Venture Pre-Planning
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Leadership: The Powells had
nominated 6.Benjamin
Franklin Massey as their representative for his trading experience
on an earlier Santa Fe Venture; and had contracted with James S.
Collier for his greater experience in Trading at Santa Fe.
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Trade Goods: Powells had
bought and packed most of their saleable items at St Louis, and added
high-value, high-profit items from Pittsburgh at Boonville.
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Navigation: The Josiah
Gregg's 1831 water-hole listing was available, the Eastern portion
of
the Trail was partially marked, both Massey and Collier had traveled
the Trail before, and wagon tracks were visible; navigation was not a
problem.
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Equipment: The heavy
Pittsburgh-made special Trail wagons were provided by Collier at
Boonville, as were top-Grade ox-teams and rugged horses, able not only
for riders, but as pack animals, if required.
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Weapons: Each crew member
was provided with Rifle, Pistol, and plenty of ammunition.
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Crew: There were Hunters
and Plainsmen, chosen for ruggedness and ambition.
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Subsistence: The Caravan
left Boonville with a stock of flour, sugar and salt; on the trail they
depended on game, mainly Buffalo for meat, and bartered with the
Indians for fruit and green goods
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Drinking water: Water for
both men and animals was a daily requirement, but Griggs map of the
water holes solved the problem, except for the nnnn nnnn across the
direct cutoff.
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Fuel: On the plains, only
Buffalo chips were available, firewood in the wooded areas.
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The Pace of Caravan Travel:
Over the smoother, well-traveled section at the Eastern end of the
Trail, Teams could maintain a pace of 18 miles per day. Over the
rugged, mountainous Western section of the Trail, the teams would be
hard put to maintain a 12 mile per day pace. A good average would be
about 15 miles per travel day. Caravans spent only 6 days per week
actually traveling; Sundays were no-travel days, reserved for rest,
repair, planning and recuperation. Ox-teams were used traveling
West, and usually Mules on the caravan return trip. Mules could pull
the wagons faster than oxen could, but required more rest; they covered
about the same number of miles per day.
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Unplannable Problems
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The Weather: A heavy
downpour would greatly slow down the team as they pulled the heavy
wagons through the mud; the Caravan might also be forced to make an
unmarked detour around the worst mud-holes. Dry spells were not
usually a problem, because of their knowledge of the water holes along
the way; but a dry spell as they were about to cross the desert span
would require them to carry as much water as they could, and to ration
it carefully.
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Crew Health: If a crew
member could not recover, practically overnight, by the use of simple
home remedies, he was in deep trouble; he faced the dismal prospect of
having to make his way back East over the Trail, on horseback and
alone. Some were successful, many others were not.
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Animal Health: If a horse
or ox became unable to travel, from injury or exhaustion, it was
abandoned. One writer wrote that, along the Trail route, there
appeared to be as many ox as Buffalo skeletons.
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The Indian Threat: Fear of
Raids or attacks by the Plains Indian tribes required 24 hour a day
vigilance by the Caravans; so the Caravans were organized Military
fashion. In daylight, a caravan had Scouts, riding well in
advance, outriders on its flanks, and the teams travelling drawn up
close behind each other. Pickets were set out at every pause. At
night, a caravan formed a hollow square; waggons facing outwards;
animals inside the square, and sentries always on duty.
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| Trading
with
the
Indians
was
done always in daylight, under tightly
controlled conditions. Only a small Indian trading group was
permitted
to approach the Caravan, and they were carefully watched to prevent any
stealing. In daylight, if a Caravan approached an Indian Party
the they
perceived to have hostile ideas, the Caravan would stop and go
into
the defensive hollow square position. Using careful
defensive measures, the Caravan could safely reach Santa Fe. |
The Potency of the Plains Indians:
Although
an
individual
Tribe
might menace a Caravan, at a given point
in time, the salvation of the Caravan was the tribes never presented a
concerted opposition to Caravan travel; they were unorganized;
never combined as a Confederation to impede the Western progress
of Trade or Settlement of their territories, a fatal defect.
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Each
Tribe
existed
as
an
entity to itself usually in a state of War with all
neighboring Tribes, sometimes being a subject of one of the larger,
more powerful Tribes, sometimes combined in a loose alliance with
another Tribe or Tribes.
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Tribal
culture
offered
but
two
goals for a male Indian, one, to become a
capable Hunter, able to take care of the needs of his families and to
help his Tribe, the other, and by far the more important goal, to
become a skilled warrior, able to defend his family and his Tribe
against unfriendly Tribes, but of supreme importance, to be able to
shamelessly make War and conduct raids against unfriendly Tribes,
seeking horses, cattle, fire arms, goods and women.
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In
1834,
the
individual
Indians
that the Caravan crews faced were
every bit as capable as the Caravan defenders, perhaps even
better, and they had another major factor to back them up; motivation;
they were defending their culture, their whole way of life.
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Before
1821,
the
year
when
New Mexico broke from loose from Spain an Mexico,
the Plains Indians had been hostile to the American Hunters and to the
early Traders, but had not yet recognized the developing threat to
their Culture.
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But,
starting
in
1821,
when
New Mexico offered a warm welcome to the White
Traders, the Indians watched their Buffalo being destroyed, their free
travel impeded and Tribal strength being worn down.
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However,
although
every
Tribe
was
hostile in greater or lesser degree to the
progress of the Whites, they did not combine to offer a united threat
to the growing White supremacy. As Tecumsah had done in 1811 in
Indiana, near ...
[missing text !]
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Chief
Tecumseh,
born
about
1768,
with imaginative leadership, aided by his
brother Tenskwatawa, "The Prophet", combined his Tribe, the Shawnees
with several other tribes, in an attempt to be strong enough to deal on
equal terms with the American Government, and to remain at peace with
the government. From about 1807 to 1809, Tecumseh and the Government
made a number of Treaties, providing continued Peace. But Tecumseh
become very disillusioned when each Treaty required the Indians to
cede large areas of their lands to the government with little or no
compensation. Tecumseh planned to build up his strength by forming a
Confederacy of all Indian Tribes, from Canada to Florida, and to
directly oppose the American Government.
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| The
War
of
1812
between
England and America gave Tecumseh his chance,
he sided with the British and brought his capable army of Indian
Warriors into the War. |
The
British
welcomed
Tecumseh,
commissioned
him a Brigadier General, and he
fought on the British side until he was killed at the Battle of the
Thames in 1813.
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Now,
if
Tecumseh
had
survived
the War of 1812, and if he had lent his
talents of Statesmanship to the Western Plains Indians, or if a Leader
of the stature and ability of Tecumseh had arisen among the Plains
Indian Tribes, and combined them in a Confederacy in Military
opposition to the White invasion, the opening of the West could well
have been delayed many years, perhaps several generations.
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Interestingly,
"The
Prophet,"
Tecumseh's
brother,
survived the War of 1812, and died
in 1834, it is said, "West of the Mississippi."
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But,
in
1834,
the
Indians
of the Western Plains, were still an
unorganized long list of separate Tribes, unable or perhaps
unwilling to combine in a potent force against the Western progress of
the White men.
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| The Culture of the City of Santa Fe:
It
seems
very
anti-climatic
to turn from the subject of Warlike Indians
to the glamor of Mexican city life. but it too offered a problem to the
Caravan crew members. The Culture of the City of Santa Fe
was a world apart from the Cities at the Eastern end of the
Trail; it was a wide open frontier city, with a whole string of
opportunities to tempt tired and lonesome American men. Every
Mexican gambled, it was a universal vice. Every one, man, woman
and child, from the eight-year-olds, smoked cigarettes. And the
girls, "with their flashing eyes," as commented on by early travelers,
were lonely also. |
Back
in
the
rather
Puritan
East, a glimpse of an inch of ankle was said to
be enough to set a young man's blood a boil; but in Santa Fe, the girls
wore skirts to just above the Knee, dresses with low-cut neck lines and
sleeveless. As the men of the Caravan had not had the benefits of
any "female companionship" since they had left Missouri three long,
weary months ago, and as the Santa Fe girls were sure to turn their
"flashing eyes" on these vigorous American men, we can be only hope, in
the absence of any information on this interesting subject, that the
probable consequences were successfully resisted. As I say, we
can hope.
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Reminiscences:
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In
view
of
the
array
of logistic problems that harried the Powell-Collier
Caravan members, it seems remarkable that they surmounted as many of
them as they did to reach Santa Fe.
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The
information
contained
in
this
Appendix was gleaned in bits and pieces
from these sources:
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