I HAVE often amused myself and friends, by relating stories of my adventures in the West, and am led to believe, by the, perhaps, too partial representations of those friends, that my life in the Prairies and Mountains for three years, is worthy of a record more enduring than their memories. I have passed a year and a half on the head vvaters of the Missouri and among the gorges of tl e Rocky Mountains as a hunter and a trapper, and two years among the Spaniards and Camanches. I have suffered much from the inclemency of nature and of man, had many "hair breadth 'scapes" and acquired considerable information illustrative of Indian and Mexican character and customs. By a plain, unvarnished tale of Western life, of perils and of hardships, I hope to amuse the reader who delights in accounts of wild adventure, though found out of the

pages of a novel and possessing no attraction but their unadorned truthfulness. I am now on the shady side of sixty, with mind and memory unimpaired. If my reminiscences, as recorded in the following pages, serve to awaken my countrymen of the West and South-west, now thank God, including Texas, to the importance of peaceful and friendly relations with the most powerful tribe of Indians on the continent, the Camanches, I shall not regard the labor of preparing these sheets as bestowed in vain. In the year 1803, when twenty-two years of age, I emigrated with my father from Kentucky to Illinois. In the spring of 1807 we removed from Illinois to Missouri, which were then, both Territories, and settled in the town of St. Ferdinand, near St. Louis. In the fall of this year, Lewis and Clark

St. Ferdinand (San Fernando) is a village about seventeen miles northwestwardly from St. Louis. While its legal name is St. Ferdinand it is known colloquially as Florissant and the post office bears that name. A grant of land at this place was made in 1782 to Francois Dunnegant dit Beaurosier of St. Louis. Col. Auguste Chouteau testified in 1808, ''that about the year 1786 Dunnegant was appointed commandant of St. Ferdinand, and continued so from that time until the American Government took place; that from 1782 until Dunnegant was appointed commandant the Indians were troublesome and there were orders for the inhabitants of this country not to settle out of the towns."

The settlement of the village seems to have begun, however, in 1785, and the census of 1787 shows a population of forty-one persons; in 1910 there were seven hundred and sixty-five. There were few of the Florissant Creole families of early days who did not send representatives to the far west, where they acquired more or less distinction as "mountain-men," and their names yet survive as place names in the mountain states.

returned from Oregon and the Pacific Ocean, whither they had been sent by the administration of Jefferson in the first exploring expedition west of the Rocky Mountains, and their accounts of that wild region, with those of their companions, first excited a spirit of trafficking adventure among the young men of the West. They had brought with them from the Upper Missouri, a Chief named Shehaka, of the Mandan tribe of Indians. This Chief, in company with Lewis and Clark visited the "Great Father" at Washington City, and returned to St. Louis in the following Spring (1807) with Lewis, who, in the mean time had been appointed Governor of Missouri Territory. He sent the Chief Shehaka up the Missouri with an escort of about forty United States troops, under Capt. Prior. On their arrival In the country of the Rlckarees, a warlike tribe, next East or this side of the Mandans, they were attacked by the former tribe, and eight or ten soldiers killed. This event so disheartened the rest, that they returned with Shehaka to St. Louis. The Missouri Fur Company had just been formed, and they projected an expedition up the Missouri and to the Rocky Moun-

For sketch of Nathaniel Pryor, see Appendix.

The Rickaree or Ankara village was situated on the right (or north) shore of the Missouri, in a bend where the stream runs nearly westwardly, about six miles above the mouth of the Grand (or We-tar-hoo) river, in what appears on late maps as Corson County, South Dakota. A good account of the Arikaras may be found in Dr. Hodge's Handbook of American Indians. When they were first visited by white people they were friendly, but the conduct of the whites engendered in them a bitter and persistent hostility. See Journal of Jean Baptiste Trudeau among the Arikara Indians in 1795, 4 Missouri Historical Society Collections, 9.

tains, which was to start In the spring of the following year, 1809. The company consisted of ten partners, among whom was M. Gratiot, Pierre Menard, Sam'l. Morrison, Pierre Chouteau, Manuel Liza, Major Henry, M. L'Abbadeau and Reuben Lewis. Gov. Lewis was also said to have had an interest in the concern. The company contracted with him to convey the Mandan Chief to his tribe, for the sum, as I was informed of $10,000. I enlisted in this expedition, which was raised for trading with the Indians and trapping for beaver on the head waters of the Missouri and Columbia rivers. The whole party, at starting, consisted of 350 men, of whom about one half were Americans and the remainder Canadian Frenchmen and Creoles of Kaskaskia, St. Louis and other places. The French were all veteran voyageurs, thoroughly Inured to boating and trapping. Manuel Liza, called by the men "Esaw'' had enlisted many of them in Detroit for this expedition, and hired them by the year. We Americans

■ A copy of the contract for the return of Shehaka is given in the Appendix.

Gen. Clark, St. Louis. This is my last moment to write to you and inform you of the situation we found ourselves in at the moment. We are starting with 172 men, nine barges and a canoe. Collins and Cochran have just deserted. My respects to Governor Lewis. Your humble servant, Manuel Lisa."

From copy, by Albert Rosenthal, of portrait in Independence Hall, presented to Missouri Historical Society by G. A. Pfeiffer. Esq.

were all private adventurers, each on his own hook, and were led into the enterprise by the promises of the company, who agreed to subsist us to the trapping grounds, we helping to navigate the boats, and on our arrival there they were to furnish us each with a rifle and suflicient ammunition, six good beaver traps and also four men of their hired French, to be under our individual commands for a period of three years. By the terms of the contract each of us was to divide one-fourth of the profits of our joint labor with the four men thus to be appointed to us. How we were deceived and taken in, will be seen in the sequel. The "company" made us the fairest promises in St. Louis, only to break them in the Indian country. Liza, or Esaw, or Manuel as he was variously called, had the principal command. He was a Spaniard or Mexican by birth, and bore a very bad reputation in the country and among the Americans. He had been on the head waters of the Missouri, the year before with a company of about fifty men and had met with great success in catching beaver and trading with the Indians. He had built a Fort, called "Manuel's Fort" at the junction or fork of the Big Horn and Yellow Stone rivers, and left a garrison of hunters in it when he returned in the Spring of this year, and went into the Missouri Fur Company. He was suspected of having invited the Rickarees to attack the Government troops under Capt. Prior, with Shehaka the year before, for the

purpose of preventing the traders and trappers who were with the troops from getting into the upper country. Mr. Chouteau and Col. Menard acted jointly with Liza in conducting the expedition. I went as steersman° or "captain" of one of the barges, with about twenty-four men, all Americans, under my command. There were thirteen barges and keel boats in all. On my barge I had Doct. Thomas, the surgeon of the company, and Reuben Lewis, brother of Merryweather Lewis, the Governor.

We started from St. Louis In the month of June, A. D. 1809, and ascended the Missouri by rowing, pushing with poles, cordeling, or pulling with ropes, warping, and sailing. My crew were light hearted, jovial men, with no care or anxiety for the future, and little fear of any danger. In the morning we regularly started by day break and stopped generally, late at night. The partners or bourgoises, as the French called them, were In the forward barge, with a strong crew of hardy and skillful voyageiirs, and there Liza and some of his colleagues lorded it

10 " — the steersman or patron is commander of the boat's crew ; he is generally the strongest man of the party of which he constitutes himself officer, volunteering to fight any one who offers to supercede him." (1847-8) John Palliser, The Solitary Hunter, London, 1856.

"Reuben Lewis commands the boat in which the Americans are together; two men for one oar and they still complain. I am fearful that more will desert and that we will be obliged to leave another boat." Lisa to Clark, 2 July, 1809.

The presence of an owner in a boat did not exclude the authority of the steersman or patroon.

over the poor fellows most arrogantly, and made them work as If their lives depended on their getting forward, with the greatest possible speed. They peremptorily required all the boats to stop in company for the night, and our barge being large and heavily loaded, the crew frequently had great difficulty in overtaking them in the evening. We occasionally had races with some of the forward barges, in which my crew of Americans proved themselves equal in a short race to their mare experienced French competitors. We thus continued, with nothing of Interest occurring till we passed the Platte. Six weeks of hard labor on our part, had been spent, when our allotted provisions gave out and we were compelled to live on boiled corn without salt. At the same time all the other boats were well supplied and the gentlemen proprietors In the leading barge were faring In the most sumptuous and luxurious manner. The French hands were much better treated on all occasions than the Americans. The former were employed for a long period at stated wages and were accustomed to such service and such men as those In command of them, while we were private adventurers for our own benefit, as well as that of the company, who regarded us with suspicion and distrust. Many Americans on the passage up the river, disgusted with the treatment they received, fell off In small companies and went back. At Cote

Sans Desans, opposite the mouth of the Osage, most of them returned. On reaching the Mandan country we numbered about ten Americans, having started from St. Louis with about one hundred and seventy-five and an equal number of French. After passing the Platte rlver my crew were worn down with hard labor and bad fare. Their boiled corn without salt or meat, did not sustain them under the fatigue of navigating the barge and the contrast between their treatment and that of the French enraged them. A meeting was the result. The Company had, on our barge, thirty barrels of pork, and one morning my crew came to me In a body demanding some of these provisions. I commanded them

13 "The Cote sans Dessein, is a beautiful place situated on the n. e. side of the river and in sight of the Osage. It will, in time, become a considerable village. The beauty and fertility of the surrounding country, cannot be surpassed. It is here that we met with the first appearance of prairie, on the Missouri, but it is handsomely mixed with wood land. The wooded country, on the n. e. extends at least, thirty miles, as far up as this place, and not less than fifteen on the other side. The name is given to this place, from the circumstances of a single detached hill, filled with lime stone, standing on the bank of the river, about six hundred yards long and very narrow. The village has been established about three years; there are thirteen French families and two or three of Indians. They have handsome fields in the prairie, but the greater part of their time is spent in hunting. From their eager inquiries after marchandise, I perceived we were already remote from the settlements." H. M. Bracken ridge. Journal of a Voyage up the Missouri River, in 1811, Pittsburgh, 1816, p. 209.