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Bent, St. Vrain & Co., 1830-1849 a Dissertation Submitt UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA GRADUATE COLLEGE BUSINESS IN THE BORDERLANDS: BENT, ST. VRAIN & CO., 1830-1849 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY By DAVID C. BEYREIS Norman, Oklahoma 2012 BUSINESS IN THE BORDERLANDS: BENT, ST. VRAIN & CO., 1830-1849 A DISSERTATION APPROVED FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY BY ______________________________ Dr. Albert L. Hurtado, Chair ______________________________ Dr. Paul A. Gilje ______________________________ Dr. Sterling Evans ______________________________ Dr. Catherine E. Kelly ______________________________ Dr. Sean O‟Neill © Copyright by DAVID C. BEYREIS 2012 All Rights Reserved. To My Dissertation Committee Acknowledgements Without financial support, this dissertation would not exist. Therefore, my first acknowledgements must go to those who helped support my work. Special thanks to the Department of History at the University of Oklahoma for providing me with five years of funding as a teaching assistant, research assistant, and instructor. The Anne Hodges Morgan and H. Wayne Morgan Dissertation Fellowship funded a transcontinental research junket. Finally, Cliff Hudson‟s generosity helped bring me to Norman, aided my research trips, and allowed me to attend national and regional conferences. Archivists and librarians make the work of historians possible, and I have had the good fortune to work with many fine individuals in repositories across the nation. On the East Coast, the staff at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University initiated me into the mysteries of archival work. In California, I wish to acknowledge the efforts of the staffs at the Braun Research Library, the Huntington Library, and the Bancroft Library. In Santa Fe, the staff at the New Mexico State Records Center and Archive put up with my questions for two weeks, and provided me with access to the original Manuel Alvarez Papers. Those at the Starsmore Center for Local History in Colorado Springs, and at the Denver Public Library proved equally accommodating. The staff at the Missouri Historical Society in St. Louis are, bar none, the quickest and most efficient archivists I have ever worked with. Closer to home, the employees at the Western iv History Center at OU spent a good deal of one summer shuttling dozens of books from the stacks to my table in the reading room. One of the joys of travelling and research is discovering how generous complete strangers can be. Doctor Tanis C. Thorne of the University of California, Irvine provided me with a copy of her master‟s thesis when I dropped the request upon her out of thin air. Coloradans proved wonderfully accommodating. In Littleton, Cecil and Annette Evans gave me a bed to sleep in, fed me, did my laundry, and hustled me at pool while I worked in Boulder and Denver. In Grand Junction, Jim Pearce provided me with a couch to sleep on, and played a pivotal role in outfitting me for my plunge into the Utah wilderness. At Bent‟s Old Fort National Historic Site, John Carson gave me a personal tour of the establishment, rousted the peacocks, and alerted me to a critical source I did not know existed. The park staff generously duplicated a copy of the source for me. Mark L. Gardner spent the better part of an hour discussing his work with me over the phone in the winter of 2011. Family and Friends helped keep me sane through seven years of graduate school. My parents kept encouraging me, expressed interest in my work, and provided a good deal of financial and moral support. Rob was always willing to listen to me complain and was always willing to give me advice. Don and I spent countless hours traversing the American West, philosophizing, and raising all kinds of hell. At OU, Matt Bahar, Michele Stephens, Emily Wardrop, Brandi Hilton- Hagemann, Josh Hagemann, and Ariana Quezada were wonderful colleagues and v outrageously entertaining friends. Adam Eastman provided me with key tech support. Rhonda George was always ready to answer any question I might have about paperwork, departmental deadlines, travel budgets, and life in general. Special thanks to Matt Pearce, whom I have been friends with since Dr. Gilje‟s Historical Methods class in the fall of 2007. Matt and I watched football, drank beer, camped, ascended the loftiest peak in Oklahoma, and shared an appreciation for Ed Abbey, Bernard De Voto, and John Nichols since we first me five years ago. My dissertation committee was composed of fine historians who happen to be even better people. For years, they have answered countless questions, assuaged innumerable doubts, eviscerated pages of prose, strengthened arguments, and written letters of recommendation, often on short notice. Al Hurtado allowed me to go ahead with this project, and provided me with a great deal of perspective. Sterling Evans proved to be one of the most enthusiastic backers any graduate student could ask for. Cathy Kelly asked extraordinarily difficult and enlightening questions that never failed to make my work better. Paul Gilje hammered into me the importance of clear prose, and provided innumerable lessons about how historians should conduct themselves. Sean O‟Neill asked pointed questions during my dissertation defense. I offer these acknowledgements as paltry thanks for all of your hard work on my behalf. vi Table of Contents Acknowledgements / iv Abstract / ix Introduction / 1 Chapter 1: Peoples in Motion, Trails to Everywhere: The Southern Plains to 1821 / 19 Chapter 2: Apprenticeship in Western Enterprise: The Bents and St. Vrain to 1828 / 41 Chapter 3: Nations, Roads, and Private Interests: Bent, St. Vrain & Co., 1829-1834 / 63 Chapter 4: Bent, St. Vrain & Co. and the Indian Trade / 90 Chapter 5: War and Peace on the Great Plains: Bent, St. Vrain & Co. and Intertribal Politics / 114 Chapter 6: Rivals and Rapprochement: Bent, St. Vrain & Co. and the South Platte Trade / 145 Chapter 7: Bent, St. Vrain & Co. and the Sinews of Trade / 166 Chapter 8: To Santa Fe and Beyond: Bent, St. Vrain & Co. and Business along the Mexican Road / 189 Chapter 9: Texan Troubles: Bent, St. Vrain & Co. and the Filibusters, 1841-1843 / 216 Chapter 10: Taos: Many Tender (and Tenuous) Ties / 236 Chapter 11: Traders and Raiders: Bent, St. Vrain & Co., the Indian Trade, and the New Mexico Frontier / 261 vii Chapter 12: Apogee: 1846 / 301 Chapter 13: Backlash: 1846-1847 / 333 Chapter 14: Collapse: 1847-1849 / 371 Conclusion / 407 Bibliography / 417 viii Abstract During the 1830s and 1840s, a unique set of economic, social, political, and environmental factors contributed to the rise and fall of Bent, St. Vrain & Co. as the preeminent American trading firm in the Southwest Borderlands. Between the company‟s founding around 1830 and the destruction of Bent‟s Fort in 1849, the Bent brothers and Ceran St. Vrain conducted a wide-ranging, multifaceted trade with the United States, Mexico, and the Native American tribes of the Southern Plains. Geographical and political isolation made it imperative for the partners to adhere to a strict set of social and economic protocols, especially the cultivation of business patronage and intermarriage with their clients. The most important factor in the company‟s strategy was the weak presence of the State – either American or Mexican – in the borderlands. The weakness of the State simultaneously presented the partners with both opportunities and challenges. On the one hand, they were in a precarious position - unable to call upon the American government for protection, they went out of their way to avoid alienating the powerful tribes of the region. On the other hand, the weakness of the Mexican State allowed the Bents and St. Vrain to circumvent national trade laws, become smugglers, and acquire land grants, all of which alienated the nationalist faction in New Mexico. The arrival of the American State in the borderlands in 1846 set in motion a chain of events that ultimately brought down the company. The conquest of New Mexico unleashed a wave of violence that destroyed the conditions that had allowed the partners to prosper. By 1849, Bent‟s Fort – the symbol of company power – went up in ix flames, abandoned by its proprietors. Far from the centers of State power, Bent, St. Vrain & Co. flourished for nearly two decades. American expansion rendered the company‟s position within the borderlands untenable. x Introduction During the 1830s and 1840s, Bent, St. Vrain and Company (hereafter Bent- St. Vrain) became the most prominent American trading firm in the Southwest Borderlands due to a unique set of geographic, economic, and political factors.1 By studying the activities of Bent-St. Vrain, historians can gain a better understanding 1 Borderlands literature is enormous, and defies precise categorization. Studied by historians, anthropologists, archaeologists, political scientists, sociologists, and literary critics, the field of borderlands study has spawned its own, enormous, argot. Theorists speak of “borderlands,” “bordered lands,” middle grounds, native grounds, alienated borderlands, coexistent borderlands, interdependent borderlands, integrated borderlands, intermediate borderlands, outer borderlands, infant borderlands, adolescent borderlands, adult borderlands, declining borderlands, defunct borderlands, quiet borderlands, unruly borderlands, rebellious borderlands, zones of interaction, “membranes of contact,” metropoles, peripheries, linear borders, zonal borders, paradigms of power, paradigms of negotiation, spheres of influence, strategic borderlands, nonstrategic borderlands, and ecumenes. The only common denominators seem to be that borderlands are places of both violence and accommodation, as well as zones of interaction where people consistently utilize to border to benefit their own interests either by calling upon national power or ignoring it as the situation dictates. Were I to define “borderlands,” I would chose Elizabeth Jameson‟s definition. She calls them “zones – sometimes around borders – where diverse peoples come together to mingle.” They can be social, political, or economic – or all three at once. Furthermore, she notes that they assume importance proportional to the group in question.
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