pIpA^o^; isf" ^^^"^ PIERRE II — SMITH 97 



of the background for understanding of the physical history of the 

 later post. 



It has been noted above that until its sale in 1855 Fort Pierre Chou- 

 teau had for a number of years served the Chouteau firm as depart- 

 mental headquarters for their Indian trade over a large region. It is 

 known that from this base of operations, under the general admin- 

 istration of a resident superintendent (ordinarily called the bourgeois, 

 or "boss") such as William Laidlaw, Honore Picotte, and Alexander 

 Culbertson, the firm drew the proceeds of a vast reservoir of furs and 

 hides, from which point they were transshipped to St. Louis, and to 

 which large shipments of commodities of all kinds were dispatched 

 by steamboat, to be distributed among many different native groups. 

 Thus, in the year 1851, from Fort Pierre, Picotte supervised the trade 

 at Fort Lookout and Fort Vermillion, downriver, and Fort Clark and 

 Fort Berthold, upriver, besides many lesser stations (Kurz, 1937, p. 

 235). 



The entry of the steamboat is a major historic factor in any study 

 of the trade of the 19th century on the upper Missouri. First suc- 

 cessfully adapted to the upper river with the building of the famous 

 Yellowstone, which in 1831 reached Fort Tecumseh, and the following 

 year Fort Union, near the mouth of the Yellowstone River, the steam- 

 boats permitted bulk shipments far beyond the scope or speed of pre- 

 vious watercraf t such as rafts and keelboats, and led the way to a truly 

 modern commerce. By 1859, when Fort Benton was reached, steam- 

 boat navigation had been extended to the very foothills of the Rockies. 

 By that period, furthermore, the Chouteau interests dominated the 

 trade over a vast region — far beyond the Missouri valley proper — 

 and, in fact, constituted a monopoly, despite frequent challenge, us- 

 ually unsuccessfid. The scale of these operations may be judged 

 from the fact that a single season's furs and hides from the upper 

 Missouri sometimes reached the valuation of a half-million dollars 

 (Thomas Forsyth to Lewis Cass, St. Louis, Oct. 24, 1831; in For- 

 syth, 1957, p. 206). 



Detailed information on the trade, on either "imports" of furs 

 and hides at St. Louis or "exports" of commodities for the trade from 

 that place, are not readily available, though such data would aid ma- 

 terially in understanding the beginnings, development, and decline 

 of the trade in the West during the 19th century. It is, however, ap- 

 parent that by the late 1830's — about the period of entry of the 

 steamboat as a new and different factor — there was a shift of emphasis 

 from the smaller peltry (particularly the beaver) to the larger buf- 

 falo hides and robes. 



Thus in Joseph N. Nicollet's important geographical report the 

 statement is made that the Chouteau firm after 1839 almost entirely 

 suspended operations in the Rockies, where previously they had em- 



