continue east to find shelter,  almost defiantly he decided to cross the Sierra's mid-winter.  he had heard from other trappers and traders about Sutter's Ford just on the other side of the Sierras.  This was a foolish decision. The same decision will be made by the Donner Party when they will get stuck in the Sierra Mountains crossing roughly the same area as Fremont.

 having to resort to cannibalism.   incredibly, careless, 

fremont will later describe it as a glorious moment where it returned excitement into his party.

 According to Biographer Andrew Roll and his book, Charles Fremont, character as destiny.  Fremont demonstrated, quote,  the capacity to rationalize even the worst of decisions, and then to believe his own deceptions.  End quote.  Fremont will routinely do this throughout his careers, rationalizing terrible decisions.

 Many of these flights that Fremont puts his crew through,  it's Carson or other mountain men like Godi. Who get them out  Fremont months later expedition, which we won't cover in this podcast, or at least this season,  would turn to disaster because his main mountain men guides weren't with him.

 And there will be cannibalism on that expedition.  But in this one,  the first winter crossing of the Sierras,  somehow they make it through.  And while in Fremont's report, he describes it as this joyous occasion writing quote.  We now considered ourselves victorious over the mountain.  We had hard and doubtful labor yet before us.

We continued to enjoy the same delightful weather.  We grew very anxious as the day advanced, and no grass appeared and on the eve of reaching Sutters,  a rep past of good beef, excellent bread, and delicious salmon, which I brought along were shared as teams First introduction to the luxuries of Sacramento.

 End quote.  The truth was  these men were starving and near death  carson, who's much more blunt in his descriptions of these explorations will  I won't say wrote because he was literate,  but he will describe the arrival at Sutter's Fort in the falling way quote, when we arrived at the fort,  we were naked in an as poor condition as men possibly could be.

End quote.

 They experienced trouble almost from the beginning.

 Fremont thought it would take them five days to cross the Sierras.  It ends up taking them five weeks,  starting in January making it through into March.  The snow was so deep they had to jettison their packs, their wagon trains. 

They had brought along a howitzer that they had to abandon. No one really knows why they brought that along. Some suspected that they were trying to wage war with Mexico on this expedition. 

By the time they get into the midst of the Sierras, the horses are starving so much so that they begin to eat each other's tails and the leather off of their saddles.  They lose two thirds of their horses and cattle before they make it out  of the men.  One shoots himself in the head,  thought to have gone delirious in the snow.

Some say it's suicide. Others say it was an accident.  That German map maker.  gets lost for a time and somehow finds his way back.  Another man gets lost in the snow Drift thought to have died. Two years later, he'll reappear at a town nearby  . No one really knows how he actually survived,

 It was remarkable that they made it through.  when Fremont arrives at Sutters Ford, he stays there a few weeks to recover, getting food, getting horses.  Remember, Sutter is at odds with the Mexican government.  And somewhat with the California government.  He's looking for allies that will allow him to retain his fort. Should another country come to take California from the Mexicans.

 He gives Fremont details of the relationships between the Mexicans and the Californias, how many American settlers are in the region,  details that Benton will need if he wants to push for westward expansion.

 But Fremont is there illegally,  

foreign settlers after the gram affair were

restricted from coming into California without a passport.

 Rather than wait for the Mexican government to find out, the Fremont and his men are at Sutter's fort,  he and his men slip away  heading south through the Central Valley,   Remember when I talked about how Europeans did more scalping than the Native Americans.  On this return journey, there's actually an account of Alex Goddy, another mountain man with Fremont scalping, a group of Paiute Native Americans.  It's while they are crossing the old Spanish Trail south of the Central Valley  when they come across an old man and his son of 11 years old.

 In the middle of nowhere,  the old man relays to Fremont that his party had been killed by Native Americans, their horses stolen, and him and his son left for dead.  Rather than continue on,  Carson and Alex Goddy volunteer to go hunt down these Native Americans  and give this old man and his son vengeance.

 they come across a group of Native Americans celebrating this slaughter. And the stolen horses.  No one knows if that's true, could have just been a group of Native Americans they'd stumbled upon,  but they did have horses.  so Carson and Goldie, the two of them charge roughly 30 Native Americans.

 Who knows how many they killed,  but when they return,  Goldie has two scalps attached to his gun.

 Fremont, who wasn't present during the slaughter will describe it in his report in the following way,  quote  an old squaw possibly his mother stopped and looked back threatening and lamenting the frightful spectacle of Paul, the stout hearts of our men,  but they did what humanity required and quickly terminated the agonies of the gory savage  end quote.

 From this account,  Goddy and Carson were riding away as this old woman yelled at them,  then they turned and killed her.  is this chivalrous?  Is this noble?  Fremont claims It is, and therefore many Americans later will believe it is.  Thankfully, we have this mapmaker who made it out of the snow.  Keeps his secret German journal  and he of this encounter writes  quote  to me, such butchery is disgusting,  but Fremont is in high spirits.

 I believe he would exchange all observations for a scalp taken by his own hand  end

 Fremont and his party return to Missouri in August. Of 1844.  Fremont is now 32 years old.  He's eight months late from when he was supposed to return.  His wife and many others had thought him dead

 The evening of his return, he sits on a porch by himself, supposedly contemplating his life out in the wild.   After you've gone through these kinds of ordeals, I imagine the acclimation process, is long and difficult.

 I've never been on a journey like that before, but I have traveled by myself backpacking into national parks and forest for the better part of two months,  

When I came back home one of the first things I did was go to a 4th of July party,  the amount of people there was incredibly overwhelming to me.  That was just after a month and a half.

When I think about Fremont's expedition for all of these men, I multiply that by like a thousand.  You've gone in, seen things, done, things that no one in civilization would understand,   They don't have the experience to understand what you've gone through,  and therefore, it's more and more difficult to relate to people who come from that world.

 The deeper you go into the wilderness, the more difficult it is to acclimate into civilization. That is my belief.  to imagine Fremont and his men coming back to civilization after having gone through all this. ,  It's hard to comprehend.  Fremont sits out this afternoon of his return,  then goes into the Benton mansion.

 Walks straight in,  swoops up Jesse in front of everyone,  then takes her to bed.  

Two weeks later,  the two of them begin writing Fremont's second report,  charting the entirety of the Oregon Trail and also  the California Trail.

 As he and Jesse are writing  America Nears, its next election  in November of 1844. I   John Tyler, his accident Sea, still trying to overcome that nickname  by this time he's growing desperate.  He'd wanted to bring Texas into the union had been building up his Navy to do secretly negotiating with Texas  but his proposal to bring Texas into the union had been defeated in Congress  He started clinging to Fremont's celebrity for power.  promotes him to major.  Fremont now a notable character in the American public.

  I imagine him like the, the Taylor Swift of his time when Naturalist Explorers were the largest celebrities in America,  now it's pop stars.  Back then it was naturalist Explorers.  Fremont was like the top celebrity of his time.

Tyler doesn't have a chance to win the election of 1844.  He had been ousted from the wig party,  their new candidate, a man named Henry Clay, a nationally popular figure, thought to easily defeat whoever the Democratic candidate would be,   Thought to be a politician named Martin Van Buren.



 for context, think of the Democrats of this election, like the Republicans of today,  the wigs of this election, like the Democrats of today. Certainly some differences.  the parties will flip allegiance after the Civil War over a number of reasons. One of them being the gold standard.. 

 Democratic Convention, van Buren was supposed to win,  he already had half of the Democrats support, and would've won on the first ballot.  before it began, the rules were changed by Southern Democrats requiring two third support.  

 

Van Buren was against Texas annexation. That's why these Southern Democrats were opposed to 'em.  They wanted Texas to be brought into the union ' cause they thought it would be brought in as a slave state and that would give them a majority in Congress.  The rules were changed. So the Southern Democrats could push Van Buren out  he could not get to the two-thirds majority,

with each new round of voting  a dark horse candidate rises by the name of James k Po.

 Andrew Jackson's pupil.  Jackson's nickname was Old Hickory Hulk's. Nickname would be Young Hickory.  A slave owner. Southern  and he ardently wants to bring Texas into the union.



 This is his description from Bernard Doto.  In his Pulitzer Prize winning work  1846, the year of decision  quote,  Polks Mind was rigid,  narrow, obstinate, far from first rate.

 He sincerely believed that only Democrats were truly Americans. Wigs being either the ES or the pensioners of England  More. That not only wisdom and patriotism were democratic monopolies, but honor and breeding as well.  He was pompous, suspicious, secretive. He had no humor.  He was a representative of southern politician of the second or intermediate period, which expired with the presidency when the decline, but not the disintegration had begun.

 End quote.  the decline being the southern decline.

 Now, Polk was pitted against Henry Clay. Henry Clay is the WI candidate,  Polk the Democratic candidate.  Polks campaign largely evolved around Texas  Oregon, and big  lies.  He starts saying that Texas had been a part of Louisiana purchase  and that we had given it away illegally by John Quincy Adams, who happened to be Polks political rival.  He starts referring to Oregon and Texas

as re annexing these territories or reoccupying them,  he begins talking about building America into quote greatness lost end 

quote, His campaign slogan is 54 40 or fight  meaning that he will fight England  for the Oregon territory up to the coordinate line of 54 40.

 Polk unexpectedly defeats Henry Clay  on his pro Western expansion platform.

 Seeing this,  John Tyler puts before Congress a resolution to bring Texas into the union.  Once Polk had been elected and Congress saw his agenda,  they voted for the resolution  three days before Tyler leaves his presidency.  Texas is officially brought into the union.  

As soon as this resolution is passed. 

Mexico's Ambassador leaves America from Mexico.  expecting potential war

 As to the election  this is an account from future President Theodore Roosevelt.

 In his book,  Thomas Hart Benton,  quote,  up to 1860, there were very few political contests in which the dividing lines between right and wrong, so nearly confided with those drawn between the two opposing parties. As of that of 1844,  the Democrats favored the annexation of Texas and the addition of new slave territory to the union.

 Almost every good element of the country stood behind Clay.  The vast majority of intelligent, high-minded upright men supported him.  Polk was backed by rabid Southern fire, Utes and slavery, extensionist, who had defied negro bondage and exalted it beyond the union,  the Constitution,  and everything else,  by the almost solid foreign vote, still unfit for the duties of American citizenship  by the vicious and criminal classes and all the great cities of the north and in New Orleans  by the corrupt politicians who found ignorance and viciousness tools ready, forged to their hands, wherewith to perpetuate the gigantic frauds without which the election would've been lost.  And lastly, he was also backed indirectly, but most powerfully  by the political abolitionists.  End quote  Roosevelt did not have a very.

High opinion of Polk,  many historians won't  but Polk will bring in more territory into the United States than any other president in history.  Roughly one third of the modern United States.  With Polks election, the Eye of America,  and I look at the Eye of America at this time, like the Eye of Siron searching desirably for more land in the West  is now firmly on Texas and Oregon.

 Benton having been. An Andrew Jackson loyalist and supporter,  despite having gotten to that melee with Andrew Jackson  is now a Polk supporter.  There's Old Hickory and Andrew Jackson. Now Polk is Young, Hickory and Benton immediately has Polks Ear  before He's inaugurated him and Fremont meets secretly with President Polk.

 In Polks Journal, he discusses Texas unionization

 and his focus on Oregon and California.  some suspect there may be secret plot between Fremont, Benton and Polk at this meeting, .  at Polks inaugural address,  He will proclaim, quote,  a clear and unquestionable title to Oregon.

 He'll discuss the acquisition of California.  And will write in his diary that Benton is encouraging him settlement to take California.  Polk wants to purchase California. That's his plan.  if he can get settlement and they can perhaps take it 

or the threat of potential war, might encourage Mexico to come to the table to purchase. California so it'll make it seem like it was, us asking to buy California and Mexico relenting.  in reality is us pressuring them to give us California for a lower price than the actual value.

 To encourage this plan,  Benton tells Polk. To remap the area,  he says the area maps are incorrect  that his son-in-law,  who's . just returned from California  and has this draft of the second report,  is the ideal candidate to go  .

Just after Polk comes into office,  Fremont's second report is published in March of 1845.

 Fremont and Jesse had written it similarly to the first where Fremont Paces  and Jesse writes.  Jesse would describe that as the happy winter of her life.  Fremont, like with the first report, suffered nosebleeds and headaches.  Had trouble sleeping,  more pressure on this report than the first.

 Remember, this report would complete the description of the Oregon Trail. Not only was it an explorative narrative describing what the west was like for anyone in the east who'd never been there,  which was  everyone in the east practically.  It also included these maps.  That man who kept the secret journal, that German.

 He was keeping detailed maps of the route Fremont and his party took  to get into Oregon,  also  to cross the Sierras into California.  This is the first official map of the Oregon and California trails  this second report will be published in combination with the first, so it's the complete  map of the California and Oregon trails.

Three times the length of the first,  and it is  wildly popular.  A national bestseller republished in publications, not only in America, but throughout the world.  According to one historian, it brings the West into the forefront of America's hungry imagination

 and catapults Fremont and Carson's celebrity

 This report affects countless men to go west.  They'll often cite Fremont's report as being their guide.  will cut out the map that German Mapmaker had written as their route to travel West  Brigham Young.  The reason he goes to Utah and settles it as Zion is because he reads Fremont's report.

 William Henry Longfellow, the poet, will write a poem about Fremont.  Walt Whitman, even describe Fremont as quote  the darling of the people's fancy, the Pathfinder, not only of the west, but of a newer country within ourselves.  End quote,

 according to Bernard Dodo.  Fremont's reports quote  were adventure books. They were charters of manifest destiny. They were text of navigation for the uncharted sea of the plane, so many dreamed of crossing.  They were pageant of daring endurance, and high endeavor in the country of peaks and unknown rivers.

 With Benton's advertising, they made Fremont a popular image of Western wayfaring.  Fremont's reports were far more important  than his travels  End quote.

 This is what Benton  and Polk  and any politicians looking West had been waiting for  something like this to bring California and Oregon into the forefront of America's imagination  to encourage settlement that will potentially   lead to conquest.  while this report propels Fremont into uncharted fame,  it does the same for figures like Kit Carson.  Carson will become a cult hero.  Many will imagine him as this burly kind of mountain man. Kit was  quiet.  He was small,  looked fragile, was not fragile.

I had a quiet way of speaking, didn't talk much was illiterate.  dime novels will start coming out about Kit Carson.  There's one called Rocky Mountain Kit's Last Scalp Hunt,  and another  an adventure of Kit Carson, A Tale of the Sacramento.  

Later in his life kit comes across a group of settlers that have been slaughtered by Native Americans, near New Mexico,  one of the members of the party, a woman who had been slaughtered, has a copy of one of Kit's, dime novels, and that's when he discovers that there are these dime novels written about him.

 He had no idea  because after this report comes out,  him and Fremont  will go back west,  just as California migration becomes an annual event with the publication of his report.  In 18  800 settlers will cross into California using now the newly mapped California trail  1846 will be the year  of the great migration into California,  where roughly 2000 settlers will migrate into that region.

 Independence, Missouri will turn into this boom town   that is the jumping off point where the Oregon Trail begins.

 Just after this report comes out,  Polk Appropriates $50,000 to Fremont for his third expedition West.

 he recruits 74 men.  and 12 Delaware Native Americans, and a party that very much resembles a war party.  His official orders are to map the streams running east from the Rockies, which would end at Colorado.  He does not follow those orders,   supposedly he receives secret orders from Polk.

 No one knows if this is true. This is all speculation. A lot of historians suggest that this is true,  regardless,  this journey, at least according to Fremont's biographer, Charles Nevins  will quote,  be destined to play a more dramatic and controversial role than any other expedition of the kind in American annals,  A role which seemed at the time to change history  and which is even yet wrapped in partial mystery and the subject of vigorous dispute,  end quote.

 it is how this journey.  Affects California and westward expansion  that we will explore in episode six of this,  the first season of the Savage West,  A port  at the edge  of the world. Okay.



 

Thank you so much for listening.  If you liked what you heard,  please consider following the podcast.  And if you really liked what you heard,  why not leave a rating or review  or sharing the podcast with friends and family who might enjoy it as well? 

It's easy,  and it really helps build a following.   anything you can do to help in that, I'd sincerely appreciate,  even if it's just reaching out with a kind word.

 

I also want to address the length of time it took me to publish this episode.  Had some life events. None of them bad, but they took away some of the time that I had been working on these podcasts,  these episodes have been getting more complex as the season has progressed.  Once you zoom in on a subject matter to look at the specifics,  that's when things get most complex.  That's really what we're doing in this season.

 We started with the wide lens and now we are slowly zooming in.   the years that make up each episode are diminishing as we move towards the season's end,  thank you for your patience. I don't expect the next episode will take quite as long,  but who knows?

These episodes lead me where they will,  

A few corrections and special announcements  first, corrections.  The Bidwell Beetles party.  That was actually the Bidwell Bartles party  mispronunciation. Maybe. I've been hearing too many ads on Beetlejuice lately.  I didn't notice any others that stood out. I'm sure there are more,  but for now we'll leave it there.

 In terms of announcements,  I'm happy to announce that we have again been listed on feed spots top 10. California History Podcasts for 2025, and then also we made the list of Top 10 San Francisco History podcasts for 2025.  We were listed on the 2024 Top 10 California History Podcast.  this is a expansion of our notoriety, kind of incredible considering we only have four episodes out now.

Five.  These lists are 

also 

usually pay to play, meaning that you have to sign up for something to be included. So top 10 lists I'd always take with an asterisk.  I feel compelled to say that I have not subscribed to feed spot. I don't pay them anything. 

I'm incredibly grateful that they found my podcast and included it in their top 10 lists.

 The next episode  will cover Fremont's third Journey into California,  the Great California migration of 1846  the Bear Flag Revolt,  and the Mexican American War. 

I hope you'll join me for that one  and the rest of this, the first season of the Savage West,  a port at the edge of the world.  I'll see you then.