Fur Trade in Operations in Eastern Iowa -1800 to 1833

Vintage monograph originally published in 1914.

Details the fur trade in Eastern Iowa with specific mentions of - Colonel George Davenport, Antoine LeClaire, John Jacob Astor, Jean Baptiste Fairbault, Thomas G. Anderson, Maurice Blondeau, James Aird, Nicolas Boilvin. Places mentioned include - Fort Armstront, Fort Madison, Prarie Du Chien, St Louis.

read excerpt -

George Hunt ventured to start out for the site of his post on the Mississippi in order to bring away his lead which had been melted into a solid lump when the Winnebagoes burned his trading-house. He took passage on one of three French boats which left St. Louis in May, 1812.

They had proceeded some distance above Fort Madison when they met Maurice Blondeau with a boat-load of furs bound for St. Louis. He informed them that a force of Winnebagoes had occupied Rock Island in the Mississippi and were levying tribute upon all Frenchmen and French boats and threatening to slaughter all Americans. Hunt therefore abandoned his projected trip and embarked southward with Blondeau who immediately showed him an object of interest stowed away among his packs of furs in the person of Lieutenant Pryor. The latter was just completing his escape from the Winnebagoes who had visited him also on January 1st. The whole party landed at Fort Madison and on the next day went on to St. Louis.

In the month of June, 1812, the United States declared war against Great Britain, citing among its grievances the Indian disturbances in the Northwest. The British military operations which ensued in the Upper Mississippi Valley constituted little more than the determined efforts of British traders to beat back the advancing power of American government and trade; for one of Canada's main resources was furs and peltries, and to obtain these the mother coun¬try furnished the manufactured goods. Hence both Canadians and Englishmen united to uphold their interests. The commandants at Fort Madison, Mackinac, Detroit, and Fort Dearborn (Chicago) had to bear the brunt of the British attack, un-formidable as it was. Captain Stark of Fort Madison was ordered to put his fortification into the best possible state of defense and to exercise vigilance: any number of Indians could then be resisted. After Ensign Barony Vasquez arrived with a relief force of twelve soldiers the captain departed with a small party of soldiers for service down the river, and the post then came under the command of Lieutenant Thomas Hamilton.

On the fifth day of September, a band of over two hun¬dred Winnebagoes, infuriated by their defeat on the Wabash, and Sacs under Black Hawk attacked the garrison, scalped a soldier, burned the boat and cargo of a trader named Graham and two government boats, killed some cattle, and plundered and burnt the houses of men named Julien and M'Nabb. For three days they besieged the fort and threw fire upon the block-houses which were only saved from conflagration by the use of guns as syringes. Fearing that the savages would set fire to the factory and endanger the whole fort if the wind blew from that direction, Hamilton one calm evening caused the factory to be burned.

The Indians were believed to have had several killed during the siege. Hamilton and Vasquez were complimented on the way in which they defended a post so badly situated: the interior of the stockade lay within view of the hills round about and was surrounded by chasms within ten or twelve paces of the pickets and block-houses. From these places the Indians had hurled hundreds of pieces of burning timber and kept up "a continued sheet of fire from guns, fiery arrows and brands." But the brave fellows within were able now and then to knock over "such red skins as had the impudence to peep over the bank."

That the site of Fort Madison was unsuitable and therefore difficult to defend, many reports bear witness.