In this book, Barton Barbour presents the first comprehensive
history of Fort Union, the nineteenth century's most important and
longest-lived Upper Missouri River fur trading post. Barbour
explores the economic, social, legal, cultural, and political
significance of the fort which was the brainchild of Kenneth
McKenzie and Pierre Chouteau, Jr., and a part of John Jacob Astor's
fur trade empire.
From 1830 to 1867, Fort Union symbolized the power of New York
and St. Louis, and later, St. Paul merchants' capital in the West.
The most lucrative post on the northern plains, Fort Union affected
national relations with a number of native tribes, such as the
Assiniboine, Cree, Crow, Sioux, and Blackfeet. It also influenced
American interactions with Great Britain, whose powerful Hudson's
Bay Company competed for Upper Missouri furs.
Barbour shows how Indians, mixed-bloods, Hispanic-, African-,
Anglo-, and other Euro-Americans living at Fort Union created a
system of community law that helped maintain their unique frontier
society. Many visiting artists and scientists produced a
magnificent graphic and verbal record of events and people at the
post, but the old-time world of fur traders and Indians collapsed
during the Civil War when political winds shifted in favor of
Lincoln's Republican Party.
In 1865 Chouteau lost his trade license and sold Fort Union to
new operators, who had little interest in maintaining the post's
former culture.
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