Editorial note — Chapter II · AGAINST THE WATERS[16]

“The principal articles of trade were alcohol, blankets, blue and scarlet cloth, sheeting (domestics), ticking, tobacco, knives, fire-steels, arrow-points, files, brass wire (different sizes), beads, brass tacks, leather belts (from four to ten inches wide), silver ornaments for hair, shells, axes, hatchets. Alcohol was the principal article of trade, until after the passing of an act of Congress (June 30, 1843) prohibiting it under severe penalties. . . . There was a bitter rivalry between the Hudson Bay Company and the American Fur Company. The Hudson Bay Company often sent men to induce the confederated Blackfeet to go north and trade, and the Indians said they were offered large rewards to kill all the traders on the Missouri River and destroy the trading-posts. . . . When the Blackfeet commenced to trade on the Missouri, they did not have any robes to trade; they saved only what they wanted for their own use. The Hudson Bay Company only wanted furs of different kinds. The first season the Americans did not get any robes, but traded for a large quantity of beaver, otter, marten, etc. They told the Indians they wanted robes, and from that time the Indians made them their principal article of trade. The company did not trade provisions of any kind to the Indians, but when an Indian made a good trade he would get a spoonful of sugar, which he would put in his medicine-bag to use in sickness when all other remedies failed.” (“The Rocky Mountain Magazine.”)