Mountain Men Of America

1. Mountain Men Of America 1825 By: Joshua Beasley & Kedar Bajwa

2. What are the Mountain Men? • These people, who spent most of their time in the Rocky Mountains, came to be known as the Mountain Men. • Mountain Men came to America they were not farmers, but fur traders. They had come to trap beavers. • Beaver skin were in great demand in the Eastern United States, and in Europe.

3. The Fur Trappers • Fur Trappers were America’s vanguard: They learned the lay of the land, identified travel routes, and introduced Indians to white men’s ways. • Trappers lived for rendezvous---a yearly festival of trading, drinking, gambling, and fighting that generally ate most of a man’s earnings. • The 1837 rendezvous, near Wyoming’s Green River, was one of the last .Beavers had been overhunted, and Europe’s thirst for their fur was quickly waning as silk hats became the new rage.

4. A Mountain Marks The Way • Mountain-Man lore is full of Indian attack and bear maulings-but that doesn’t mean they didn’t happen. • Case in point: Jedediah Smith, a New York born, mountain- made explorer who got attacked and mauled by a bear ended with the rediscovery of Wyoming South Pass.

5. Making A Living. • The tough, independent Mountain Men made their living by trapping beavers. • Many had Native American wives and adopted Native American ways. • They lived in buffalo-skin lodges and dressed in fringed buckskin pants, moccasins, and beads. • Some Mountain Men worked for fur trading companies; others sold their fur to the highest bidder.

6. The Rendezvous • In the late summer all the Mountain Men gathered for the Rendezvous. • For the Mountain Men Rendezvous was the high point of the year. • They met with the trading companies to exchange their “Hairy Banknotes”-beaver skins- for traps, guns, coffee, and other goods. • They met old friends and exchanged news, they relaxed by competing in races and various other contests- including swapping stories about who had been on the most exciting adventures.

7. The South Pass • South Pass, a broad break through the Rockies. • South Pass later became the main route that settlers took to Oregon. • To survive in the wilderness, a Mountain man had to be skillful and resources. • Trapper Joe Meek told, how when faced with starvation, he once held his hands “in an ant hill until the were covered with ants, then he greedily licked them off”. • The Mountain Men took pride in joking about the dangers they faced.

8. The End Of The Mountain Men • In the time Mountain Men killed off most of the beaver and could no longer trap. • Some went to settle on farms in the Oregon. • With their knowledge of the western lands, though, some Mountain Men found new work. • Jim Bridger, Kit Carson, and others acted as guides to lead parties of settlers now streaming west.

9. The End… Credits By: Josh Beasley & Kedar Bajwa Thanks to the text book, and the map!