The Brothers Robidoux and the Opening of the American West
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Joseph Robidoux returned to the Bluffs in late November 1825, Kennerly mentioning, “Robidoux got to Papcon creek yesterday or day before with small boat.”49 Joseph carried some trade goods back from St. Louis and opened for business as usual. A few days after his return Kennerly reported, “Waters sent for Brl sugar to Robidos Boat” and “Lally Moore $25 recd note from Robidoux.”50 On the heels of Robidoux came Mr. Drips, of the trade partners Fontenelle and Drips, who along with Robidoux represented trade competition to Cabanné, Pratte & Company, and the American Fur Company. Kennerly, who knew all the parties on a first-name basis and had business dealings with them, frequently found himself, willing or not, in the middle of their arguments, complaints, and even official correspondence; “recd note from Mr. Cabanne that Fontinell had taken goods to Indians again—wrote to Mr. Cabanne on subject—spoke to Daugherty also on subject.”51
Meanwhile, the names of Francois, Michel, and Antoine turned up on a report written by the provincial governor of New Mexico, Antonio Narbona, and dated February 10, 1826. In the report he identified extranjeros, foreigners, who have entered Mexico, the type of business they conducted, and whether or not they had a valid passport by which to emigrate. The report also indicated where they apparently settled, either in Santa Fe or Taos. The three brothers, identified as Francisco, Miguel, and Antonio Rubidu, were all listed as merchants, traveling without passports, with residence in Taos. The governor noted that Taos lay on the very edge of settlement and was popular with foreigners because “it affords a refuge which many take advantage of without giving knowledge of their presence.”52
Louis apparently liked Santa Fe better. Shortly after arriving he succumbed to the charms of the women of New Mexico. At some point during the next decade he took Guadalupe Garcia as his common-law wife with the recorded date of the birth of their first child in 1835. There is no church record of their marriage so the date when they began to permanently live together is not known. While physical attraction no doubt played a role, Louis most certainly also knew of the colonization decree of January 1823 offering a letter of citizenship to those who produced enough money to support themselves and marry Mexican women.53 The other three brothers, frequenting northern New Mexico saw their fortunes to be made directly from the fur trade, but Louis maintained more the profile of a general merchant. All the brothers fit in better than most American adventurers because they were already Roman Catholic, the official religion of the Mexican state, and spoke some Spanish. Apparently Louis spoke fluently enough to communicate without a translator when asked to give a deposition in December 1825.54
Whether or not every business transaction of the brothers while in Mexico proved legitimate or not, their names did appear on a list of numbered guías, trade permits granted by the government. The records of the trade permits were kept at the Custom House in Santa Fe. Louis consigned goods to an engagé or clerk named Manuel Martin on May 19, 1826, bound for El Paso. Antoine received Guía #22 on a nonspecified date in 1826, with no destination listed. No record of further issuance of trade permits for any of the Robidouxs exist for the years 1827–1828.55
By 1826, groups of American trappers began to wear out their welcome, drawing complaints from Mexican traders and even expatriate Americans then living in Santa Fe and Taos as Mexican citizens. The Mexican edict against Americans trapping in their territory had never been enforced. One of the most vocal opponents of the trapping parties, James Baird, had spent eight years in a Spanish prison for trapping and trading infractions prior to the Mexican Revolution. Having become a Mexican citizen he complained to officials that “beaver is the most precious product which this territory produces,” and in the past year and a half Americans had hauled off $100,000 worth. He also stated that the foreigners, his former countrymen, held contempt for the Mexican nation, and should be excluded from the trade so that “we Mexicans may peacefully profit by the goods which the merciful God has been pleased to enrich our soil.”56
Michel returned to the New Mexico trade in 1826, as mentioned in Narbona's report, apparently leaving his license on the Kanza to his older brother Joseph to operate. He may have joined a large group of trappers initially organized the year before under the leadership of Ceran St. Vrain, from an old St. Louis family. Possibly he worked for or with Francois in Taos. Francois had patched things up with Sylvestre Pratte, who received a license to trap from Vigil, the same governor to whom Francois had given the one hundred pesos. Pratte had several groups of trappers operating under his license and Francois agreed to supply part of an outfit, lead a trapping expedition, or partner in acquiring beaver pelts from the freelance trappers.
We know Pratte and Francois were in some kind of partnership, for in May 1826, over six hundred pounds of beaver pelts were confiscated by the alcalde of Taos under orders from Governor Narbona's Mexican administration in Santa Fe. Seeking to demonstrate some enforcement of the earlier edict against unlicensed Americans trapping in Mexican waters the council voted to repeal all foreign licenses. Taos had come under the domination of French-American traders like Pratte and Robidoux, with the town routinely flooded with trappers returning from the field with their pelts, refitting, and in the interim taking Mexican señoritas as wives and girlfriends, exactly what Francois had done with Luisa Romero. The official hostility toward foreign traders and trappers could be addressed by secreting business to such a low profile that it went unnoticed by Mexican officials, or by coming to some mutual, and presumably financial, accommodation with them. A personal appeal to Governor Narbona by Francois got the furs back and an extension of their license.57
During the summer of 1826, Pratte & Company dispatched another large brigade of trappers to New Mexico, to be lead by the twenty-seven-year-old Sylvestre Pratte. Upon reaching Taos, the larger expedition divided into four groups of twenty to thirty men each. Michel, then twenty-eight years old, took command of one party along with Pratte. The other groups were led by St. Vrain and Old Bill Williams, John Rowland, and Ewing Young. Once separated, the groups operated in complete independence from one another. How so many American trappers got through New Mexico without being stopped by Governor Narbona raises many questions. He may have realized that stopping the Americans required more resources than he had available to him, and by manipulating his official correspondence with the government in Mexico City, he might make it appear that his counterpart, the governor of Sonora, should be faulted. Most of the Americans headed toward the Gila and its tributaries to trap, well within the bounds of the Chihuahua and Sonora provinces.58
One of the members of Michel's group, James Ohio Pattie, just twenty-two years old at the time, later wrote an important narrative of their expedition. He and his father, Sylvester, joined up with Sylvestre Pratte in 1824 at Cabanné's Post, and went out to Santa Fe where they hunted and trapped, had some less than successful encounters with Indians, and speculated in copper mining for a while. With the arrival of the latest brigade of the Pratte trappers in New Mexico, it may have been a contributing reason why Pattie joined the group led by Michel. Leaving the Santa Fe area, Michel's group headed south and west toward the Gila, which Pattie spelled as “Helay,” and the lower Colorado River region. Pattie referred to Michel as the Frenchman, and the company as the French group, because so many of them were from the old St. Louis families. He even commented in his narrative, “My father suffered greatly in the view of my parting him, and attempted to dissuade me from it. He strongly painted the dangers of the route, and represented to me, that I should not find these Frenchmen like my own country people, for companions. We left the mines, January 2nd, 1826.”59
The expedition seemed to have an ominous destiny from the beginning. First, it appears that Sylvestre Pratte did not go out with the group of trappers as anticipated. He had legal issues that kept him in Taos and Santa Fe through the autumn and he may have decided to winter there. That being the case, then Michel took command as the captain of the party, making the key decisions. Not much older than Pattie a
nd the rest, he may not have inspired much confidence. Early on the party met Indians who had stolen horses and robbed Pattie the year before. Threatening to kill the Indians on the spot, the trappers got some of the horses and some furs returned. But on further discussion, Pattie learned that the Indian nations lying ahead of them were all “bad, treacherous and quarrelsome.” By January 28, they reached the village of the Papago Indians near the confluence of the Salt and Gila Rivers late in the day. Pattie stated, “at the Papawar village, the inhabitants of which came running to meet us, with their faces painted, and their bows and arrows in their hands. We were alarmed at these hostile appearances, and halted. We told them that we were friends, at which they threw down their arms, laughing the while, and showing by their countenance that they were aware that we were frightened.”60
If Michel, as the leader, appreciated the situation, he gave no evidence of it. Pattie continued, “We entered the village, and the French began to manifest their uncontrolled curiosity, by strolling about in every direction. I noted several crowds of Indians, collecting in gangs, and talking earnestly. I called the leader of my French companions, and informed him that I did not like these movements of the Indians, and was fearful that they were laying a plan to cut us all up. He laughed at my fears, telling me I was a coward. I replied, that I did not think that to be cautious, and on our guard, was to show cowardice, and that I still thought it best for us to start off. At this he became angry, and told me that I might go when I pleased, and that he would go when he was ready.” It is important to note that Pattie does not in his narrative specifically identify the “captain” of his party by name. As it is commonly assumed that Sylvestre Pratte stayed in the towns over the winter, command has always been assigned to Michel Robidoux.
The situation in the Papago village continued to deteriorate throughout the night. Pattie recounted, “I then spoke to a Frenchman of our number that I had known for a long time in Missouri; I proposed to him to join me, and we would leave the village and encamp by ourselves. He consented, and we went out of the village to the distance of about 400 yards, under the pretext of going there to feed our horses. When the sun was about half an hour high [assumed to mean a half hour before sunset], I observed the French captain coming out toward us, accompanied by a great number of Indians, all armed with bows and arrows.” Michel, who having worked under his older brothers for so long, did indeed relish the leadership of the trappers and the opportunity to come into his own with a successful expedition. Did his desire to succeed at command cloud his judgment? Pattie continued, “This confirmed to me in my conviction that they intended us no good. Expressing my apprehensions to my French companion, he observed in his peculiar style of English, that the captain was too proud and headstrong, to allow him to receive instructions from anyone, for that he thought nobody knew any thing but himself.”61
Pattie and his companion built their own campfire but took care not to unsaddle their horses. The French captain left the village and camped within one hundred yards of them, still surrounded by the Papago. According to Pattie, the captain agreed to allow the Indians to not only guard the party's horses, but also their stacks of arms, which the Papago chief “took rope, and tied the arms fast to a tree.” For that Pattie reproached the captain, saying, “it seemed to me no mark of their being friendly, for them to retain their own arms, and persuade us to putting ours out of our power, and that one, who had known Indians, ought to be better acquainted with their character, than to encamp with them, without his men having their own arms in their hands. On this he flew into a most violent passion, calling me, with a curse added to the epithet, a coward, wishing to God that he had never taken me with him, to dishearten his men, and render them insubordinate. Being remarkable neither for forbearance, or failing to pay a debt of hard words, I gave him as good as he sent, telling him, among other things no ways flattering, that he was a liar and a fool, for that none other than a fool would disarm his men, and go to sleep in the midst of armed savages in the woods.”62
Refusing to rejoin the others, Pattie and his companion were visited by the Papago chief, who tried to convince them to come and eat and sleep with the rest. Pattie resisted the idea, so the chief asked that some of his warriors be allowed to sleep in their little camp. Again Pattie refrained the offer and the chief went away mad. Shortly after that, “the captain, apparently more calm, came to us, and told us, that our conduct was both imprudent and improper, in not conciliating the Indians by consenting to eat with them, or allowing them to sleep with us. I told him that if he had a fancy to eat, or sleep with these Indians, I had neither power nor the will to control him; but that, being determined that neither he nor they should sleep with me, he had better go about his business.” Again the captain flew off the handle and left cursing. Pattie and his French companion quickly fed their horses, packed their mules, and made ready to leave as soon as the camp had gone to sleep.63
At midnight, as Pattie had anticipated, all hell broke. “We heard a fierce whistle, which we instantly understood to be the signal for an attack on the French camp. But a moment ensued, before we heard the clashing of war clubs, followed by the shrieks and heavy groans of the dying French, mingled with the louder and more horrible yells of these treacherous and blood thirsty savages. A moment afterwards, we heard a party of them making towards us. To convince them that they could not butcher us in our defenseless sleep, we fired at them. This caused them to retreat. Convinced that we had no time to lose, we mounted our horses, and fled at the extent of our speed. We heard a single gun discharged in the Indian camp, which we supposed the act of an Indian who had killed the owner.”64
The two men rode toward the mountains on the south side of the river near the Papago village. At daybreak they stopped to let the horses drink from a creek and take a little food. Pattie's French companion climbed a high ridge and looked back toward the village. Smoke rose from the Indian fires; and suddenly he spotted something moving toward them. At first they believed it might be a bear. It continued to move in their direction. “In a moment we saw buttons glitter on this object from the reflected glare of the sun's rays. We were undeceived in regard to our bear, and now supposed it an Indian, decorated with a coat of the unfortunate Frenchmen. We concluded to allow him to approach close enough to satisfy our doubts, before we fired upon him. We lay still, until he came within fair rifle distance, when to our astonishment, we discovered it to be the French captain!” He was in poor condition with a number of wounds, but had escaped because he had concealed a pocket pistol and used it at an opportune moment. Despite a burning desire to chastise the captain for his disastrous lack of judgment, Pattie refrained and dressed the man's wounds.65
Pattie surprisingly found the party of Ewing Young camped in the vicinity and the three who had escaped the Papago massacre joined them. The thirty-two men, “all joined under a genuine American leader,” plotted a fitting revenge against the Indians. On January 31, by Pattie's calculation of time, the trappers set an ambush outside the Papago village and enticed the warriors out by exposing two men near a dry creekbed that had become an improvised rifle pit. When the warriors came out they were shot to pieces before abandoning their wigwams. The trappers advanced into the village where they counted 110 dead Indians and “one poor old blind and deaf Indian, who sat eating his mush as unconcernedly as if all had been tranquil in the village. We did not molest him.” Young's men “retook all the horses of the Frenchmen.” Then, as Pattie reported, “We then undertook the sad duty of burying the remains of the unfortunate Frenchmen. A sight more horrible to behold, I have never seen. They were literally cut in pieces, and fragments of their bodies scattered in every direction, round which the monsters had danced, and yelled.”66 Clearly the survival of the Papago massacre of his trappers represented the defining moment in the life of Michel Robidoux.
The interest of New York capitalist John Jacob Astor in the St. Louis–based fur trade flowered during the tumultuous period following the death of Lisa
and the initial rush into the Rocky Mountain trade. He had proposed a deal to the Chouteaus in 1819 but been turned down. In response, during 1823, Astor acquired the firm Stone, Bostwick & Co., which operated in Detroit and St. Louis, and competed with the Chouteaus by outfitting Lisa, and later, Ashley and Henry. The Western Department of the American Fur Company opened its St. Louis office and put Ramsay Crooks (1787–1859), a tough Scotsman, in charge. Crooks had done business on the Missouri before. He pressed the Chouteaus to sign a contract for Indian trade merchandise and handled the furs brought in. Profits were made for the first time in many years. In 1825 Crooks married Bernard Pratte's daughter and, in doing so, joined the extended Chouteau clan.
The financially disastrous expedition into New Mexico in 1826, followed by another less-than-stellar operation, during which Bernard Pratte's son, Slyvestre, died, made up the Chauteaus' minds to sign on with Astor. B. Pratte & Company becoming the sole agent of the American Fur Company and accepted the desperately needed business leadership. Using Astor's business model, if competition could not be won by standard means of supply, demand, and pricing, they then moved to simply buy them out. That is exactly what they did in 1827, with the Columbia Fur Company, operated by Kenneth McKenzie, William Laidlaw, Daniel Lamont, and James Kipp.67 Astor's company eventually dominated the St. Louis–centered trade. In a published list of those licensed to trade from St. Louis in 1826, the American Fur Company paid the highest fee of all. The company paid state license fees of $87.23 and county fees of $43.61. The next highest fees, of the fifty-two Venders of Merchandise were paid by the firm of Ingram & Riley of $43.09 and $21.54, respectively.68