American Fur Trade of the Far West, Volume 1

"First among [fur trade histories] in both time and stature". (Gordon B. Dodds in "Historians and the American West"). "A work that has stood the test of time as the most important and most comprehensive narrative history to date on the white-directed trade in the trans-Mississippi West from approximately 1807 to 1843". (William R. Swagerty, University of Idaho). "The American Fur Trade of the Far West" is the premier history of its subject. Its publication in 1902 invited historians and general readers to look more closely at the intricate connections of the fur trade with the development of North America. Hiram Chittenden provides a perspective or overall outline of the fur trade that, after nearly a century, remains sound. Volume 2 of this Bison Book edition follows the traps and trails of such colorful characters as Ezekial Williams, Hugh Glass, Mike Fink, and John Colter. Described here are the explorers, missionaries, government survey parties, and Indian tribes of the fur trade West, and the geography that often determined their success or failure. Nine appendixes containing miscellaneous primary materials precede a bibliography and index. A new feature is a foreword by William R. Swagerty.