FACTS n TRACKS on the SANTA FE TRAIL©
POST # 1
A common perception of Trail trade during the Early Years,
Profits were good, but by 1824 the little Mexican province of New Mexico was saturated with goods and the traders then continued down into Old Mexico to the states of Sonora, Sinaloa, and Chihuahua; to the towns of Chihuahua, Durango etc. and continued to make money.
Silver and gold coin, specie, did not circulate freely in New Mexico before or after independence in 1821, it was a remote, destitute province. The working class citizen of New Mexico survived on what they grew, earned or bartered, were impoverished and could not afford Trail products. Early expeditions retailed to the elite class at their residences in the valley of the Rio Norte, yet a small percentage of the population. Some American merchants trekked to Mexico but seldom, if ever, made return trips.
Three parties from the 1824 LeGrande expedition were the first to travel into the Mexican Republic in to discover outlets for unsold trade goods. Captain Owens lost his life and hundreds of mules to Comanche raiders crossing Texas to reach sugar cane crushing plantations near Alexandra, Louisiana. His partner, Thomas Dudley and five crew members were all injured. In 1825 twenty-five members from the Storrs expedition made the trek across Texas to Louisiana without loss of life.
Agents from Chihuahua and further south met caravans as they arrived in Santa Fe and purchased wholesale complete wagon loads of merchandise for transshipment into the interior of the Republic of Mexico. These representatives were responsible for tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of Mexican silver, gold and ingots conveyed to Missouri each year.
The website, santafetrailearlyyears.com, for articles re this era in Santa Fe Trail history.
P0ST # 2
Augustus Storrs reports eighty-two men made up the outbound caravan of the Le Grand expedition departing Missouri end of May arriving Santa Fe 25 July 1824. Twenty-three wagons transported trade goods valued twenty-five to thirty thousand dollars.
Storrs, a member of the Early Returners, arrived Franklin 24 September. His company of twenty-five proprietors separated from the wagons two hundred miles out of Santa Fe arriving sixty days later. Six wagons carrying three tons of Mexican silver, beaver pelt and logistical supplies for a crew of at least ten arrived two weeks later. The largest contingent from the expedition.
The remaining members devolved into five parties, two returning via the Santa Fe Trail and three via Mexico, Texas, Louisiana to Franklin, Missouri summer 1825.
The Le Grand expedition set a new normal for Santa Fe trade …. multiple wagon caravans some transferring ownership in Santa Fe others south into the interior of the new Mexican Republic. Merchants returned to Missouri laden with silver, gold, beaver pelt, herding hundreds or thousands of mules.
The website, santafetrailearlyyears.com, for articles and sourcing for this era in Santa Fe Trail history.
POST # 4
Many in charge of expeditions to Santa Fe in the Early Years were retired military officers who served in the War of 1812. They maintained order and discipline, provided guidance and direction for the common defense and maintained schedules and practices necessary to complete the mission and return to Missouri.
These men suffered culture shock on their first entry into Santa Fe, the capital of New Mexico. The two-tier social system inherited from the Spanish kept working-class New Mexicans in abject poverty. New Mexico was a remote, destitute province of the new Republic of Mexico.
Some of the ex-military men from the Early Years … Captain Charles Bent, General Thomas James, Captain William Becknell, Colonel Benjamin Cooper, Colonel M. M. Marmaduke, Captain Glen Owen, Captain Sylvester Pattie, Major Alphonso Wetmore, to number a few.
The website, santafetrailearlyyears.com, for articles and sourcing for this era in Santa Fe Trail history.
POST # 5
Did New Mexico ‘over buy’ trail products as claimed by Missouri merchants? No, the greater majority of citizens never bought Trail merchandise, they could not afford such luxuries. The Province of New Mexico contained elite, wealthy land owners and poor, indigent farmers, herders, craftsmen and laborers.
Early expeditions to Santa Fe probably travelled to the valley of the Rio Norte (Grande) to retail wealthy ricos in residence. After two centuries of Spanish goods, the elites would have welcomed modern machine made American products at lower prices.
Excepting the wealthy, New Mexican citizens were never a market for Trail merchandise.
The website, santafetrailearlyyears.com, for articles and sourcing for this era in Santa Fe Trail history.
POST # 6
Why did retailing trail merchandise usually fail? General Thomas James, the second trader to arrive in Santa Fe, attempted to retail ten thousand dollars’ worth of goods from the Santa Fe plaza. After six months he sold out for one thousand dollars and some mules. Two years later, M. M. Marmaduke spent almost a year with retail in the plaza with limited success. Both complained of a lack of money in New Mexico.
Joshua Gregg describes his experiences in Chihuahua city with retail,
I had the opportunity of selling out my stock of goods to a couple of English merchants, which relieved me from the delays, to say nothing of the inconvenience attending a retail trade: such for instance, as the accumulation of copper coin, which forms almost the exclusive currency in petty dealings.
Gregg went on to say some thousands of dollars’ worth are frequently accumulated this way and the copper of one department is worthless in another, the holders are subjected to a great deal of inconvenience. Not great testimony for retailing Trail goods in Mexico.
The most telling reason retail trade failed in the Republic of Mexico? The working class, the largest population in Mexico, could not afford Trail merchandise.
The website, santafetrailearlyyears.com, for articles and sourcing for this era in Santa Fe Trail history.
POST # 7
The Cooper Expedition that left Franklin with fifteen members spring 1822 was probably the first to trade with Southwestern Peoples residing within days ride of Santa Fe and Taos. Their return to Missouri included ‘jacks, jennets and mules’the standard offer by Navaho, Ute and Apache for barter of American products in the Early Years.
The next year Colonel Cooper’s thirty member party comprised trade goods worth six thousand dollars on sixty mules. They succeeded with Mexican wholesalers, trappers and Indigenous natives based on returning ‘four hundred jacks, jennies and mules, beaver pelt and considerable specie.’
Trade advanced quickly by 1824 so that complete caravans were outfitted in Missouri specifically to trade with ‘New Mexico Indians’ according to Augustus Storrs in ‘Answers to Senator Benton of Missouri’.
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