The Santa Fe Trail - Conclusion

By Dan R. Conway

(Originally printed in the Hysham Echo on March 17, 1927)

[Cont. from last week]

These towers are said to have been hexagonal in form and around the walls in the second story of each hung sabres and heavy lances with sharp blades, designed to resist any attempt to take the stronghold by means of ladders. Flintlock muskets and pistols completed the means of defense.

Two immense swinging doors made of heavy planks, studded with heavy nails and plated with sheet iron, to resist fire, formed a wide gateway in the east wall of the fort, and over this main entrance was a square watch tower from the top of the belfry surmounting which rose a tall flagstaff. This watch tower consisted of a single room, with windows on all sides and had a spy glass mounted on a pivot. A sentry was stationed here continuously. The room provided a chair and a bed for his convenience. If anything unusual were noticed, he sounded an alarm and the proper precautions were taken. A huge bell in the watch tower sounded the hours for meals. Perhaps the only feature of the place which might come under the head of luxury was a combination bar and billiard room which was housed in a second story room above the walls at the back.

The various warehouses, stores and living rooms were arranged around the walls of the fort and opened into the courtyard within. Whenever Indians were permitted within the walls for trade purposes, the cannons were loaded and sentries patrolled the walls ready for action on an instant’s notice. The corrals were outside the structure and were constructed solidly of wood, with cactus plants on the top of the walls to prevent any marauders from “going over the top.”

Difficulties of Building

The difficulties of building Bent’s Fort were many. It was determined by the partners that it should be built of adobe brick in order to make it fireproof, so that it could not be burned by the Indians. Adobe construction was, moreover, more durable and more comfortable than wooden logs. Mexican labor was imported, as many as 150 men being employed at a time.
A short time after the first laborers had arrived, smallpox broke out among them and it was necessary to send away those not attacked by the disease. Kit Carson was at the post at the time, and he, with the Bent brothers, was a victim of the epidemic, but none of the white men died.

A vivid account of Bent’s Fort in 1839

To him the Indian women, walking swiftly about the courtyard was given by Thomas J. Farnham, a traveler, who mentioned having met two of the brothers on his visit there. They were, he said, clad like trappers in splendid deerskin hunting shirts and leggings, with long fringes on the outer seams of the arms and legs, the shirts decorated with designs worked in brightly-colored porcupine quills, and on their feet moccasins covered with quill work and beading.

A Picturesque Setting

The great establishment, standing alone in the midst of a wilderness, much impressed Farnham, who not long before had left a region where men, if not crowded together, were at least numerous. He spoke of the fort as a solitary abode of hardship and danger, and declared that it reared its towers over uncultivated wastes of nature like an old baronial castle that had withstood wars and desolations of roofs of the houses, clad in long buckskin dresses and bright moccasins, were full of interest; while the naked children, with perfect forms and the white of the Saxon race showing through the darker hue of the mother blood, excited his enthusiasm. He wondered at the novel manners and customs that he saw; at the grave bourgeois and their clerks and traders, who in times of leisure sat cross-legged in the shade smoking the long-stemmed Indian pipes which they passed from hand to hand; at the simple food - dried buffalo meat and bread made from coarse, unbolted wheaten meal from Taos - meals which lacked seasoning and sweets of any kind.

Here, as it seemed to him, were gathered people from the ends of the earth; old trappers whose faces were lined and leathery from long exposure to winters’ snows and the burning heat of many summers; Indians, some of whom wore civilized clothing, but retained the reserve and silence of their race; Mexican servants, hardly more civilized than the Indians; Yankees from New England, Englishmen, Spaniards and negroes. The prairie men repeated their adventures in the North, the West, the South, on the plains and among the mountains. There was much talk of where the buffalo had been or would be, of the danger of hostile tribes, of past fights, of comrades who had “gone under” in battle or ambush and of many other topics of the plains.

A Primitive Picture

George Frederick Luxton, in his “In the Old West,” makes the following reference to Bent’s Fort:
“Bent’s Fort is situated on the left or northern bank of the river Arkansas, about one hundred miles from the foot of the Rocky mountains - on a low and level bluff of the prairie which here slopes gradually to the water’s edge. The walls are built entirely of adobes - or sun-burned bricks - in the form of a hollow square, round which are the rooms occupied by the traders and employes of the post. *** In the center of the square is the press for packing furs; and there are three large rooms, one used as a store and magazine, another as a council room, where the Indians assemble for their “talks,” whilst the third is the common dining hall. *** Over the culinary department presided of late years a fair lady of color, who was, as she used to say, ‘de onlee lady in de dam Injun country,’ and who was, moreover, celebrated from Long’s peak to the Cumbres Espanolas for slapjacks and pumpkin pies.

“Here congregate at certain seasons the merchants of the plains and mountains, with their stocks of peltry. Chiefs of the Shian, the Kioway, and Arapaho, sit in solemn conclave with the head traders and smoke the calumet over their real and imaginary grievances. ***

“In the corral, groups of leather-clad mountaineers, with decks of euchre and seven up, gamble away their hard-earned peltries. The employes - mostly St. Louis Frenchmen and Canadian voyageurs - are pressing packs of buffalo skins, beating robes, or engaged in other duties of the trading fort. Indian squaws, the wives of the mountaineers, strut about in all the pride of beads and ‘fofaraw,’ jingling with bells and bugles, and happy as paint can make them. Hunters drop in with animals packed with deer or buffalo meat to supply the fort; Indian dogs looks anxiously in at the gateway, fearing to enter and encounter their natural enemies the white; and outside the fort, at any hour of the day or night, one may safely wager to see a dozen cayeutes or prairie wolves leaping round or seated on their haunches. *** Against the walls, groups of Indians, too proud to enter without an invitation, lean, wrapped in their buffalo robes, sulky and evidently ill-at-ease to be so near the whites without a chance of fingering their scalp-locks; their white lodges shining in the sun, at a little distance from the riverbanks - their horses feeding in the plain below.

“The appearance of the fort is very striking, standing as it does hundreds of miles from any settlement, on the vast and lifeless prairie, surrounded by hordes of hostile Indians, and far out of reach of intercourse with civilized man; its mud-built walls enclosing a little garrison of a dozen hardy men, sufficient to hold in check the numerous tribes of savages ever thirsting for their blood. Yet the solitary stranger passing this lone fort feels proudly secure when he comes within sight of the Stars and Stripes which float above the walls.”

This was Bent’s Fort - the famous trading post that during its eventful existence was the pride of William Bent, and was, as well, the salvation of many an expedition bound to and from Santa Fe and Missouri.

Destroyed in 1857

Bent’s Fort remained and existed as long as the fur trade was a profitable industry in the great southwest. By 1850 the trade had begun to decline, the beaver having been pretty thoroughly wiped out of the many mountain streams. Besides that the silk hat had been invented and was rapidly taking the place of the old beaver hat. The mountains were full of idle trappers, and a colony of these settled on the site of the city of Pueblo, Colorado, where they farmed in a limited way and smuggled much whisky in from Mexico.
This stagnation of trade affected the business of Bent’s fort. In the early fifties, William Bent tried to sell the establishment to the government for a military post. As too small an amount was offered, he in 1852, laid charges of gunpowder in the buildings and blew the old fort into the air.

Kit Carson spent some time as post hunter at Bent’s Fort, and at a time when the Indians of that region were most hostile.
The commencement of active trade with Santa Fe dates from 1822, but one of the outstanding events in the history of the trail was the first attempt to introduce wagons in the expeditions of 1824. This was made by a company of 80 traders, who supplemented the usual train of pack-mules with 25 wheeled vehicles, of which two were stout road wagons, two carts and the rest light Dearborn wagons, the whole carrying merchandise valued at $30,000. This caravan reached Santa Fe in safety, experiencing much less difficulty with the wagons than had been anticipated.

The organization of a train for crossing the plains consisted usually of from 25 to 30 large wagons that would carry from three to three and one-half tons each. The merchandise in each wagon was protected by three sheets of thin ducking of the weight used for army tents. Six pairs of oxen pulled each wagon, and a wagon train usually had from 20 to 30 extra oxen for emergencies. The train of cattle, therefor, numbered from 320 to 330, with half a dozen mules for riding. The force of men consisted of a wagon boss and his assistant, a teamster for each wagon, and half a dozen extra hands for various purposes, including herders.

The average distance traveled was from 12 to 15 miles per day, although as many as 20 miles were sometimes covered. Oxen proved to be the cheapest and most reliable teams for long trips where grass was depended upon for fodder. If properly driven and handled they were good for from 2,000 to 2,400 miles in the season between April and November.

Corral for Defense

In camping or stopping to graze or camp, a corral of oblong shape was formed by the wagons for defensive purposes in case of attack by Indians. When this was done the tongues were turned out and a log chain extended from the hind wheel of each wagon to the fore wheel of the next one behind, making a solid corral excepting for a wide gap at each end, through which the oxen were driven.

With a good wagon train perfect discipline was maintained among the men, the commands of wagon boss being implicitly obeyed. This was necessary because of the danger of Indian attacks and the need of instant and concerted action at such a time.

The average salary paid the men was $1 a day and expenses. A good bullwhacker sometimes got more and earned it. An experienced man could yoke six pairs of bulls, as the cattle were invariably called, in 16 minutes, could curse in half a dozen languages for a couple of hours without repeating himself, and could knock a fly off a bull’s ear at 10 feet without hurting the bull.

Excessive Tariff Charged

Under Mexican rule in New Mexico, excessive tariff charges were instituted, amounting to as much as 200 per cent upon goods brought from the United States, and for some years an arbitrary duty was demanded of $500 for every wagon-load of merchandise brought into the province, regardless of its size or intrinsic worth. As gold and silver were paid for the articles sold by American traders, they were also required to pay a heavy duty on the precious metals which they took out of the country. Yankee ingenuity, however, evaded much of such unjust taxes. When the wagon train approached Santa Fe, the freight of three wagons was loaded onto one and the empty vehicles destroyed by fire. To avoid paying taxes on gold and silver taken back to the United States, the freighters had large, false axle trees placed on some wagons, and in these the money was concealed. The examining officers unsuspecting such an artifice, passed them.

Independence Succeeds Franklin

With the beginning of navigation on the Mississippi, it soon became possible to shorten the Santa Fe trail by establishing an outfitting point higher up the river than Franklin, and soon Independence, Missouri, ten miles east of Kansas City, became the starting point on the trail.

After peace with Mexico had been established, trade on the Santa Fe trail became extremely active, and every year many thousands of wagons were sent out from Independence, which soon became the best market west of St. Louis for cattle, mules and wagons. The price charged for hauling freight to Santa Fe was $10 a hundred pounds, each wagon earning from $500 to $600 a trip on an average. It took about 90 days to make the journey.

Ancient City of Santa Fe

There are few more picturesque places in America than the old city of Santa Fe, at the end of the trail, the date of whose founding lies between 1609 and 1617. The little village had an arduous road to travel during its first 200 years. It was conquered by natives and reconquered from them by the Spaniards, and its population became a blend of Castilian and native blood. During its period of most prosperous trade with the United States, Santa Fe had a population of 3,000. It had grown up among the ancient Pueblo towns of the upper Rio Grande, and it is even claimed by some to have originally been a Pueblo town, itself.

The old city presented in appearance nothing in common with a modern American city. The streets seem to have radiated from a central point along lines of least resistance, having no pretence of regularity in direction, width or grade. The only marked exception was the Plaza, or public square, which formed the central common of the town. On one side of this square stood, and still stands, a long, low, one-story building , signified with the name of palace. This probably is the most interesting historic edifice in New Mexico and in the southwest. In it were kept archives of old and forgotten times, which finally were rescued from decay or destruction by Americans, and so there have been saved to the world from oblivion the annals of a relatively remote civilization which otherwise would have perished from the face of the earth.

The old adobe place has been the scene of many stirring events. In it lived and ruled the Spanish captain-general, so remote and inaccessible from the viceroyalty at Mexico City that he was in effect a king, nominally accountable to the viceroy, but practically beyond his reach and control. Here met all the provincial, departmental and other legislative bodies that have ever assembled at the capital of New Mexico. Here have been planned all Indian wars and measures for defense against invasion, including the Navajo war of 1823, the Texas invasion of 1842, the American was of 1846, and the Confederate invasion of 1862. Within the walls of the palace was imprisoned in 1809 Captain Zebulon Pike and innumerable state prisoners before and since. Many a sentence of death has been pronounced there, and the accused led forth and shot at the command of the captain-general. At one end of the rambling building was the guardhouse and prison, and fearful stories of torture and cruelty are connected with the latter.

Dangers of the Trail

There were four distinct stages of the journey between Independence and Santa Fe. The first extended to Council Grove, where the caravans were organized. This was a well-watered prairie country, comparatively safe from Indian depredations, and was the pleasantest part of the route. The second division ended at the ford of the Arkansas river. Near the beginning of this stage came the transition from the fertile prairies of eastern Kansas to the arid plains of the southwest, where danger from Indians lurked at every step. But it was the third division of the route that was the most dangerous and dreaded of all. It was the Cimarron desert, extending from the Arkansas river to the source of the Cimarron. Within this distance there is not a water course or water hole to be depended upon during the dry season. The soil is dry and hard, with poor vegetation. The Indians were most dangerous along this part of the journey and there was greater loss of life here than upon any other portion of the trail. The fourth division ran from the Cimarron desert to Santa Fe, where traveling was safer and pleasanter.
The entry of a caravan into Santa Fe in the earlier days was an event of much interest. It marked the end of a long and tedious journey, made under great mental and physical strain, and the beginning of a long and luxurious rest, for the life of the wagon-train employes was a continuous round of pleasure, with much feasting, drinking and dancing, and sometimes not a little fighting.

As a route of commerce the old Santa Fe trail closed on the 9th of February, 1880, when the first train over the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe entered the town. The once great highway is now only a picture in the memories of the few who have traveled its weary courses, following the windings of the Arkansas river and on to the portals that guarded the rugged pathway leading to the shores of the Pacific. Print this post