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    | Three general subject areas are presented for the 1800-1050 time frame. The folks consist of six groups of natives, early Americans, and foreigners. The three great periods of western "invasion" were the fur trade, Oregon Trail travel, and the '49er Gold Rush. Two wars, the War of 1812 and the Mexican War, involved fighting on western territoryFOLKSThe groups of people who were present or entered the American west during the 1800-1850 period represented a wide variety of political, cultural, economic, and religious backgrounds, capabilities and aspirations. The Explorers were either small transient military parties or persistent trading company representatives. The indigenous American Indians were patient sedentary tribes or roaming hunters who were experiencing the encroachment of the New World expansion. The Spanish kept a sparse frontier society that screened their exploitive empire to the south. The British effort was mainly an economic adventure run from the streets of London. The Russian thrust was also economic based on gathering otter skins for trade in China. The new Mormon religious colony was being driven to a new Zion. Each group had its good and bad actors and were accompanied by settlers hoping to start life over, get rich quick, or retire after a long, tedious career of struggle against nature. PERIODSThere were three significant historical
activities during the 1800-1850 period. Significant in the sense of a permanent
impact on the United States as well as the west itself. The Fur Trade period was the result of
an overwhelming desire to obtain large profits off an almost free resource in
great, worldwide demand. It was an expansion of the trade which had started to
peter out in many eastern areas as settlers claimed the land for farming. At
first the principal pelts gathered were from the beaver for felt while other
furs such as fox, weasel and bear contributed to the market for wearable skins.
The large scale acquisition of buffalo did not begin until the total collapse of
the beaver market in the late 1830’s and is not considered a part of the
“mountain man” mystique within this trade. The Oregon Trail
period started as the mountain fur trade died and stories of fertile, free land
in the Willamette River valley enticed pioneers westward after the national
economic depression of 1837. Pack animals, and eventually wagons, opened this
“road” from Independence, Missouri across Kansas, Nebraska, and Wyoming to
South Pass, and on across the Snake River plain, over the Blue Mountains and
down the Columbia River. It
continued in active use until the arrival of the railroads. The Gold Rush period was the ultimate adventure! The hordes of humanity that threw themselves into the unknown dangers and hardships of mostly walking to California as a sure way to get rich defies today’s logic. However, they did it, many “growing up” on the way. The ‘49ers, an extremely hardy bunch, made their mark on the entire world.
WARSTwo wars were fought by the U.S. between 1800 and 1850, the War of 1812 and the Mexican War. From 1812 until 1815 the U.S. and
Britain engaged in hostilities over British abuse of its sea power in its war
with Napolean and failure to evacuate the Northwest Territory after the
Revolutionary War. In the Northwest Territory the British
conducted war by proxy using volatile Indian tribes to raid and generally
threaten the traders and settlements like Prairie du Chien in Wisconsin along
the Upper Mississippi River drainage and high up the Missouri River. Along the lower Missouri the Indian tribes
were thwarted because settlers “forted up” in their local, small communities
while roving companies of mounted militia rode to their defense or scouted to
detect Indian movements. Fort Osage in Missouri and Fort Madison in Iowa were
the principal U.S forts in this sector.
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RVNWEST is designed by R.J.Nelson at res18xko@verizon.net
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