Distinctly Montana Magazine

37 w w w. d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m As a mode of transportation, steamboats compressed time and distance, compared to the laborious transits previously made by keelboats. Ramsey Crooks astutely conveyed the importance of this development in a letter to Chouteau, wherein he congratu- lated the latter on having "brought the Falls of the Missouri as near comparatively as the River Platte was in my younger days." Steamboats' ability to transport massive amounts of cargo en- abled the American Fur Company to adroitly pivot from its em- phasis on beaver pelts to the burgeoning bison robe trade. By the early 1830s, beaver populations in many Rocky Mountain trapping grounds were already depleted. Increased availability of silk from China and a growing preference for its use on men's hats sharply suppressed market demand and, thus, the price paid for plews. By the end of that decade, it simply was no longer profitable to trap beaver. The bulk and weight of bison robes, on the other hand, pre- cluded development of a significant market prior to the use of steamboats as cargo vessels on the upper Missouri. In 1812, for example, the American Fur Company acquired only 12,000 robes from the equestrian tribes. Twenty years later, the Yellow Stone picked up 7,200 robes at Fort Union alone, and trade in that commodity increased quickly thereafter. Data from Fort McKenzie, the principal AFC post in Blackfoot country from 1834-44, clearly illustrates this trajectory. Despite severe population losses incurred during the smallpox epidemic of 1837-38, Blackfoot trade at Fort McKenzie increased from ap- proximately 3,000 robes in 1835 to 21,000 in 1841, which made it the most productive fort in the interior West. In accordance with Kenneth McKenzie's entrepreneurial vision, the American Fur Company had, in short order, wrested the coveted Piikani trade from their Canadian competitors. The best available evidence indicates that traffic from AFC posts on the upper Missouri averaged 25,375 robes from 1828 to 1834, rose markedly to 67,000 in 1840, and peaked in the late 1840s and early 1850s. Reliable sources cite the following figures for annual trade during the latter period: 110,000 robes in 1847- As a mode of transportation, STEAMBOATS COMPRESSED TIME AND DISTANCE... Quill-embroidered pad saddle, probably Red River Metis, acquired by Edward Harris in 1843 at Fort Union. Alabama Department of Archives and History, Accession Number 86.3147.28. Rottentail (?), Crow, October 26, 1851. Portrait by Rudolph Friederich Kurz. National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, Negative Number 2856-93.

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