Historical May 1989 report or notice. Original dates, prices and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
St. Louis prior to the Civil War was one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world. Its streets had nationals from all over the world coming to mine furs, gold, silver, lead, and the miners themselves. Among the various national groups represented were numerous Indian tribes come to converse with General William Clark or some other agent about supplies, land grabbing whites, or other tribes moving into their territories. Four Indians from across the mountains came to St. Louis in 1831 and started a movement to the Northwest almost without parallel in vigor and purpose.
Many people forget that the Gateway Arch represents the opening of the West and the flow of multi-national explorers and settlers into the West.
It is not a symbol of St. Louis as such but rather a symbol of what happened at St. Louis because of its strategic location near the convergence of the major rivers of a miraculous land filled with marvels, mountains, and many dangers.
In the fall of 1831 four Indians from Oregon country came to St. Louis to find the blackrobes who don’t take women. Earlier that year the Nez Perce had decided they had to find the source of the “magic” of the white race.
Various missionaries and fur traders had brought goods, weapons, and skills the Nez Perce found fascinating and very useful.
At the time of the late spring buffalo hunt east of the mountains, they decided to leave for St. Louis which was the source of all those “white Indians.” The Nez Perce often hunted with the Flatheads, their neighbors to the southeast.
Some of them decided to go along. Altogether seven left after the hunt to go to St. Louis—the cosmopolitan center from which all technology was newly coming to the Indians. Three of the seven didn’t make it for various reasons. Three Nez Perce and one Flathead arrived around October 1, 1831.
No one could speak Nez Perce or Flathead in St. Louis at that time. General Clark talked with them by signs and learned of their mission.
It is likely they talked with the Jesuits, and the bishop of St. Louis, Joseph Rosati, wrote they were gone from St. Louis by the end of 1831. Thus the Indians did indeed contact the blackrobes who do not take women. However after talking with the bishop they simply hung around town, for George Catlin saw them when the steamer “Yellowstone” left for its second cruise on the Missouri in late March, 1832. Catlin painted Nez Perce in Sioux robes when the boat stopped at Fort Pierre, the American Fur Company post established by Pierre Chouteau, Jr., for trade with the Sioux nations. That was to be expected since Catlin was just then traveling for the first time in the West and wouldn’t have known the niceties of accurate dress.
The following year, 1833, Charles Bodmer was on the “Yellowstone” and would paint many of the same people Catlin saw earlier.
But Bodmer would see no Nez Perce — the Blackfeet made travel to the Rockies impossible that year.
In fact, one of the three Nez Perce, RabbitSkin Leggings, was killed by Blackfeet after he had returned to the Nez Perce in the fall of 1832. Just for the record, the names of the four Indians were Man Of The Morning (Flathead), Black Eagle, No Horns On His Head, and Rabbit-Skin Leggings. Black Eagle and Man Of The Morning died in St. Louis and were buried in the Catholic cemetery, presumably behind the Old Cathedral.
No Horns On His Head died near the mouth of the Yellowstone River. Thus only one of the four returned to his people.
He had quite a tale to tell! Meanwhile, back in St. Louis late in 1832 a Methodist Wyandot Indian named William Walker came to town and talked with William Clark. Something of a religious person and well educated, Walker wrote back to one G. P. Disoway that four Indians from the other side of the Rocky Mountains to the northwest had been through a year ago looking for religion—at least that’s the way Clark interpreted the request of the Nez Perce for the magic brought by the blackrobes who would not take women.
The Methodist organization in New England at that time was just gearing up for the need to carry the gospel to the West. Disoway’s copy of Walker’s letter ignited a passion of activity.
In 1834 the first Methodist missionary made his way to Oregon country—and went into the real estate business. Later missionaries were less students of gain and more concerned about souls!
But it wasn’t only missionaries who wanted to go to Oregon. Captain Thomas Gray had made a fantastic catch of fur seals and otters off the coast of Oregon country, taken his load to China, and made quite a sale.
In the process he became the first American to circumnavigate the globe.
A couple years later he was back off the coast and managed to discover the great river which drains the Rockies in the Northwest.
He named the river after his boat, the Columbia.
The year was 1792.
This fur trading trip of Gray was the only claim the United States had to Oregon country until the missionaries, land dealers, and fur trappers made it a major target of travel in the 1840s following the “invitation” of the Indians seeking salvation.
The Oregon Trail splits off from the Santa Fe Trail at Independence, Missouri, and follows the Missouri north to the Platte River.
The trail goes along the Platte and takes the North Platte to Fort Laramie, Fort Casper, and finally the Sweetwater River.
Following the Sweetwater on a course set by the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, the competition to Astor’s American Fur Company, the trail goes through South Pass. That great trapper and explorer, Jim Bridger, set up a fort after his own name and the trail turns south from the pass to Fort Bridger.
It then heads northwest again to Fort Hall on the Snake River, and then along the Snake to Fort Walla Walla where the Walla Walla Creek enters the Snake River.
There is Irony in this last case since the original name of Fort Walla Walla, founded by the Hudson’s Bay Company, was Fort Nez Perce! Eventually the Snake River empties into the Columbia River, and the trail ends on the Columbia where the Willamette River empties, now the site of Portland, Oregon.
A last detail is the definition of Oregon country.
The boundary of the Louisiana Territory was the continental divide at the Rocky Mountains. West of that divide and north of the lands claimed by Mexico was the Oregon country.
It included part or all of the states of Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada.
The Oregon Trail had many offshoots which went to various parts of the Oregon country.
One of these, the California Trail, left the United States and went to the gold fields of what had been Mexican territory until the Mexican War tore that land into the growing United States.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, May 1989.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Archival transcription note: Historical claims and cultural descriptions remain the author’s 1989 account. Source calls explorer Captain Thomas Gray; no silent substitution of another name.
Original source: SD_Times1989_05.pdf, printed page(s) 7; PDF page(s) 8.
