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BILL
CUNNINGHAM
Captain - Staff Writer
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Educated
or Not ?
I
don’t know about the rest of the country,
but here on the western slope of Colorado the
weather has been diverse enough for even the
old-timers to complain. It was a hard winter
with more snow and colder temperatures than
usual, almost no spring, and in early summer
near desert-like temperature. In one week it
jumped from the low seventies to the low to
mid nineties with hotter promised by mid-week.
You may ask why I am telling you about this
mundane stuff that is probably not germane to
your situation. Well, I don’t have much of a
reason except that I needed a lead in—and a
theme.
Today
there seems to be a widely held supposition
that many of the early trappers were
uneducated, lower class, untrained men,
unsuited for normal society. Jim Bridger is
known to have been illiterate and Kit Carson
barely able to sign his name or write an
official report. Of course, others such as
Yount, Young, Wolfskill, Jed Smith,
Fitzgerald, Fowler, Pattie, and many others
give the lie to the suppositions of general
illiteracy—but that hasn’t prevented the
picture many carry about the men of the fur
trade.
I have
listened to many conversations around
campfires that for some reason have failed to
address a common situation in the eighteen and
nineteenth centuries in America. Class
distinctions were much more prevalent than
they are today (yes, class attributes are part
of life even now). A reading of many of the
journals left to us by fur trade participants
readily show class as a defining influence
among them. I think, left to their
‘druthers, those distinctions and benefits
derived from them, would never have changed.
Here is
where my thinking might (probably) give
historians problems and arguments, if not
downright disdain (historians seem to clutch
at a class distinction of their own. As a good
example, I know that at one point in time at
least, Bruce Catton, the prolific writer of
many Civil War books, was denied by historians
the right to be considered one himself—all
because he had not obtained high enough
education in history to suit them).
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Judging
from events of those days I think the constant
battle against the elements brought all class
together in such a manner as to make their
clothing, diet, accouterments, language, and
tools, all much alike. It is difficult to look
down ones’ nose at another who looks just like
you do. Likewise, it gets difficult to look up
to someone who seems like you. And anytime
someone perceives that someone else, no matter
who they think they may be, considers you to be
inferior in any way is grounds for a fight.
Day to day
living in the mountains and deserts wreak havoc
on clothing. As we know, all levels of fur trade
company men ended up wearing leather clothes.
This included Factors, Booshways, Brigade
leaders, and company owners. Now there were no
class distinctions because of differences of
clothing. (In the east the "upper
class" wore lots of finery while the
tradesmen wore coarser clothing). In the west of
that time there were no hospitals, cities or
towns. What would have been diet distinctions
went away—everyone ate the same stuff for the
most part. When hurt (like Jed Smith and the
grizzly bear) the upper class bled just as much
and the same color as anyone else. Their care
(like getting stitched up with needle and thread
or sinew) was the same. They groaned just as
much. That seems to have been a great equalizer.
Weather
conditions such as bitter, days long, blizzards,
pounding hail storms, tornados out in buffalo
country, rain and mud to be traveled through and
slept in, drought and its attendant dust and
lack of water had to be borne, often with
nothing but the shelter of an overhanging ledge
or clump of trees (unwise in a lightning storm).
All of these factors and more, experienced by
the entire population of a company or brigade,
had to have had a social democratizing effect.
Part of my
reasoning is drawn from the later careers of
many of the people involved, such as Joe Meek
becoming a sheriff, Bridger an army scout, and
Carson a military commander. As to be expected,
some of the moneyed or socially upper class went
on to great success (take a look at what
Campbell did in St. Louis), while others had
little accomplishments—but whenever they met
in later years, no matter the social
differences, the bonds of equality forged in the
mountains were still there. So in summary, it
just makes sense that the attitudes and mores¢
developed in the mountains would travel to
wherever in the settlements the mountain men
ended up and cause a change in attitudes and
practices.
Hope your
rendezvous season is going swimmingly. I know
that I really enjoyed the NAF event in southern
Utah this year and I’m looking forward to the
NAF camp at the western nationals up at Creed.
Howdy will be running the first aid tent, and
the eastern Factor, Harry Carlson, will be
there—so will I. Sure hope to see a lot of you
in camp.
Respectfully
Yr Hmbl, Ob’t Etc.
Bill
Cunningham
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