Mountain men & the Rendezvous

1. Mountain men & the Rendezvous

2. Mountain Men • Mountain men were: • very rough and tough • adventurous businessmen • transient • they needed an economic frameworkto support their occupation • The furtrade provided the fiscal support and stability that the mountain men needed to crisscross the continent in search of adventure and profit.

3. Types of Mountain Men • There were two types of Mountain Men • Skin trappers & Free-trapper • Skin Trappers –were mountain men who worked for fur companies like The American Fur Company and the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, trapping furs • Free Trappers –men who were “beholden to no company and outfitted himself and trapped with whom and where he pleased.”

4. The Fur Trade • There were essentially two spheres of fur trade - The Rocky Mountain Fur Trade and the Upper Missouri Trade • The Upper Missouri trade - relied on Indians to bring buffalo skins to trading posts • the skins were bought and sent to St. Louis via the river. • The Rocky Mountain Fur Trade - Beaver was the fur of choice in the Rockies • beavers were trapped primarily by Euro-American mountain men traveling in company groups • pelts were sold at a yearly rendezvous

5. The Rendezvous • Yearly events where trappers sold the pelts they had trapped • Buyers would travel overland to the designated site • Buyers would then haul the furs by mule train and wagon to cities to be sold • The rendeavous system allowed the mountain men to stay in the wilderness year round

6. The Rendezvous • The rendezvous began as a practical gathering to exchange pelts for supplies • It evolved into a month long carnival in the middle of the wilderness • Mountain man James Beckwourth described the festivities as : • “"mirth, songs, dancing, shouting, trading, running, jumping, singing, racing, target-shooting, yarns, frolic, with all sorts of extravagances that white men or Indians could invent."

7. The Rendezvous • At the rendezvous there were: • horse races • running races • target shooting • Gambling • and whiskey drinking that accompanied all of them. • An easterner gave this view: • "mountain companies are all assembled on this season and make as crazy a set of men I ever saw." • After rendezvous, the men headed off to their fall trapping grounds.

8. Jedediah Smith • Smith was: • the first American after the Astorians to cross west over the Continental Divide • the first Anglo-American to travel overland to California • the first to traverse the Sierra Nevada • the first to cross the Great Basin Desert • the one who rediscovered South Pass • the man who roamed through more of the West than anyone of his era