Who Were Free Trappers? - Primary Sources
Here are two primary sources describing the character and habits of the famous Rocky Mountain free trapper.
Every discipline has its own ideal or quintessential person. They are the people who have not only perfected the skills at which they work, but have fully embodied whatever code of ethics the group has created. Navy Seals come to mind. Navy Seals are considered by many to be the ultimate warriors in the United States armed forces. To become a seal you not only have to be capable on the battlefield, but you must also embody character traits like toughness, dedication, and accountability. Show weakness in any one place and you won’t be allowed to enter this select group. The same idea can be applied to the free trappers of the Rocky Mountain fur trade.
When researching the Rocky Mountain fur trade, you’ll eventually come across the individual known as the free trapper. Like the Navy Seals in our armed forces, these men were considered the ultimate trappers of their own time. When most men entered the fur trade, they did so as employees of major fur companies. Oftentimes, the company would supply the trapper with everything they needed for an outfit and were paid wages. However, everything they trapped was traded back to the company. For these trappers, it was almost impossible to get out from under the debts they incurred just to get outfitted. According to BYU history professor Dr. Fred Gowans, “these men were literally owned by the company.” It’s strange to realize that although we imagine the mountain men as some of the freest individuals to have ever lived, many were actually bonded with heavy economic burdens.
On the opposite end of the spectrum were the free trappers. Free trappers were men that had no ties to fur companies. They could sell their furs to any buyer they wanted to and at any price they could negotiate for. To be a free trapper you had to be able to outfit yourself by trapping enough beaver to obtain necessary supplies. In other words, you had no safety net to catch you if you fell, but you could potentially make more profits from your efforts. Although, after reading the sources below, you might realize free trappers were after more than just profits. They had raw freedom to move and work, but it also came with an awful lot of responsibility. To many of their contemporaries (people who they lived at the same time with), they were the ultimate man.
Primary Sources
Although the preceding is true, it doesn’t really capture the flavor of who the free trappers really were. In order to best do that, spend a few minutes looking at primary sources describing free trappers by people who met them. Below is a video with an audio recording of the journals if you’d like to listen to it as you read.
Teachers may find this PDF helpful to assist their students in analyzing the primary sources.
Warren Ferris
“Leaving Green River the next day, we encamped after a hard journey of twenty-five miles, on one of its branches, called Ham’s Fork. From this point, several persons were despatched in different direction in quest of a party of hunters and trappers, called Free Men, from the circumstances of their not being connected with either of the rival Fur Companies, but holding themselves at liberty to trade with one or all. They rove through this savage and desolate region free as the mountain air, leading a venturous and dangerous life, governed by no laws save their won wild impulses, and bounding their desires and wishes to what their good rifles and traps may serve them to procure. Strange, that people can find so strong and fascinating a charm in this rude nomadic, and hazardous mode of life, as to estrange themselves from home, country, friends, and all the comforts, elegances, and privileges of civilization; but so it is, the toil, the danger, the loneliness, the deprivation of this condition of being, fraught with all its disadvantages, and replete with peril, is, they think, more than compensated by the lawless freedom, and the stirring excitement, incident to their situation and pursuits. The very danger has its attraction, and the courage and cunning, and skill, and watchfullness made necessary by the difficulties they have to overcome, the privations they are forced to contend with, and the perils against which they must guard, become at once their pride and boast. A strange, wild, terrible, romantic, hard, and exciting life they lead, with alternate plenty and starvation, activity and repose, safety and alarm, and all the other adjuncts that belong to so vagrant a condition, in a harsh, barren, untamed, and fearful region of desert, plain, and mountain. Yet so attached to it do they become, that few ever leave it, and they deem themselves, nay are, with all these bars against them, far happier that the in-dwellers of towns and cities, with all the gay and giddy whirl of fashion’s mad delusions in their train.”
Rufus Sage
“A genuine mountaineer is a problem hard to solve. He seems a kind of sui genus, an oddity, both in dress, language, and appearance, from the rest of mankind. Associated with nature in her most simple forms by habit and manner of life, he gradually learns to despise the restraints of civilization, and assimilates himself to the rude and unpolished character of the scenes with which he is most conversant. Frank and open in his manners and generous in his disposition, he is, at the same time, cautious and reserved. In his frankness he will allow no one to acquire an undue advantage of him, though in his generosity, he will oftentimes expend the last cent to assist a fellow in need. Implacable in his hatred, he is also steadfast in his friendship, and knows no sacrifice too great for the benefit of those he esteems. Free as the pure air he breathes, and proudly conscious of his own independence, he will neither tyrannize over others, nor submit to be trampled upon, —and is always prepared to meet the perils he may chance to encounter, with an undaunted front. Inured to hardship and deprivation, his wants are few, and he is the last to repine at the misfortunes which so often befall him. Patience becomes as it were interwoven with his very nature, and he submits to the greatest disasters without a murmur. His powers of endurance, from frequent exercise, attain a strength and capacity almost incredible, such as are altogether unknown to the more delicately nurtured. His is a trade, to become master of which requires a long and faithful apprenticeship. Of this none seems more conscious than himself, and woe to the "greenhorn" who too prematurely assumes to be "journeyman." His ideas, his arguments, his illustrations, all partake of the unpolished simplicity of his associations; though abounding often in the most vivid imagery, pointed inferences, and luminous expositions, they need a key to make them intelligible to the novice.”
Well, there you have it, the Rocky Mountain free trapper described by the people who saw him first hand. Their lives don’t appear to have been marked by comfort, wealth, or luxury, but they were free as the hawks, fierce as the grizzlies, and tougher than bull meat. They certainly appear to have been considered the ultimate mountain men.
