The Fur Trade Era 1820 t0 1840....

[Uncle Russ]

It has often been said that the Fur Trade era was but a one single flash in the pan, when compared to all else that happen in those same years.
You will see Texas mentioned more than once throughout this time frame, and although a lot important things was happening in Texas, and the West in general, there was just as much, if not more, going on in East in that time frame.

It's a pretty long post, with lots of stuff here, kick back and enjoy some dates in history, Many unheard of, or never thought to be important.....While some dates are pretty much well know, and will continue to live on in infamy, others will die in obscurity.

Can one date be seen as more important than another date?
That question is very subjective and must be answered on an individual basis.
Can one generation in time be looked at as a most favorable time?
You be the Judge, as the importance will lie in the mind of the reader. 

We all know it was the stories of the "Free-Trapper" that provided the fuel of the driving force and impact that the Fur Trade had on this nation, however that particular "flash-in-the-pan" has been emulated more, and researched more, than any other short time span in the building of this Nation.....the very notion of becoming a Trapper burned itself into the very soul of the young men of that time.
Take a look at the year 1822, there was not a young, healthy man on the West side of the Missouri River that didn't encounter a conundrum with this announcement, and just as many on the East side of mighty Rive gave it some serious thought too, with many actually following through. 


1820
The Missouri Compromise brings Missouri and Maine into the union and slavery to the American West.

1820
By this time more than 20,000 Indians live in virtual slavery on the California missions.

1821
Mexico issues a land grant to the American Moses Austin for a settlement of 300 families in Tejas, in the hope that responsible Americans given a stake in the province will help deter unsavory American squatters crowding over the border from Louisiana.

1821
Czar Alexander closes Alaskan waters to foreign vessels and extends the territory of the Russian American Company to the 51st parallel, into an area claimed by both the British and the United States.

1821
Mexicans rebel against Spanish rule, winning independence.

1821
William Becknell leads a trading expedition from Franklin, Missouri, into the southern Rockies, where they encounter a Mexican patrol. Informed that Mexico is now an independent republic and that restrictions against foreign traders have been relaxed, Becknell turns south to Santa Fe, where he finds a ready market for his goods. Over the next several years he repeats the trip, blazing a new path along the Cimmaron and Canadian Rivers that becomes part of the Santa Fe Trail.

1822
William Henry Ashley and his partner Andrew Henry, Missouri businessmen, advertise for "enterprising young men" to join a fur trading expedition to the upper Missouri. The young Jedediah Smith and the legendary riverman Mike Fink are among those who answer the call. The group establishes an outpost, Fort Henry (later Fort Union), near the mouth of the Yellowstone River, but meets resistance from the local Arikara Indians who want to maintain their lucrative role as middlemen in the Missouri river trade.

1822
President Monroe warns of armed reprisals if Russians attempt to establish a physical presence on lands claimed by the United States in the Pacific northwest.

1823
Stephen Austin establishes the first American settlement in Tejas on land originally granted to his father along the San Antonio River. By the terms of this grant, all 300 families in the new colony are to become Mexican citizens and Roman Catholics.

1823
Stephen Long leads an expedition up the Red River of the North and along the 49th parallel, marking a point north of Pembina, North Dakota, as the official border between Canada and the United States.

1823
Joseph Smith, living near Manchester, New York, begins his study of the golden-plated book revealed to him by the angel Moroni.

1823
President James Monroe proclaims the "Monroe Doctrine" against European intervention in the Americas.

1824
The Bureau of Indian Affairs is established within the War Department, with a primary duty to regulate and settle disputes arising from trade with Indian tribes.

1824
The U.S. army establishes outposts in present-day Oklahoma, at Fort Towson on the Red River and at Fort Gibson on the Arkansas River, in preparation for the removal of the Cherokee and Choctaw tribes from the Southeast to the newly designated Indian Territory.

1824
Russia agrees to set its southern border in the Pacific northwest at 54 degrees, 40 minutes, and to allow American vessels within the 100-mile limit it had set around its territories in the Pacific.

1824
THE MOUNTAIN MEN (1824-1840)
Frustrated in their attempt to establish a trading post on the upper Missouri River, William Ashley and Andrew Henry revolutionize the previously river-based fur trade by sending small bands of trappers -- called brigades -- into the mountains on horseback. One of their first brigades, led by Jedediah Smith, rediscovers the South Pass in western Wyoming, where refugees from Astoria had crossed the divide a decade before, and beyond it the fur-rich Green River valley. Before year's end, Ashley himself leads a larger expedition to join Smith in the region.

1824
Jim Bridger, a young scout for the Ashley expedition, ranges beyond the Green River valley and down into Utah, where he becomes perhaps the first white to see the Great Salt Lake. "Hell, we are on the shores of the Pacific," he is reported to have said after tasting the waters.

1825
Ashley completes his revolution of the fur trade when he divides his expedition into small groups, each to trap and explore independently through the spring and then meet at Henry's Fork on the Green River in late summer. This meeting becomes the first rendezvous, attracting not only the trappers in Ashley's company but free-trappers and Indians as well. For the next 15 years, the annual rendezvous replaces the trading post in the Rocky Mountain fur trade, as free-trappers -- soon to be known as mountain men -- displace the trading company agent as the engines of commerce on the frontier.

1825
The federal government adopts a policy of exchanging Indian lands in the east for public land in the west, where the tribes can live beyond state jurisdiction and organize their own forms of government.

1826
Jedediah Smith, in search of new trapping grounds, leads the first party of Americans overland to California. Setting out from the Great Salt Lake basin, Smith's expedition travels along the Colorado, over the southern Rockies and across the Mojave Desert to Mission San Gabriel, then north through the San Joaquin valley, where they attempt to cross back over the mountains along the American River. Leaving most of his party in California, Smith and two others eventually find a way through the Sierras and cross the parched Great Basin to reach the rendezvous of 1827.

1827
Dr. John McLoughlin, director of the Hudson's Bay Company, builds the first lumber mill in the Pacific northwest at Fort Vancouver, intending to sell lumber in California.

1828
The Senate ratifies a treaty setting the Sabine River as the border between Mexico and the United States.

1828
Rejoining his expedition in California, Jedediah Smith leads the way north into Oregon, where only Smith and three others escape an Indian massacre on the Umpqua River. The survivors flee to the Hudson's Bay Company outpost at Fort Vancouver.

1828
The Cherokees of Arkansas agree to give up their land and settle in the Indian Territory west of the Mississippi.

1829
Mexico refuses an American offer to buy Tejas for $5 million.(**Sure glad that deal fell through)

1830
Congress passes a Pre-emption Act which grants settlers the right to purchase at $1.25 per acre 160 acres of public land which they have cultivated for at least 12 months, thereby offering "squatters" some protection against speculators who purchase lands they have already improved.

1830
Jedediah Smith and William Sublette, now partners in the successor to William Ashley's trading company, lead the first wagon train across the Rocky Mountains at South Pass and on to the Upper Wind River. The 500-mile journey through Indian country takes about six weeks, proving that even heavily loaded wagons and livestock -- the prerequisites for settlement -- can travel overland to the Pacific.

1830
Joseph Smith publishes the Book of Mormon and establishes the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

1830
The Indian Removal Act, passed with strong support from President Andrew Jackson, authorizes the federal government to negotiate treaties with eastern tribes exchanging their lands for land in the West. All costs of migration and financial aid to assist resettlement are provided by the government. Jackson forces through a treaty for removal of the Choctaw from Mississippi within the year.

1830
Alarmed at the growing number of Americans in Tejas, Mexico imposes sharp limits on further immigration.

1831
Joseph Smith, suffering persecution in his native New York, leads his followers to Kirtland, Ohio, where they can build a new Zion.
The Nez Percé send a delegation to St. Louis requesting white teachers for their people, sparking a missionary movement to the Northwest.

1831
In Cherokee Nation v. State of Georgia, a dispute over Georgia's attempt to extend its jurisdiction over Cherokee territory, Chief Justice John Marshall denies Indians the right to court protection because they are not subject to the laws of the Constitution. He describes Indian tribes as "domestic dependent nations," saying that each is "a distinct political entity...capable of managing its own affairs."

1832
In Worcester v. State of Georgia, the Supreme Court rules that the federal government, not the states, has jurisdiction over Indian territories. The case concerns a missionary living among the Cherokees, Samuel A. Worcester, who was jailed for refusing to comply with a Georgia law requiring all whites residing on Indian land to swear an oath of allegiance to the state. In ruling against Georgia's actions, Chief Justice John Marshall writes that Indian tribes must be treated "as nations" by the national government and that state laws "can have no force" on their territories. Defying the court, Georgia keeps Worcester in jail, and President Andrew Jackson, when asked to correct the situation, says, "The Chief Justice has made his ruling; now let him enforce it."

1832
George Catlin begins his voyage up the Missouri, traveling more than 2,000 miles with trappers from the American Fur Company to their outpost at Fort Union, painting hundreds of portraits of Indians and Indian life along the way.

1833
At the San Felipe Convention, held in San Felipe de Austin, American settlers led by Stephen Austin vote to make Tejas a Mexican state, rather than a dependent territory, and draft a state constitution based on that of the United States. Austin himself carries the proposal to Mexico City, where President Santa Anna agrees to repeal the 1830 law limiting American immigration but refuses to grant statehood.

1833
Samuel Colt develops his revolver.

1833
The German naturalist, Prince Maximillian, and the Swiss painter, Karl Bodmer, travel up the Missouri in Catlin's footsteps, to observe and record Indian life.

1833
The Choctaw complete their forced removal to the West under army guard.

1834
Congress restructures the Bureau of Indian Affairs as the Department of Indian Affairs, expanding the agency's responsibilities to include both regulating trade with the tribes, as before, and administering the Indian lands of the West.

1834
William Sublette and Robert Campbell establish Fort Laramie on the North Platte River in Wyoming, the first permanent trading post in the region and soon to be an important stopping point for pioneers traveling the Oregon Trail.

1835
The Florida Seminoles reject forced removal to the West and begin a seven-year war of resistance under Chief Osceola.

1835
The Cherokee finally sign a treaty of removal, giving up their lands in Georgia for territory in present-day Oklahoma.

1835
THE TEXAS WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE (1835-1836)
Mexican President Santa Anna proclaims himself dictator and attempts to disarm the Americans in Tejas, sending troops to reclaim a cannon that had been given to the settlers for protection against Indian attacks. When the Americans resist at an engagement near Gonzales on the Guadalupe River, the Texas War for Independence begins.

1835
At a Consultation held in San Felipe de Austin, members of Stephen Austin's American colony issue a "Declaration of the People of Texas," proclaiming their independence of Santa Anna's government on the grounds that he has violated the Mexican constitution by proclaiming himself dictator.

1835
Mexican troops sent to put down the Texas rebellion are defeated at San Antonio by a tejano force led by Juan Seguin and sent home in humiliation after promising an end to the hostilities.

1836
Meeting at Washington-on-the-Brazos, Texans vote a Declaration of Independence, appoint an interim government and elect Sam Houston, former governor of Tennessee, commander-in-chief of the army. Houston orders his troops to withdraw from the fortress-like Alamo in San Antonio and the fortified town of Goliad, convinced that he can defeat Santa Anna's superior numbers only by drawing his army into a chase. The headstrong defenders of the Alamo and Goliad ignore Houston's commands.

1836
Santa Anna leads a force of 5,000 troops into San Antonio to put down the Texas rebellion. On March 6, in a brutal show of force, the Mexicans overwhelm 187 Texans at the Alamo. Colonels William B. Travis, James Bowie and Davie Crockett perish in the massacre, which costs as many as 1,600 Mexican lives. A few weeks later, to the south, some 300 Texans, commanded by James W. Fannin, are defeated and captured near Goliad. Continuing his brutal policies, Santa Anna orders them all executed.

1836
Setting out in pursuit of Houston's army, Santa Anna crosses the Brazos in hopes of capturing the newly formed Texas government at Harrisburg, where it has been urging Houston to stand and fight. When the government eludes him, Santa Anna turns back to intercept Houston's forces along the San Jacinto River. But Houston, aware of his enemy's movements, launches a surprise attack along the San Jacinto in which the Mexicans are routed and Santa Anna taken captive. Negotiating from a field cot with a bullet-shattered leg, Houston secures Santa Anna's agreement to withdraw all his forces from Texas and to recognize Texan independence.

1836
On his return to Mexico, Santa Anna is driven into retirement and his agreement to recognize Texas independence is denounced. For the next ten years, Mexican troops and Texans continue to war against one another in a series of intermittent clashes along the border.

1836
In the fall, Sam Houston is elected the first President of the Republic of Texas, outpolling Stephen Austin 4-to-1, and Texans vote to seek annexation by the United States.

1836
Responding to the 1831 Nez Perce request for teachers, the Whitman party -- Dr. Marcus Whitman and his wife, Narcissa, accompanied by Narcissa's former suitor, Rev. H. H. Spalding, and his wife, Eliza -- travel what will soon be known as the Oregon Trail to arrive at the junction of the Columbia and Snake Rivers, where they establish a mission to bring Christianity to the Indians of the northwest. Narcissa and Eliza are the first white women to cross the Rocky Mountains, and their group is perhaps the first party of settlers to travel overland to the West.

1837
Congress refuses to annex Texas, bowing to abolitionist opponents who call it a "slavocracy." But President Andrew Jackson recognizes the Republic of Texas on his last day in office.

1838
Mormon founder Joseph Smith leads his persecuted followers to Missouri, to settle at a site he calls the Garden of Eden, but local opponents force the settlers to flee into Illinois where they establish Nauvoo.

1838
General Winfield Scott oversees the forced removal of the Cherokee from Georgia to the Indian Territory of the West along the "Trail of Tears."

1840
The last rendezvous on the Green River marks the end of the mountain trapping era, as fashion changes in Europe and steady declines in the beaver population make the fur trade barely profitable.

1840
In its continuing hostilities with Mexico, Texas allies itself with Mexican rebels in the southern state of Yucatan, sending a small navy to blockade Mexican ports. Texans also lend support to anti-government forces in Mexico's northern states, providing a target for Mexican nationalists who hope to unify their strife-torn country by stirring up hatred of a common enemy..