i; 237 ] 88 



was ever used with cruelty or oppression, or that it was even vexatious ; 

 but it was, perhaps, worse — for it was enervating, and drove to apathy. 



Man, however, obeys the impulses of his facnlties, as matter is govern- 

 ed by its peculiar properties. The Creoles of Upper Louisiana were the 

 descendants of a brave and enterprising nation. Unable to devote their 

 energies to more noble pursuits, or to cultivate the arts of civilized life, 

 they penetrated into the forests, in the midst of numberless tribes of Indians 

 till then unknown, to explore the extensive regions between the Mississippi 

 and the Rocky Mountains, and tiius created tlie fur-trade of this great por- 

 tion of North America. In these hazardous, distant, and prolonged jour- 

 neys, was trained a set of hardy men, from whom sprung the class of men 

 known by the name of voya^evrs, or ejis^nges, who were for a long time, 

 and still are, as necessary and eflicient nn the burning prairies of the west, 

 as the Canadian voyageurs are for the rugged and frozen regions of the 

 north and northwest. These two haughty and indomitable races have a 

 peculiar character; they are half civilized and half savages ; rebellious aud 

 submissive ; possessed of great courage and power of physical endurance, 

 they fear neither the inclemency of seasons, the pains of hunger, the ar- 

 rows of the Indian, nor the danger of exposure to wild beasts; never de- 

 spairing, and always cheerful, they are intelligent, honest, devoted, and 

 gifted with the warmest feelings; they speak, as it were unconsciously, the 

 idioms of the several Indian tribes among whom they have been ; they 

 know all the rivers, all the paths and bypaths, and all the recesses of the 

 wilderne.ss ; they are intimately acquainted with the character and wants 

 of the Indians, and possess a good knowledge of the haunts and habits of 

 the wild animals; — in a word, they are a class of men with whom no mili- 

 tary or scientific expedition, no trading caravan, no traveller of any de- 

 scription, can dispense. 



It was these first exploiers who, under the direction of their employers, 

 whom they called their bourgeois, (boss.) opened the fur trade to the 

 north and west of the Missouri river. Such were the certain advantages 

 offered by this trade, because of the natural facilities of the country in 

 affording shorter and easier means of transportation over the British trade, 

 that, had it been well organized and fostered, it would have made a 

 flourishing place of St. Louis, and established a formidable competition 

 capable of destroying all the influence of the British Company. But 

 the Spanish system was fatal to those great interests. To trade with the 

 Indians was a privilege nominally granted as a reward for services ren- 

 dered ; but, in fact, generally adjudged to the highest bidders. A few 

 merchants only amassed fortunes; whilst the colony derived from it no 

 permanent advantage. Far from this, the natural resources of the country 

 were more and more neglected. Such was the fertility of the soil, that 

 it might have been made the granary of all the Spanish possessions at 

 the south ; and yet scarcely as much grain was raised as answered the 

 wants of the surrounding country. The most active of the colonists 

 had quitted their fields for the precarious profits of the fur-trade ; all the 

 young men turned trappers, hunters, or boatmen ; and the peace and con- 

 tentment of a domestic life were exchanged for one of bustle and ad- 

 venture. The contrast between the two shores of the Mississippi was 

 obvious. The right shore was marked by listlessness and apathy ; whilst 

 the protecting government of Great Britain, although but recently estab- 



