Russia, Siberia, and the Fur Trade
And speaking of the fur trade, as I believe we were, the Russian fur trade did not begin in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest of North America. At the same time that French and British (and to a lesser extent, Dutch, and Swedish) fur traders were exploring the virgin forests of North America in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Russians were moving east toward the Siberian tundra in search of sable, also known as “soft gold,” the most expensive fur in the world.
A 19th century print of Cossacks collecting the fur tribute in Siberia, with all the problematic attitudes one would expect
Traders, trappers and hunters were drawn to Siberia by a “fur fever”comparable to the 1849 California gold rush. By the very nature of their work, they became explorers and conquerors. Some worked on their own. Others were employed by the state or by wealthy merchant agents. The line between the two groups was blurry. Many Cossacks, working in the service of the Russian tsar, amassed fortunes for themselves by trading and trapping illegally. Independent traders and hunters frequently worked for the state at the request of local commanders.
Independent fur traders and state employees were equally eager to trap sable, the preferred fur of the Russian nobility and monarchy. A single hunting season could make a poor man rich.
Russians did not find an empty wilderness when they first arrived in Siberia in the 1580s. Conflict was inevitable. Russian traders were in Siberia to exploit the fur wealth to be found on the hunting and grazing lands of nomadic reindeer-herding peoples. Where Russians saw the fur-bearing animals only as a commodity, Siberian nomads combined the necessity of hunting with reverence for the animals they hunted. (Is any of this starting to sound familiar?) Over a period of eighty years, the Russians, armed with guns, imposed their rule on the indigenous populations and forced them to pay tribute in the form of furs.
The Russian conquest of Siberia was a world-changing event that almost no one noticed. The fur trade paid for Peter the Great’s transformation of Russia from a backwoods state with one foot in Asia to a great European power.
*My normal sources for translating a historical currency into today’s dollars failed me totally. I had assumed I would have to do a multi-step conversion from rubles to pounds, using seventeenth century values. Then from seventeenth century pounds to modern pounds, and hence to modern dollars. (A questionable process by any standard.) But none of my sources had a value for rubles prior to 1880. So let’s just agree that 300 rubles in 1650 would be worth quite a bit in today’s dollars and leave it at that.
History on Display: The Museum of the Fur Trade
Our long road trips usually begin with an idea or a destination. * In the case of our recent trip through the Western plains, our route was shaped by two museums that have been on our road trip bucket list for a long time. One of those was the Museum of the Fur Trade, just outside Chadron, Nebraska. We were not disappointed.
My Own True Love and I both came to our interest in the history of the American fur trade through our fascination with the French voyageurs along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, and the worldwide conflict between the British and French that ended with the defeat of France in 1763. The Museum of the Fur Trade places that story not only within its immediate context, but within a much larger story of fur-trading in North America. It starts early, with the fur trade’s connection with European cod-fishing off the Great Banks of Canada in the early seventeenth century. (I am continually fascinated by the way one trading commodity leads to another.) The museum describes how fur traders organized themselves in temporary partnerships each year and how the voyageurs created a complex system of written contracts to protect themselves from the big fur companies like the Hudson Bay Company and the American Fur Company. (The exhibit makes the off-hand comment that the voyageurs were the first unionized labor force in North America. An interesting idea, but I’m not sure it’s entirely accurate.)
The museum follows the fur trade west beyond the Great Lakes and the great rivers, and through the shift from beaver to buffalo and seal. I already knew something about fur trappers in the Rocky Mountains and Russian fur trappers in Alaska and along the Pacific coast, though I learned more. But I had no idea that furs were a significant component of North American and Russian trade with China, for instance.
The biggest “wow I didn’t know that” moment for me was the comancheros, an ethnically mixed group of traders who developed a distinctive form of trade in what is now New Mexico with the Comanches, Kiowas and other nations of the Southern Plains in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Unlike what I think of as the British and French model, in which traders set up posts and trappers brought furs to them, the comancheros loaded up their burros and oxcarts with trading goods and travelled into the plains in search of their highly mobile customers. I suspect there is a lot more to this story that I don’t know: I was once again reminded that the history of the American southwest in particular, and Spanish rule in the Americas in general, is one of my historical blind spots.
The museum’s exhibits are relatively old fashioned—lots of stuff, not many interactive exhibits. But the stuff is used effectively, particularly the extensive section on trade textiles and the ways they were used by the Native Americans who acquired them. Exhibits on the fur trade often leave out the Native American side of the exchange; the Museum of the Fur Trade includes it as integral part of the story. And rightly so.**
The museum also has a small number of outdoor exhibits, most notably a meticulous reconstruction of the James Bordeaux trading post, which is one of the rare reconstructions to be included in the National Register of Historic Places.*** The museum is located on the site of the trading post, which was founded by James Bordeaux in 1836 and operated longer than any other trading post in the area. In 1872, the Bordeaux family sold the post to Francis (Bushy) Boucher, who was the son-in-law of Spotted Tail, the head chief of the Brule Lakota. Boucher expanded the trading post business to include an illegal operation selling arms and ammunition to Native Americans who were resisting the United States’ efforts to force them onto reservations. **** In August, 1876, army troopers confiscated 40,000 rounds of Winchester ammunition from Boucher and closed the post. It was in ruins by the time the first homesteaders reached the area along with the railroad in 1885.
In short, the museum is well worth a visit if you’re planning a trip through the western plains.
*Following the Great River Road from its source in Minnesota to its end in Louisiana has kept us amused for several trips now. We have plenty of Great River Road yet to travel.
**In a recent issue of my newsletter , I talked about the stories we tell and the point of view from which we tell them and shared some questions that a reader/listener/viewer can ask if they want to identify the holes in a particular version of a story. (Because there are always holes, no matter how well-intentioned the historian/curator/artist/novelist/reporter/human is.) One of those questions is “Who or what is missing from the story?”.
***I must admit that I did not enjoy the outdoor exhibits as much as I usually do. The sign warning visitors to watch out for rattlesnakes left me a little distracted. I hate snakes.
**** There are suggestions that Bordeaux also sold guns under the counter to the Lakota, though on a smaller scale, in the years after the Civil War when the buffalo robe trade was in decline. Like Boucher and other French-American fur traders over the centuries, Bordeaux had family ties with the Native American people with whom he traded. His wife was a Brule Lakota and his brother-in-law was Swift Bear, and influential chief and adherent of Spotted Tail. Sometimes the allegiances are more complicated than the historical marker would suggest.
And speaking of navigating the Missouri river…
And speaking of the travails of navigating the Missouri River, as I believe we were, I am reminded of another riverboat-related museum on an earlier road trip, back in 2013. It’s still one of my all-time favorites. I hope you enjoy it.
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The Arabia Steamboat Museum in Kansas City is a private museum. Like all private museums, it’s the result of personal passion. Unlike many private museums, it’s big, professionally designed, and stunning.*
The museum weaves together three separate stories into an exciting whole: life in frontier America, the steamboats that served as the semi-trailers of the nineteenth century, and five friends who banded together to excavate one sunken steamboat.
In the nineteenth century, before the Army Corps of Engineers worked its magic, the Missouri River was as treacherous as a navigable river could be. Civil War journalist, and Union spy, Albert Deane Richardson described the river as “a stream of flowing mud studded with dead tree trunks and broken bars.” Nonetheless, the Missouri was a major trade route for frontier America and a profitable one. A steamboat could pay for itself with a single successful voyage. Just as well, since the average steamboat only lasted five years on “old Misery”. **
On September 5, 1856, near what is now Kansas City, the steamship Arabia hit a walnut snag that stove in her hull. The ship was lost within minutes. The human passengers all escaped, though one unlucky mule did not, but more than 200 tons of cargo intended for settlements along the river was lost.
Over time, the river shifted, leaving the ship buried forty-five feet deep in what became a farmer’s field. The Arabia was buried but not forgotten. Rumors that the ship held treasure (described as everything from gold coins to good Kentucky bourbon) meant there were numerous attempts to excavate it. For 150 years treasure seekers failed because the ship was about 100 feet from the river. Everyone who tried to dig was flooded out. In 1988, five families funded a professional excavation, using pumps to keep the site from flooding and the techniques developed during the Mary Rose excavation to preserve the finds.
Today, the artifacts from their excavation are only one part of the exhibit at the Arabia Steamboat museum. The museum also includes explanations of how steamboats worked, part of the Arabia’s hull, and a fascinating description of the excavation itself. If you’re interested in daily life on the frontier, steamboats, or just a good adventure story,*** the Arabia Steamboat Museum is worth a visit.
* Not that I have anything against little museums created with love and imagination on a tight budget. I’ve spend many happy hours in quirky storefront museums.
** The Corps of Engineers identified 289 steamboat wrecks in the Missouri when they mapped the river in 1897.
*** In my case, that would be yes, yes, and yes.
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A traveler’s tip for anyone inclined to come on board the Arabia:
We didn’t know until we got there, but the museum is located in a re-built warehouse near the river. City Market is home to a year-round farmer’s market on the weekends and year-round food-related tenants. If you have foodie inclinations, leave yourself time to shop and eat.