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Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for

2009

"Rejoicing In the Beauties of Nature" The Image of the Western Landscape During The Fur Trade

Kerry R. Oman Southern Methodist University

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Oman, Kerry R., ""Rejoicing In the Beauties of Nature" The Image of the Western Landscape During The Fur Trade" (2009). Great Plains Quarterly. 1269. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/1269

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. "REJOICING IN THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE" THE IMAGE OF THE WESTERN LANDSCAPE DURING THE FUR TRADE

KERRY R. OMAN

While traveling along the Platte River on life of its owner: "[Plerhaps he had like myself May 18, 1834, William Marshall Anderson been rejoicing in the beauties of nature, that stopped to pick up a human skull bleaching impelled by the spirit of adventure, he had in the prairie sunlight. Anderson was from sought to behold the wonders of the mountains Louisville, Kentucky, and had been sent west and the savage forest." Although this brief by his physician to accompany a fur-trade experience surely brought some apprehension, caravan to the Rocky Mountains in hopes it perhaps ignited in his mind the need to do of regaining lost physical strength. He came more "rejoicing in the beauties of nature."l west not as a typical trader or trapper, but as Though seemingly separated from the out­ an attentive observer. What Anderson lacked side world, men like Anderson, and the hun­ in physical strength and fortitude, he made up dreds of men who went west for the fur trade for with a commanding vernacular and lively from the 1820s through the 1840s, traveled imagination. Later in the day, after carrying during an era that prompted them to rejoice the skull for several miles, he reflected on the in their natural surroundings. Their writings were more than mere travel accounts outlining directions traveled, trapping or trading activi­ Key Words: Hudson River school, mountain men, ties, and encounters with grizzly bears and Rocky Mountains, romanticism, Washington Blackfeet Indians. Often, they expressed aes­ Irving thetic judgments about nature that created a 2 Kerry Oman holds a PhD from Southern Methodist romantic image of the West. They were astute University. He has published numerous articles on the observers operating amidst a rising romantic fur trade era, the Lewis and Clark Expedition, and the consciousness within eastern society. Their Indian Wars. He is a member of the Western Writers collective representations of life in the West of America and two of his articles have been awarded were continually defined in terms of wilderness Spur Awards from that organization. Currently, he is an independent scholar residing in Utah. and landscape. In doing so, they remind us of how eastern ideas influenced western experi­ [GPQ 29 (Fall 2009): 301-16] ences and they show the importance the actual

301 302 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 2009 landscape had upon their thoughts, ideas, and writings. While some scholars have felt that these men were beyond the reach of the cultural influences of Romanticism, its impact actually pervaded their lives and helped shape their thinking and their written accounts about the western landscape. In a profound sense, traders and trappers, as well as the works of those like Washington Irving and Alfred Jacob Miller who chronicled their lives, reflected the coun­ try's rising concern with aesthetic sensibilities by adapting eastern ideas of the natural world to western experiences.3 The purpose of this essay is to explore how the writings of the western fur trade created a distinct image of the western landscape during the mountain man era. In doing so, I draw on the concepts of Romanticism that were so prevalent in the eastern United States and Europe at the time, and I argue that these ideas influenced how the West was depicted by western traders and trappers, and by writers and artists like Washington Irving and Alfred FIG. 1. Washington Irving. Courtesy of the Emmet Jacob Miller who chronicled the fur trade. I Collection, Miriam and Ira 0. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, The New York Public specifically focus on the powerful concept of Library, Aston, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. the sublime and show how several trappers wrote about their experiences with it as they traveled through the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains. As a result, this article creates a attention, as he often ventured close to hear new approach to understanding the relation­ the perilous exploits and adventures of these ship between the fur trade, the natural world, hardy individuals who at times remained and American society. years away from the luxuries of white society. Recalling those days more than thirty years WASHINGTON IRVING later, Irving reflected, "I was at an age when imagination lends its coloring to everything, As Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and the stories of these Sinbads of the wilder­ gathered recruits and finished making prepara­ ness made the life of a trapper and fur trader a tions for their epic journey to the Pacific Coast, perfect romance to me." He thought of accom­ a young Washington Irving left New York City, panying some of the Northwest traders to one where he served as a clerk in a law office, and of their isolated posts, and later regretted that journeyed to Montreal. In 1803 Montreal was he let this opportunity pass by. Nonetheless, the base of activity for numerous Northwest his writings later identified him more closely Fur Company traders. It was not uncommon with traders and trappers than any exploits he to run into one of the partners, clerks, or even could have achieved on a brief voyage into the some of the fur traders just returned from one wild lands of the Canadian northeast.4 of the remote interior posts in the Canadian Nearly ten years after this memorable expe­ providence walking along the streets of the rience, Irving boarded a ship to England in an city. The fur traders particularly caught Irving's attempt to salvage a failing family business. "REJOICING IN THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE" 303

The business soon went bankrupt, but Irving incorporated them into American landscape found success as a writer. Over the seventeen painting.s years he lived abroad his reputation spread Following Cole's example, painters and throughout Europe and America. His often writers took up the call to look upon nature as romantic descriptions of life appealed to a an unexploited source for American inspira­ public accustomed to reading the works of men tion. Beginning in the 1820s, the influences of like Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron, and his Romanticism upon Americans created a mode fame quickly grew to rival that of his coun­ of perception that enabled people to attempt tryman James Fenimore Cooper. Despite his to convey the incomprehensible. Poets, artists, absence, Irving was an American golden boy and men of letters all began to emphasize the who brought great pride to his country.5 value of intense observations of the natural When he finally returned to the United world, giving their visual and written represen­ States in 1832, much had changed. A new tations of nature a redemptive quality. This was form of expression in art had taken hold of particularly true with art, but it also carried the American imagination and given it wings over into the writings of western travelers as to explore anew man's relationship with the they reflected upon and described the land­ natural world. The cause of this new develop­ scapes they encountered. For their interpreta­ ment largely rested on the shoulders of a young tions they needed personal experience with the English emigrant named Thomas Cole. Cole natural world, in areas that many imagined to moved to America in 1818 from Lancashire, be wilderness. Cole found it along the Hudson England. He had been trained as an engraver, and in the Catskills; traders and trappers found but his often dreamy and romantic views of it in the West.9 nature soon led him, in the spring of 1825, to The initial landscape images created by the New York City where he began painting land­ Hudson River School artists, a name given scapes. During this year, Cole was fortunate to during the 1870s to those who followed Cole's have been discovered by several notable mem­ example, depicted northeastern vistas, not the bers of the American Academy of Fine Arts, West. They concentrated on rivers, waterfalls, and by the fall he had gained nearly immediate forests, and mountains that had all been well recognition as a landscapist and his talents explored by Europeans long before the 1820s, quickly turned into a new genre in American yet in the eyes of men like Washington Irving art.6 and his contemporaries these images offered a Cole's landscapes presented nature in dra­ way of seeing that could be applied to the West. matic compositions. He embraced the wildness It was in the East that the passion for nature of nature as no American artist had before him. first became visibly evident, and it was in the His work suggested sacred and moral messages East that wilderness first began to take on posi­ in the landscape, not by depicting a scene with tive characteristics. Eastern landscape artists accuracy, but by bringing together images that however, provided a way of thinking about inspired emotion.1 Cole's use of dramatic light, nature that could easily be transported into the larger-than-life natural features juxtaposed Far West. Their works not only served as visual against seemingly insignificant human bodies, backdrops for understanding the role of nature and a conviction for influencing the senses within American society, but they became while expressing an intimate connection with models of description and themes for contem­ deity tended to exhibit many of the charac­ porary writing about the western landscape teristics of the sublime. By the late 1820s the viewed by American traders and trappers. By concepts of the sublime, the beautiful, and the the early 1830s, Thomas Cole's paintings of picturesque were commonly known through­ the American landscape had been on exhibi­ out the United States, largely through the tion throughout the northeast, most notably in efforts of Thomas Cole and his followers who cities like Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and 304 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 2009

New York, and the many newspaper articles artists who praised wilderness. Although he discussing the new genre made the rise in land­ never personally operated in the fur trade, scape art familiar to most urban Americans, his writings of this western lifestyle reached a while also providing an opportunity for the huge audience, and countless Americans came more literate men who joined the fur trade to to know of their activities through his work. learn about them as well. As a result, Irving played a significant role in With American landscape art surrounding celebrating the idea of wilderness during the him, Irving developed an insatiable desire to get first half of the nineteenth century. In Astoria, out and see America. To fulfill this need, he took Irving combined romantic descriptions of the a much-celebrated tour of the western prairies western landscape with heroic tales of trappers' during the fall of 1832.10 When he returned to exploits. The general account of the enter­ New York, Irving developed his travel journals prise reflected the surrounding influences of into a narrative and published them in a small American society. He emphasized the wilder volume as A Tour on the Prairies. Appearing in aspects of the West in correspondence with the spring of 1835, the book achieved immediate the wide acceptance of the attributes of land­ success. Before A Tour on the Prairies appeared in scape art and the continually growing desire print, however, the powerful mercantilist John throughout America to know more about the Jacob Astor had commissioned Irving to write western lands. a history of his American Fur Company's efforts In Astoria, Irving's "wilderness" often to establish a fur-trade empire on the Pacific appeared as dangerous, destructive, punishing, Coast. With the image of trappers emerging out relentless, rugged, frightful, and dreary. When of the western landscape fresh in his mind, he he wrote about wilderness it was to make surrounded himself with nearly all of the pub­ scenes more dramatic and the exploits he wrote lished literature on the West and returned to about more impressive. His use of wilderness work'! 1 relied heavily upon the presence and threat Astor provided Irving wi~h all of the of Indians. His heroes had to pass through a journals, letters, and business papers of the "howling wilderness infested by savage tribes"j enterprise. In addition, Irving consulted the a "frightful wilderness that intervened between published works of travelers who had already them and the shores of the Pacific!" By empha­ been into this country: the history of the Lewis sizing the dangers inherent in wilderness, he and Clark expedition, the travel narratives glorified the lives of western traders and trap­ of John Bradbury and Henry Brackenridge, pers and tried to make his story more compel­ Edwin James's account of the Long expedition, ling. Yet Irving at times also made wilderness and Gabriel Franchere's account of the early full of beautiful landscapes through word Canadian fur tradeP From these and other sketches of quaint, picturesque, and romantic western travel accounts, Irving gleaned details sights of the western landscape.!4 of the western environment that made his book On the heels of Astoria, Irving delved into seem like a vivid firsthand account. This read­ another examination of the American fur ing, combined with his trip across the prairies, trade. While writing Astoria, he met Captain modified his views of the western landscape and Benjamin Bonneville, recently returned from led him to see it positively, if not romantically. the Rocky Mountains and possessed of a In his completed work, Astoriaj or, Anecdotes journal of his experiences. Bonneville was of an Enterprise Beyond the Rocky Mountains a headstrong military officer who had been (1836), Irving told an incredible story of man's granted a two-year leave from the army to go perseverance amidst hostile forces in what he west. Motivated by financial gain, adventur­ often described as "the rough life of the wilder­ ism, exploration, and knowledge, he traveled ness."13 As a product of eastern society, Irving throughout much of the American West from echoed the sentiments of American landscape 1832 to 1835. As Irving would later remark, "REJOICING IN THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE" 305

Although it still retained elements of danger, his references to wilderness largely took on positive characteristics.16 Allowing the western wilderness to take on a positive connotation in a source that reached such a wide audi­ ence makes this an important moment within American cultural history. One reviewer of Bonneville captured this when he commended Irving for having "literally made the solitary wilderness blossom like a garden."17 Although Irving never entered the Rocky Mountains, his writings of western adventure stimulated the eastern imagination about the western landscape and wilderness. In three years, 1835 to 1837, Irving fashioned a powerful image of fantastic and at times mysterious land­ scapes, savage Indians, reckless and heroic trap­ pers, and wild animals. He presented the West as a dangerous, yet glorious land of unrelenting plains and rugged mountains, lands of "savage grandeur" to be equally feared, respected, FIG. 2. General B.L.E. Bonneville. Courtesy of and revered. The landscape possessed "wild Denver Public Library, Western History Collection, and romantic scenery," with "wildness and Z-8881. sublimity" the prevailing characteristics.ls Indians, and most notably the "bold enemies" Bonneville had the soul to appreciate the beau­ the Blackfeet, supposedly waited to kill any ties and glories of the western landscape. Upon American who came in their path.19 Crows, his return, Bonneville wrote a manuscript Flatheads, Sioux, Arikaras, and others who based upon his journal but failed to find a pub­ Irving described, were "as wild-looking as the lisher. Irving bought the manuscript, quickly surrounding scenery," wanted nothing more polished it up, and published it in 1837 as The than to steal horses and any other goods they Adventures of Captain Bonneville.ls In essence, could capture.20 Long stretches of dry, barren, the book picked up where Astoria ended by tell­ and unchanging prairie beat down any party of ing the story of Bonneville's exploits amidst the men who dared cross this undulating surface. traders and trappers of the Rocky Mountains. Winds, snow, rain, and heat all combined to Although Bonneville was a miserable fur trader, torture the poor traveler. What spirit the Great Irving made him into a hero by presenting him Plains did not kill the Rocky Mountains would. as a reflective, daring, and brave voyager of the Acc;rding to Irving, there was little chance West. for anybody to survive except for those hardy In The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, "mountaineers"-trappers and traders who Irving's western "wilderness" changed from his made the western landscape their home: these earlier descriptions in Astoria. It became much men seemingly feared nothing, and had no use more romantic, resembling more closely the for the white man's civilization. landscape artwork that had taken hold of the eastern imagination. His descriptions of the ALFRED JACOB MILLER lives of traders and trappers remained equally heroic, but now, as he put it on one occasion, Visual examples of the western landscape "the wilderness was a region of romance." during the era of the traders and trappers also 306 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 2009

FIG. 3. Alfred Jacob Miller, Wind River Mountain Range Scene, circa 1858. Courtesy of the Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Bequest of C.R. Smith, 1991.

found their way into the American mind, at artist to penetrate the Rocky Mountains and first dressed in the humble suit of the twenty­ visually record the activities of the mountain seven-year-old Alfred Jacob Miller. Miller was men. Aside from Samuel Seymour and Titian neither a trader nor a trapper, but an eastern Peale, only two other artists had preceded artist who, like Washington Irving, portrayed Miller west, Karl Bodmer and George Catlin, the lives of traders and trappers while at the neither of whom reached the mountains or same time celebrating the idea of wilderness. painted the lives of the western traders and Born the son of a Baltimore grocer, Miller trappers.21 early took to painting. His training led him Miller and Stewart traveled west in com­ to Europe during the early 1830s, where he pany with a party of traders and trappers led studied English romantic portraiture. Unlike by veterans Thomas Fitzpatrick and William Thomas Cole and his proteges, Miller had little Sublette. Fitzpatrick and Sublette had been experience painting landscapes. Despite this involved with the western fur trade since inexperience, Miller later produced scenes of the early 1820s, and they knew the Rocky western travel that unquestionably revealed the Mountains as well as any men alive. Their influence of the Hudson River artists. In 1837 journey took them over much of what later Miller joined the Scottish nobleman Captain turned into the Oregon Trail: across the Great William Drummond Stewart on a journey to Plains following the course of the Platte River, one of the annual mountain man rendezvous. up the Sweetwater, over South Pass, on to the Miller was hired to produce visual souvenirs for Green River, and eventually to the rendezvous Stewart to take back to his home in Scotland. site at the confluence of Horse Creek and the In doing so, Miller became the first American Green. Throughout the journey, Miller kept "REJOICING IN THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE" 307 busy making over 200 sketches of dramatic Miller typically supplemented his 'land­ scenes that caught his attention. He found the scapes with small images of mounted war­ activities around sunup and sundown among riors or traders and trappers that appeared the most lively and interesting. Yet his design barely discernable amidst the immensity of was not to act as a visual reporter, but to create the landforms. This was a common device spectacular images that captured the essence of used by European and eastern landscapists to the West.22 portray nature's majesty and man's relative As one scholar has pointed out, Miller "took insignificance. Many of Miller's views included advantage of that which was exotic within his his patron, Captain Stewart, in moments of own country-the Indian, the mountain man, heroic adventure. Upon returning to the East, and the western landscape."23 He sketched his Miller developed his field sketches into dra­ companions traveling across the plains, at the matic finished paintings. In his first year alone, rendezvous, and in the mountains; he recorded he produced eighteen large oil paintings and the likenesses of dozens of Indians; he depicted nearly 200 smaller watercolors, many exhib­ buffalo hunts, grizzly bears, and antelope; he ited in Baltimore and New York. Aside from sketched wild horses as well as his companion's those who were familiar with Edwin James's noble steeds. Miller painted not in the scien­ account of the Long expedition, or had per­ tific and literal traditions of his predecessors, sonally examined Samuel Seymour's original but in an effort to provoke the imagination paintings, Miller's work represented eastern and alert the senses to the wild scenes similar Americans' first views of the Rocky Mountains. to that of the Hudson River artists. Nowhere is Miller's art, like Irving's writing, exemplified this better demonstrated than with his many the romantic tradition by creating "wilderness" images of the Wind River Mountains. images that enshrouded the lives of western Miller's romantic preoccupation in sketch­ traders and trappers and placed them with the ing the expansive vistas and lakes lying within dreamy solitude and grandeur exclusive to the the Wind River Mountains led to often soft, American West.25 feathery watercolor images more demonstrative of a wild utopia than the actual appearance of TRADERS AND TRAPPERS the landscape. These were specifically com­ posed to exhibit the sensations of wilderness The men Irving and Miller portrayed, as panoramas. In describing one particularly well as all other western traders and trappers, compelling lake scene, Miller commented on came from every aspect of life and were moti­ how the favorable lighting of the morning and vated by adventure, financial reward, or simply evening enhanced the views of the mountain a curiosity about the mysteries of the west­ lakes. ''At these times," he claimed, "one side ern landscape. They came only temporarily, or the other would be thrown into deep purple wanderers in search of trade, not settlement. masses, throwing great broad shadows, with While many lacked the basics of education, sharp light glittering on the extreme tops,­ others came from learned backgrounds, being while the opposite mountains received its respected citizens of their home communities. full complement of warm, mellow & subdued Generally, they were "adventurous, hardy, and light;-thus forming a ... contrast most essen­ self-reliant," as Miller observed in 1837, "always tial to the picturesque." Depicting these condi­ exposed to constant danger from hostile tions created an emotion of timelessness. Miller Indians, and extremes of hunger and cold ... tried numerous times to capture this quality, on they penetrate the wilderness in all directions one occasion finally lamenting that it "would in pursuit of their calling."26 Although many have required the pencil of Stanfield, Turner, experienced a sense of freedom in the West, or Church in giving it due effect and rendering only a few ever made a significant amount of it complete justice."24 money. Those who profited were the leaders- 308 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 2009 th~ entrepreneurs of the western fur trade. wilderness. Wilderness was typically a nega­ Most traders and trappers returned to the East tive term used at significant moments during carrying little more than memories. In fact, their time in the West: preparing for a difficult many never made it back at all, falling victim and long journey, entering a region for the first to Indians, or dying from exposure, disease, time, after a harsh encounter with nature, nar­ or starvation. Those who survived not only rowly escaping a grizzly bear attack, surviving a learned how to interact with the Indians, but skirmish with Indians, contemplating the fate often intermarried, stayed in the West, and had of fellow trappers. For some, wilderness could children.27 They discovered where to find food contain "freaks of nature" unfound in the "civi­ and water, how to pass from one watershed to lized" world, where one had to provide for his another, who to trade with, where to trap, and own subsistence, and the threat of perishing was when to encamp to avoid the extreme forces a constant reality. It could be a place destitute of winter. The center of their universe became of trees and devoid of water, or it could exist the lands of the Rocky Mountains and the as a thick forest along the steep slopes of the enchanting southwestern vistas around Taos Rocky Mountains. Yet wilderness could not be and Santa Fe. Their lifestyles forced them to separated from the Indians who inhabited the adapt to the natural environment, something country. In fact, Osborne Russell, a trapper powerfully exhibited within the published and in the 1830s, even called some Shoshones he private writings about their lives in the West.2s befriended the "sons of the wilderness."3o Even more than the early government-spon­ Although Irving, particularly in Bonneville, sored exploring parties, traders and trappers depicted wilderness as a romantic home for helped make the western landscape familiar to traders and trappers, most of the men he the nation. described saw it as a temporary place of resi­ Few of these men found time to write, but dence, a workplace. During the early years of given the relatively small number of individu­ the western fur trade, trappers operated in als involved in the fur trade, their published such remote areas that chance encounters with and private accounts of trading and trapping others in places they often called "wilderness" activities are impressive. In writing about the could catch them by surprise. Zenas Leonard, West, many of the traders and trappers built a fur trader of the 1830s, described his aston­ upon the images of earlier explorers.29 These ishment at meeting four white men along the writings consisted of simple letters, diaries, Laramie River in today's state of Wyoming. and journals from which occasional pieces This was Leonard's first experience trapping circulated in the nation's newspapers. Other in the West, and as he later pondered the accounts found audiences as published narra­ encounter he claimed: "a white man was the tives of western adventure. Still other trappers last of living beings that we expected to visit and traders found time later in life to recall us in this vast wilderness-where nothing was their activities in "reminiscences" that often heard from dark to daylight but the fierce and drew heavily upon the conventions of the day. terrifying growls of wild beasts, and the more American traders and trappers typically looked shrill cries of merciless savages."3! For Leonard, back upon their lives in the West with nostal­ and countless other traders and trappers like gia, remembering with pleasure their freedom him, wilderness meant not only a remote area and closeness to nature. uninhabited by white men, but a land full of Most of the traders and trappers who kept Indians and wild animals. personal accounts never came close to Irving's romantic view of wilderness. They viewed wil­ ThE SUBLIME derness in contradictory ways. When traders and trappers spoke positively about the West In describing the landscape, however, the it was generally in terms of landscape, not rising romantic sensibility of the first half of "REJOICING IN THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE" 309 the nineteenth century not only influenced Washington Irving, but it also pervaded the accounts of numerous traders and trappers. During the western fur-trade era, aesthetic expression placed a greater emphasis on the sublime and picturesque. As more traders and trappers imbued with romantic sensibilities ventured beyond the Mississippi, they found the "beautiful" inadequate to describe the new country. The beautiful implied calm, smooth, serene, and ordered landscapes that created a pleasing sensation. Traders and trappers, how­ ever, had come to expect and look for the most dramatic sensations and images, things best captured by the sublime, the picturesque, and the wild. The sublime, even more than the pic­ turesque, brought together the appreciation of the works of nature that openly corresponded to eastern landscape art. Thus, as a direct result of the Hudson River artists and their literary counterparts, examples of the sublime and pic­ FIG. 4. Albert Pike painted by Charles Loring Elliott near the time when Pike went west. Courtesy of the turesque reappeared throughout the published Supreme Council, AASR-SJ. The Supreme Council, writings of western trading and trapping ven­ Scottish Rite, owns the copyright to the image. tures.32 The sublime could appear as a great prairie thunderstorm or amidst the perpendicular and travel works of the day, and in the fall of cliffs near the Canadian River.33 It could 1831, he joined one of Charles Bent's Santa Fe materialize on the Plains, in stark contrast trading parties. He came westward ready to to anything ever experienced in the East.34 experience the world around him, and over The sublime could burst forth on the distant the next two years he traveled over and wrote horizon embodying the jagged features of the about much of today's American Southwest, Rocky Mountains or the Sierras.35 It could also then northern Mexico. In 1833 he settled in be found floating high amidst the mountain Arkansas where he recorded his experiences. lakes that hid themselves from the view of the The following year, 1834, Light and Horton world.36 In short, for traders and trappers the of Boston published the manuscript as Prose sublime was everywhere. Sketches and Poems, Written in the Western Albert Pike, for example, a tall, slim, former Country, providing the first real introduction New England schoolmaster who traveled into to the Staked Plains of the Southwest.37 the Southwest during the early 1830s as a Unlike many of his western counterparts, trader and trapper, recorded his perceptions of Pike possessed a gift for language and vivid the sublime within the western landscape with expression. He was a poet-visionary full of the rare eloquence. "My only sources of thought romantic mystique. His writing reflected his and imagery have been my own mind, and well-educated New England background and nature, who has appeared to me generally in the popular images of the romantic literature desolate fashion and utter dreariness, and not of his day. In fact, he even began his narrative unfrequently in the guise of sublimity," wrote with a quote from Lord Byron. In an effort to Pike in 1833. Growing up in Boston, Pike comprehend the lands he passed through, Pike became familiar with the popular literature displayed the growing eastern propensity for 3!~_ GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 2009 the dramatic scenes of the West. His writings helplessness, strangely mingled at the same not only provided a way of "communing with time with a feeling of liberty and freedom from [his] own soul," but his book helped count­ restraint."40 That ability to throw a man back less Americans envision the lands of the Far upon himself while at the same time creating West.38 feelings of grandeur, deception, and liberty was Pike drew directly from the skills of the the power of the sublime issuing forth from a landscape artists in creating some of the best wholly unique western landscape. illustrations of this new emphasis upon the Warren A. Ferris, a trained surveyor turned sublime and picturesque. During the first sec­ trapper from Buffalo, New York, also described tion of his Prose Sketches, Pike took the reader numerous encounters with the sublime and into the prairie, an area he suggested was "too picturesque landscapes of the West. He, like grand and too sublime" to be simply envisioned other men in his 1830 American Fur Company by anyone solely familiar with eastern land­ brigade, had engaged for reasons other than scapes. To counter this, Pike painted a verbal money: "health, and the strong desire of seeing picture. First, he covered the canvas with the strange lands, of beholding nature in the savage landscape: "Imagine yourself," he told his read­ grandeur of her primeval state," had been the ers, on a "plain to which your eye can see no stimulus behind this "trip to the mountain bounds." Not a tree, bush, shrub, rock, or even wilds of the great west."41 Ferris kept a diary a tall weed floats above the "barren grandeur" of his adventures over the course of the next of the 'hard surface. Then he overlaid this five years, and upon returning home in 1835 he solitary plain with images: "Imagine," he once prepared a manuscript account of his experi­ again asked, countless dark lively shapes form­ ences and reflections of the natural world that ing herds of buffalo scattered in the distance "as ran serially in The Western Literary Messenger far as the eye can reach." "Imagine" occasional of Buffalo during the early 1840s.42 herds of wild horses thundering through this Ferris, like most western traders and trap­ great expanse amidst fleeting antelope dashing pers, was a careful observer of nature, and he off in the distance like "the scattering of white possessed a powerful skill of expression. When clouds," avoiding the sulking forms of prowling his party pushed out onto the Plains and first wolves and coyotes. Finally, he brought in the encountered buffalo, Ferris could hardly con­ human forms: "Imagine" a band of Comanches trol his emotions, explaining, "the scene had mounted upon noble steeds with feathers and here a wild sublimity of aspect, that charmed red cloth draped from their lances, bows, quiv­ the eye with a spell of power, while the natu­ ers, and sacredly ornamented shields as they ral sympathy of life with life made the pulse chased the buffalo across the horizon. Then, bound and almost madden with excitement."43 Pike claimed, "you have an image of the prairie, On a later occasion, after climbing to the crest such as no book ever described adequately to of Teton Pass and looking back into today's me."39 Jackson Hole, Wyoming, he could do no better Pike went on to articulate exactly why the than to simply praise the "Sublime creations!" Plains represented the sublime. With skillful In similar circumstances, Ferris's pen danced descriptions rivaling any eastern image pur­ across the page, drawing literary images of the posefully created to evoke the sensations of sublime and picturesque qualities of the land­ the sublime, Pike explained the sublimity of scape.44 the Plains: "its unbounded extent, its barren Ferris's most revealing encounter with the monotony and desolation, its still, unmoved, western sublime came in the spring of 1835 calm, stern, almost self-confident grandeur, its as he described an experience within today's strange power of deception, its want of echo, Yampa Canyon in northwestern Colorado and, in fine, its power of throwing a man back shortly before he left the Rocky Mountains upon himself and giving him a feeling of lone and returned to the East. After embarking "REJOICING IN THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE" 311 from his winter quarters, Ferris talked of enter­ received the basics of education that allowed ing "the chan ion [canyon] of a deep creek, and him to find employment opportunities within attempted to pass through one of the most the printer's trade. After some sporadic jobs frightful chasms, perhaps, in existence." In a in the newspaper business, he found himself description shadowing the sensory effects of in Independence, Missouri, in 1841-alone, the Hudson River artists, he wrote of huge penniless, and ready for adventure. With the perpendicular walls extending a thousand feet idea of writing a book about western adventure, to the sky, capped with massive pine trees that and being one who already appreciated the aes­ "appeared but as twigs from the abyss beneath." thetic beauty of nature, he secured himself to The immensity of the walls enshrouded the Lancaster P. Lupton's trading party and began canyon in a veil of everlasting night. Huge to chronicle his experiences of life in the west­ fragments of gigantic rocks, crushed and scat­ ern landscape.46 tered on the canyon floor, made it impossible The writings of Rufus B. Sage portray the to proceed on horseback. Ferris dismounted resounding alertness of an attentive eye. His and strained his way across a "chaotic heap visions of the natural scenery simultaneously of shapeless ruins" until "the sublime terror show respect, awe, and reverence. They echo of the surrounding scene" forced him to end the vernacular of the artwork of the Hudson his journey. Momentarily, he stood "in mute River School, particularly evident during his astonishment and wonder." Spray from melting first trip onto the prairies. In his own way, he snow cascading down the steep walls show­ found the prairie sublime: "mhere is a charm ered upon him as the foaming current dashed in the loneliness-an enchantment in the down the river channel near his feet. Above, solitude-a witching variety in the sameness, overhanging trees, rocks, and snow seemed to that must ever impress the traveler, when, for tremble as if ready to explode onto the canyon the first time, he enters within the confines of floor. "Shivering with dread," Ferris recorded, "I the great western prairies."47 turned from a place, so pregnant with dangers, Consciously aware of his surroundings, and hastening forward, heard, as I returned the Sage continually described the "beauty" of the deafening sound of timber, stones and snow, "landscape scenery." On one occasion, while hurled down the giddy heights from crag to traveling across the Plains, he witnessed one of crag, into the gulph [gulf] below."45 It was the nature's most destructive forces-a wild prairie attempt to go as close to disaster as possible fire. Yet to Sage "it was a sublime spectacle, a without actually being in physical danger that stupendous scene, grand and imposing beyond made the sublime attractive. As Ferris dem­ description, and terrible in beauty." These onstrated, encounters with the sublime had were concepts eastern readers could envision, become so important that men risked unneces­ the sublime as terrible and beautiful, stupen­ sary dangers simply to satisfy their curiosity. dous and grand, yet imposing at the same moment. Sage demonstrated America's matur­ ROMANTICISM AND RUFUS B. SAGE ing thoughts concerning the natural elements that made what they perceived as wilderness a By the 1840s, Romanticism and the con­ power to fear while at the same time being a cept of the sublime had clearly taken hold source of splendor.48 of the American imagination as Rufus B. The first year of Sage's travels failed to take Sage's often-forgotten text, Scenes in the Rocky him to the Rocky Mountains. He traveled Mountains, attests. Published in 1846, following to Fort Platte, located near Fort Laramie in his return from the mountains, Sage's account present southeastern Wyoming, and spent the found a wide contemporary audience that winter exploring the region of the upper Platte demanded numerous reprintings over the next River and the White River of the Dakotas. fifteen years. Born in Connecticut in 1817, he After an unsuccessful attempt to float furs 312 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 2009 down the Platte, he again found himself in journeying to Fort Hall by way of Brown's Independence, Missouri, without any money. Hole on the Green River. When they arrived His boss, Lancaster Lupton, had declared in Brown's Hole, Sage described it as one of bankruptcy. Still determined to write about the finest places in the entire West, claiming, the West, Sage returned to the mountains as a "[F] ew localities in the mountains are equal to "free trapper," and thus gained the experience this, in point of beautiful and romantic scen­ he needed to write his book.49 ery." It encompassed a wide valley surrounded In August 1842 Sage once again found on all sides by impassable mountains guarding himself traveling westward across the prai­ it from the outside world. Almost struggling for rie. This time taking a more southern route, words, he poetically explained how the elements Sage expressed some disappointment with the of Brown's Hole "combine to invest it with an "dreary sterility" of the Southern Plains land­ enchantment as soul-expanding in its sublimity scape until his party caught their first glimpse as it is fascinating in its loveliness." Although of the Rocky Mountains. Having positioned he stayed only a brief time, his writings demon­ himself a few miles above Beaver Fork, Sage strated how the aesthetic categories of nature obtained a distinct view of the main ridge of had become the focus of his journey.51 the Rocky Mountains, estimating their snowy The remainder of Sage's travels took him summits to be some sixty to seventy miles off. across much of the West, and brought him back Trying to describe the inspiring scene of the to Missouri by the summer of 1844. When he mountains, he wrote: "[T]hey appeared like a published his narrative two years later, he was pile of dark clouds just rising from the verge most concerned with conveying to his readers of the horizon, and could be identified only how he experienced nature in its most sublime by their uniform and stationary position." A state. Because of this, he rarely discussed the short time later, he penned a romantic picture effects of the weather or his struggles to obtain of the sunset falling upon the' snow-capped food. In fact, the economic opportunities pro­ peaks, with "a beauty and grandeur" that could vided by the fur trade are mentioned even less scarcely be witnessed in all of the country; this frequently. He found the West romantic, sub­ was a similar image being expressed about the lime, scenic, beautiful, powerful, enchanting, less dramatic Adirondack and Catskill moun­ and vexing all at the same time. tains in the East by the Hudson River artists. Men like Pike, Ferris, and Sage demon­ For Sage, the mountains proved ominous. strated the way that traders and trappers used Although he could pen a wonderful description the aesthetic qualities their culture had condi­ of their captivating qualities, his images found tioned them to see to try and understand their the mountains containing "dark frowning surroundings. Their increased attention to the sides" that appeared "as the minister of pent western sublime reflected the country's growing up wrath." They took on qualities of power, pride in the natural world. Because of the art­ almost possessing control of the elements if work of the Hudson River artists and the liter­ they so desired. At any moment it seems Sage is ary pieces of Irving, more and more easterners waiting for them to pour out torrents of rain or were thinking of the West as wilderness. It was unleash the destructive forces of a tornado. 50 a landscape free of towns and cities, yet it had As the party traveled up the Arkansas River, potential for future development. The West Sage remarked on the "romantic" and "beauti­ was wilderness because it was unfamiliar, even ful" country. When they reached Taos, New mysterious. It possessed sublime, picturesque, Mexico, in October, he often wrote about the and beautiful landscapes that created dramatic qualities of the area that "excite the admira­ sensations, filling the mind with wonder while tion" of the beholders. Wanting to continue simultaneously provoking extended reflections traveling, Sage attached himself to a party upon the natural world. 52 "REJOICING IN THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE" 313

FIG. 5. It was somewhere near this photograph that Osborne Russell found solace in his "Secluded Valley" in today's Yellowstone National Park. This photograph is a Gamble and Stafford Cabinet photo of the Lamar River and Surrounding Mountains taken on September 1, 1891. Courtesy National Park Service, Yellowstone National Park, YELL-13960ANCS.

WILDERNESS Snake River near today's Pocatello, Idaho, where he built Fort Hall in hopes of liquidating Beyond experiencing the sublime, the idea his goods. Osborne Russell helped build the of living in what many perceived as wilderness fort, but after his one-year contract ended, he appealed to some trappers. Men like Osborne eagerly joined with several others to become Russell, for example, were romantics who free trappers. found intrigue and pleasure amidst the remote On several occasions while traveling recesses of the Rocky Mountains. A native throughout the West, Russell ventured into of Maine, Russell signed on with Nathaniel portions of today's Yellowstone National Wyeth to bring supplies to the annual rendez­ Park. He found this area fascinating. When vous in 1834. Wyeth, a New England ice mer­ opportunities permitted, he took time to chant, had dreams of establishing a Columbia examine the geysers, hot springs, and mud River fishing and trading company that would pots. What truly captivated him, however, not only take advantage of the western fur was a small section of country approximately trade but also capitalize on the high demand eight miles long, three or four miles wide, for salmon in the northeast. He had contracted and mostly surrounded by lofty mountains with members of the Rocky Mountain Fur covered with pines lying near the present Company, but upon arriving at the rendezvous northeast boundary of the park. It is known a rival trader had already captured the trade. on today's maps as the Lamar Valley, but to Wyeth conceded defeat and traveled to the Russell it became his "Secluded Valley." He 311. GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 2009 first encountered this region during the fall of to conduct business with them. By the end 1835. While traveling through the valley, his of the 1840s, no longer did Americans solely party of trappers befriended several families imagine explorers passing through the western of Shoshone Indians who inhabited the area. landscape. But, as a result of the published nar­ The Shoshones repaid the friendship by draw­ ratives of trappers and traders, along with the ing Russell a map with charcoal on a tanned writings of Washington Irving and the artistic elk hide. Then, as he prepared to leave, work of Alfred Jacob Miller, easterners could Russell wrote, "I almost wished I could spend begin to envision life in the West. While Irving the remainder of my days in a place like this." and Miller described the West as a wilderness Here, "happiness and contentment seemed to region of romance, the reality of life engaged in reign in wild romantic splendor surrounded by trading and trapping proved difficult. 55 Their majestic battlements which seemed to support images, however, became America's images, the heavens and shut out all hostile intruders."53 and over the next two decades, tens of thou­ The following fall, Russell again returned sands of people would travel through select to his "Secluded Valley." For five days, he portions of the West along the overland trails halted his trapping operations to engage in expecting to find similar pleasures within the the wonders of the landscape. One evening, he western landscape. climbed a mountainside overlooking the valley and simply sat and watched the sun sleepily NOTES fall from view. "There is something in the wild romantic scenery of this valley," he later wrote, 1. William Marshall Anderson, The Rocky "which I cannot nor will I, attempt to describe Mountain Journals of William Marshall Anderson: but the impressions made upon my mind . . . The West in 1834, ed. Dale L. Morgan and Eleanor were such as time can never efface from my Towles Harris (San Marino, CA: Huntington memory." Then, like Meriwether Lewis did at Library, 1967), 89-91. 2. John Logan Allen, "Horizons of the Sublime: the Great Falls of the Missouri nearly thirty The Invention of the Romantic West," Journal of years earlier, he longed for greater skills of Historical Geography 18 (1992): 27-40. expression: "[Als I am neither Poet Painter 3. For two examples see Roderick Nash in or Romance writer I must content myself to Wilderness and the American Mind, 3rd ed. (New be what I am a humble journalist and leave Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), 65, and David J. Wishart, The Fur Trade of the American West, this beautiful Vale in obscurity until visited 1807-1840: A Geographical Synthesis (Lincoln: by some more skillful admirer of the beauties University of Nebraska Press, 1979),207. of nature who may chance to stroll this way 4. Washington Irving, Astoria; or Anecdotes at some future time."54 For men like Russell, of an Enterprise Beyond the Rocky Mountains, ed. the mesmerizing qualities of the West unveiled Edgeley W. Todd (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1964), xlv. Irving describes this journey in the themselves in a grandeur only found in the introduction. heart of the Rocky Mountains. 5. James D. Hart, The Popular Book: A History In extolling the virtues and dangers of of America's Literary Taste (Berkley: University of nature, traders and trappers were not only California Press, 1963),82-84. products of their times but producers as well. 6. Alan Wallach, "Thomas Cole: Landscape and the Course of American Empire," in Thomas Cole: Typically, they saw what they expected to see Landscape into History, ed. William H. Truettner and described it by using the vocabulary and and Alan Wallach (New Haven: Yale University sentiments toward nature that prevailed in Press, 1994), 23-47. the East. From their accounts, Americans read 7. Thomas Cole to Robert Gilmore, quoted about narrow escapes and reckless lifestyles, in Oswaldo Rodriguez Roque, "The Exaltation of American Landscape Painting," in American as well as unrelenting efforts of men trying to Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School, ed. create themselves into the image in which vari­ John K. Howat (New York: Metropolitan Museum ous Native Americans felt confident enough of Art, 1987), 25. "REJOICING IN THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE" 315

8. Ellwood C. Parry III, The Art of Thomas Cole: Ross, ed., The West of Alfred Jacob Miller (Norman: Ambition and Imagination (Newark: University University of Oklahoma Press, 1951); Michael of Delaware Press, 1988), 21-34. See also Ellwood Bell, Braves and Buffalo: Plains Indian Life in 1837 C. Parry Ill, "Thomas Cole and the Practical (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973). Application of Landscape Theory," New Mexico 22. Patricia Trenton and Peter Hassrick, The Studies in the Fine Arts 3 (1978): 13-22; John Rocky Mountains: A Vision for Artists in the Nine­ Cronon, American Picturesque (University Park: teenth Century (Norman: University of Oklahoma Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000), 19. Press, 1983), 32-33. 9. Morse Peckham, The Triumph of Romanticism 23. Carol Clark, "A Romantic Painter in the (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, American West," in Alfred Jacob Miller: Artist on the 1970),36-57. Oregon Trail, 51. 10. Washington Irving, The Western Journals 24. Quoted in Ross, The West of Alfred Jacob of Washington Irving, ed. John Francis McDermott Miller, 130. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1944), 25. William H. Goetzmann and William N. 19-20. Goetzmann, The West of the Imagination (New York: 11. Peter Antelyes, Tales of Adventurous Enter­ W. W. Norton, 1986), 58-68. prise: Washington Irving and the Poetics of Western 26. Ross, The West of Alfred Jacob Miller, 29. Expansion (New York: Columbia University Press, 27. William R. Swagerty, "Marriage and Settle­ 1990), 149-201. ment Patterns of Rocky Mountain Trappers and 12. History of the Expedition under the Command Traders," Western Historical Quarterly 11 (April of Captains Lewis and Clark, ed. Paul Allen, 2 vols. 1980): 159-80. (Philadelphia: Bradford and Inskeep, 1814); John 28. Harvey L. Carter and Marcia Carpenter Bradbury, Travels in the Interior of America, in the Spencer, "Stereotypes of the Mountain Man," Years 1809, 1810, and 1811 (London: Sherwood, Western Historical Quarterly 6 (January 1975): 17-32; Neely, and Jones, 1817); Henry Marie Brackenridge, William H. Goetzmann, "The Mountain Men," The Journal of a Voyage up the River Missouri; Performed American West 15 (July/August 1978): 4-17; William in Eighteen Hundred and Eleven, 2nd ed. (Baltimore: H. Goetzmann, New Lands, New Men: America and Coale and Maxwell, 1815); Edwin James, comp., the Second Great Age of Discovery (reprint, Austin: Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Texas State Historical Association, 1995), 132. Mountains, Performed in the Years 1819, 1820 ... 29. David J. Wishart, "Images of the Northern under the Command of Major Stephen H. Long, 2 Great Plains from the Fur Trade, 1807-1843," in vols. (Philadelphia: H. C. Carey and I. Lea, 1822- Images of the Plains: The Role of Human Nature 23); Gabriel Franchere, Relation d'un voyage Ii la in Settlement, ed. Brian W. Blouet and Merlin P. Cote du Nord-ouest de l'Aerique Septentrionale, dans Lawson (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, les Annees 1810, 11, 12, 13, et 14 (Montreal: Impr. De 1975), 45-55. C. B. Pasteur, 1820). 30. Some examples of traders and trappers' usage 13. Astoria was originally published in 1836, and of wilderness are Josiah Gregg, Commerce of the went through numerous editions thereafter. I have Prairies: or the Journal of a Santa Fe Trader, during relied upon the excellent edition edited by Edgeley eight expeditions across the Great Western Prairies, and Todd. See Irving, Astoria. a residence of nearly nine years in Northern Mexico, 2 14. Irving, Astoria, 128, 147-50, 210-11, 213, 263, vols. (New York: Henry G. Langley, 1844), 1:33,2:17- 265-66, 374, 386, 423. 20, 2:42; Nathaniel J. Wyeth, The Correspondence 15. Washington Irving, The Adventures of Cap­ and Journals of Captain Nathaniel]. Wyeth, 1831-6, tain Bonneville, U.S.A., in the Rocky Mountains ed. F. G. Young, Sources of the History of Oregon and the Far West, ed. Edgeley W. Todd (Norman: series (Eugene, OR: University Press, 1899), 1:125; University of Oklahoma Press, 1961). John B. Wyeth, Oregon; or a Short History of a Long 16. For examples of this see, Irving, Adventures Journey from the Atlantic Ocean to the Region of the of Captain Bonneville, 18, 66, 97, 112, 115, 136, 159, Pacific By Land, ed. Reuben Gold Thwaites, vol. 203, 326-28, 371, 372. 21 of Early Western Travels (Cleveland: Arthur H. 17. Ibid., xliv-xlv. Clark Co., 1905),50,66-67,69; John K. Townsend, 18. Ibid., 252, 257. Narrative of a Journey Across the Rocky Mountains, to 19. Ibid., 105. the Columbia River, ed. Reuben Gold Thwaites, vol. 20. Irving, Astoria, 251. 21 of Early Western Travels, 181-82, 186, 195, 197, 21. Excellent essays on Miller's western experi­ 278; Zenas Leonard, Adventures of Zenas Leonard, ence can be found in Ron Tyler, ed., Alfred Jacob Fur Trader, ed. John C. Ewers (Norman: University Miller: Artist on the Oregon Trail (Fort Worth: of Oklahoma Press, 1959), 3-4, 16, 61-62; Warren Amon Carter Museum, 1982). See also Marvin C. A. Ferris, Life in the Rocky Mountains: A Diary of 316- GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 2009

Wanderings on the Sources of the Rivers Missouri, 40. Pike, Prose Sketches, 11. Columbia, and Colorado, 1830-1835, ed. LeRoy R. 41. Ferris, Life in the Rocky Mountains, 81. Hafen (Denver: Old West Publishing Co., 1983), 42. For a publication history of the Ferris manu­ 85, 93, 104; Osborne Russell, Osborne Russell's script, see LeRoy Hafen's introduction in Life in the Journal of a Trapper, ed. Aubrey L. Haines (Reprint, Rocky Mountains. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1965), 23; 43. Ferris, Life in the Rocky Mountains, 100. Anderson, Rocky Mountain Journals, 145, 176, 209, 44. Ibid., 283-84. 221-22; James, Three Years Among the Indians and 45. Ibid., 354-57. Mexicans, 9, 20, 48, 104, 151. 46. Rufus B. Sage, Rufus B. Sage: His Letters and 31. Leonard, Adventures of Zenas Leonard, 4. Papers, 1836-1847, in Scenes in the Rocky Mountains, 32. Jean V. Matthews, Toward a New Society: vols. 4-5, ed. LeRoy and Ann Hafen (Glendale, CA: American Thought and Culture, 1800-1830 (Boston: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1956); for a biographical Twayne Publishers, 1991),94-110. sketch see Ann Hafen, "Rufus B. Sage," The Mountain 33. Gregg, Commerce of the Prairie, 1:82, 2:48. Men and the Fur Trade of the Far West (Glendale, CA: 34. Leonard, Adventures of Zenas Leonard, Arthur H. Clark Company, 1966),3:263-72. 4. Leonard's narrative was first published in a 47. Sage, Rufus B. Sage, 1:116, 119, 122. Pennsylvania newspaper in serial form during 48. Ibid., 1: 147, 160-61. 1838-39 and reprinted as a narrative in 1839. 49. Hafen, "Rufus B. Sage," 268-69. 35. Leonard, Adventures of Zenas Leonard, 76. 50. Sage, Rufus B. Sage, 2:53, 64, 66. 36. Ross, The West of Alfred Jacob Miller, 93. 51. Ibid., 2:79-82, 89, 135-37, 177. 37. See Albert Pike, Prose Sketches and Poems, 52. See Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind, Written in the Western Country (with Additional 1-66. Stories)"ed. David J. Weber (Albuquerque, NM: 53. Russell, Osborne Russel/'s Journal of a Trapper, Calvin Horn, 1967). John Miller Morris, El Llano 26-28. Estacado: Exploration and Imagination on the High 54. Ibid., 46. Plains of Texas and New Mexico, 1536-1860 (Austin: 55. Irving, Bonneville, 18; John Logan Allen, Texas State Historical Association, 1997),211. "The Invention of the American West: Fur 38. Morris, El Llano Estacado, 205-J1. Trade Exploration, 1821-1839," in North American 39. Pike, Prose Sketches, 9-10. Irving's Tour of the Exploration, ed. John Logan Allen (Lincoln: Prairies had not yet appeared. University of Nebraska Press, 1997), 3: 132-89.