Frontier Fighters and the Romance of the Ranchos By, Jim Stebinger Mr
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Newsletter of the Jedediah Smith Society • University of the Pacific, Stockton, California SUMMER 2020 Jedediah Smith in Popular Culture: Frontier Fighters and The Romance of The Ranchos By, Jim Stebinger Mr. Stebinger is a freelance writer, journalist and amateur historian living in Los Angeles. As a UCLA graduate he has had a lifelong interest in history with a focus on western expansion, Jedediah Smith and the mountain fur trade. One of the great surprises of the internet is the extent to up the Missouri. which people will work, research, publish and upload The men go huge amounts of material without recompense. Of course to Ashley’s Wikipedia is the prime example but of perhaps more “mansion” to immediate interest to members of the Society has been the enlist. uploading of vast amounts of “Classic Radio” including at On May 20, least two radio biographies of Jedediah Smith. 1823 we hear raging battle The first piece, which runs 15 minutes 10 seconds, was the “near the present sixth episode of a 39 part series called “Frontier Fighters” 1 boundary of that briefly depicted the lives of men (and some women) North and central to the westward expansion of the United States. South Dakota” Frontier Fighters dramatized soldiers, explorers, mountain Between the men, bankers, doctors and some famous battles including Ashley party the fall of the Alamo. The subjects chosen lived or the events and an enemy occurred from before the founding of the United States up identified as “Arickarees.” Smith is tending to the wounded to about 1900. Although the series is easily available for when Ashley calls for a volunteer to seek aid from Andrew download little is known of the production and crew. The Henry. Smith volunteers but Ashley is reluctant to send him airdates are uncertain, evidently it aired sometime between as he says Smith is young and inexperienced. Smith admits 1935 and 1937 and was a creation of the Transcription youth and inexperience but says he can “Outwit, outfight or Company of America. 2 The episodes are said to have been outrun” any Indians and he will go “alone with my rifle and rebroadcast into the 1950’s. my Bible. I will even go without my rifle but not without my Bible, it goes where I go.” Jedediah Strong Smith, as the episode is titled, opens with a stately march of about 92 seconds. Table of Contents The ending march is about the same length. The Table of Contents..........................................................................1 march exists to allow commercials to be aired. Table of Contents Featured Article .........................................................................1-5 As the march ends the voiceover introduces In Memoriam.................................................................................5 Smith as a “giant” and one of the “epic Upcoming Events .........................................................................5 wanderers and adventurers” who settled the President/Editor’s Comments .......................................................6 west and describe Smith as carrying his “rifle in one hand and his precious Bible in the other”. Newsletter Guidelines...................................................................6 Archives: Comics, a Play, Trading Cards, and a Postcard ......7-16 The drama begins on May 20, 1823 as Smith, Website - Interactive Maps Information ......................................16 James Clyman, William Sublette and Thomas Members’ Section: New Members, Donor List, Fitzpatrick are met on a street corner in St. Louis, JSS Officers & Board Members ..............................................16 reading and discussing William H. Ashley’s famous letter seeking men for his expedition Invite a Friend to Join .................................................................17 Continued on page 2 Jedediah Smith in Popular Culture: Frontier Fighters and The Romance of The Ranchos (Continued) Smith of course reaches Henry and we are told he is now Smith is watched by Red Fox of the Arapaho from high known as the man who saved the expedition. The action ground. Red Fox says to a companion that the whites have moves to 1826. We are told he has been near the Great Salt slaughtered the buffalo, driven off other food animals Lake but is now on the Colorado River. Smith and 15 men and at this moment Smith’s horse is drinking their water, are passing a Native tribe said to be “peaceful looking.” defiling it. Smith must die, they agree. Other warriors are “When Indians look peaceful, be on your guard,” Smith also watching who join Red Fox in the attack. The narrator 3 says. Immediately, a man is shot between the shoulders eulogizes Smith as a great figure of western expansion and with an arrow, the party is attacked and 10 of the 15 are notes that neither his body “nor a single page of his tattered killed. Bible” were ever found. The narrator tells us that Smith walked into California What to make of this? trying to find help for his men but was “seized” by Mexican One very interesting aspect is the timing. Frontier Fighters authorities near San Jose and taken to Monterey. He is aired as Smith was coming out of the obscurity which brought before the “High Military Court” and charged with followed his death. In fact, the episode aired around the “armed invasion.” He denies the jurisdiction of the court time the first full length biography by Maurice S. Sullivan and warns the judge that if he or his men are harmed the reached bookshelves and libraries. court will answer to the US Government and to “God, Our Guide and Protector.” He demands to Another issue that must be mentioned see the governor and is transported to is the format. Without the march the meet him. The governor is about to program runs about 11 minutes with send him to Mexico City, presumably perhaps half of that as dialog. The to be imprisoned, when a sea captain unknown writer had a formidable task named Cooper puts up $30,000 in of trying to distill the last monumental gold to secure his release and gives eight or nine years of Smith’s life him two gold coins for clothes and into 11 minutes. Format explains “the best meal in Monterey.” truncation of events such as the simple description of his travels in California, The narrator then tells us that Smith the omission of the discovery of South now goes from hardship to hardship Pass and the deletion of his travel and in July of 1828 he is in the The sponsor was the Title and Trust Company of Los Angeles. This is a picture of their building into Blackfoot country. It does not Oregon country and once again which still stands in an historic downtown Los explain why McLoughlin is said to attacked by Indians who kill 12 of Angeles district. It was home to city government offices for more than 30 years and has recently have paid Smith more than he did or his 14 companions. He finds his been for sale. The owners wished to develop it for why the Arapaho people are blamed way to John McLoughlin the factor condominiums prior to the pandemic. for his death. 5 of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Smith accuses McLoughlin of inciting the Indians, a claim But even with allowance for brevity Jedediah Smith seems McLoughlin denies. The factor then agrees to pay Smith to be without historical context in this piece. He seems to $3,200 4 to recover his losses as proof of the “integrity” of simply be in places and do things for no other reason that the Hudson’s Bay Company. The two men make a point of he is an American in the wilderness trying to get by. The going to church together to show their amity and because opening suggests, but does not clearly state, he is a trapper. each says he will not miss a Sabbath except when in the His exploration, map finding, important discoveries and wilderness. The narrator tells us Smith vowed never to trap overall importance to history are simply unmentioned. Hudson’s Bay territory again as a result of McLoughlin’s Taken in context of other episodes in the series, his lack kindness. of context actually becomes context. That is to say the Frontier Fighters of the series were not all actual fighters Finally, we find Smith and Fitzpatrick along the Cimmaron in the specific pugilistic or military sense. Rather they were and out of water. He instructs Fitzpatrick to make camp individuals who did not give up in the face of hardship and while he rides along the riverbed to find water. Fitzpatrick “fought” for what they believed in whether an exploratory warns him the Arapahos are “looking for scalps to decorate goal, or the creation of a bank, the finding of gold, or their lodgepoles,” The warning goes unheeded. “There ain’t establishing a mission. What a current audience might see as an Indian worth the name within 50 miles.” Smith says “But lack of context, therefore becomes context to a Depression if I meet any I’ll bring back their scalps to make a wig for era “Greatest Generation” audience who probably believed your old age.” The two men, apparently alone, laugh. -2- Continued on page 3 Jedediah Smith in Popular Culture: Frontier Fighters and The Romance of The Ranchos (Continued) life is tough and Americans simply needed to be tougher. entirely possible that the anonymous writer didn’t quite Taken in that light the vignettes become the story of one man know how to approach Smith and so he gave him attributes overcoming odds. He fights the Arikara because they attack of the rather well-known “Ring Tailed Roarer” folklore him, as do the Natives on the Colorado and in Oregon. He is creation. Thus he is more like the Davy Crockett of the harassed by Mexican leaders, and the bond offered sounds totally fictional Crockett Almanacs than he is like the David like a bribe in the show.