Bent's Old Fort NHS
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(11)Bent’s Old Fort NM
The story of Bent’s Old Fort starts with three men and their love of the American West. Thet were Charles and William Bent, sons of a Missouri Supreme Court Justice, and Ceran St. Vrain, the son of French aristocrats driven from France during the French Revolution. Charles Bent, a former military officer, headed to the west after his tour of duty was over. William, 10 years his junior, joined his brother in 1828 and the two began transporting goods along the Santa Fe Trail. Over the next four years, they developed contacts and made alliance with Indians along the route. In 1832, the brothers, after partnering with St. Vrain, an experienced trader and trapper himself, formed Bent, St. Vrain & Company. The partnership soon became one of the most successful operations in the West. William was particularly adept at dealing with the Indians. William’s reputation with the Indians had been cemented when in 1829, while still serving as a trapper, had saved some Cheyenne men from a band Comanche. In 1835, he married a Cheyenne woman named Owl Woman, with whom he would have four children, spending half of his time living at the fort and the other half living in her village. He was referred to as “Little White Man” by the famous Cheyenne chief Black Kettle. William became so trusted by the Indians that in 1835, when the Cheyenne and the Arapaho entered into peace talks with their long-standing enemy, the Pawnee, the fort was used as the location because it was considered neutral ground by both groups. William had also seen first hand the effects alcohol had the tribes of the West and specifically tried to keep it out of the negotiations.
The three men recognized the need for a trading post along the Santa Fe Trail, and in 1833, began building a large adobe fort on the Northern bank of the Arkansas River, which was then the border with Mexico. It quickly became the company’s center of operations and an instant commercial success. The fort was the only stop along the trail between Independence, Missouri and Santa Fe. The journey for those first pioneers from Independence to the fort’s site in Eastern Colorado was at least two and a half months. My journey from Mount Pleasant, which is twice as far as Independence, had taken me only 22 hours of actual travel time. It is easy to imagine how relived those travelers must have been upon seeing the fort. They spent time resting is a safe place, replenishing their stores, making much need wagon repairs, and trading for the goods they would need to sustain them on the rest of the journey to Santa Fe, nearly another month of hard travel away. Charles and St. Vrain spent much of their time running the Taos store, and Charles made a few trips a year along the Santa Fe Trail between Taos and St. Louis bringing in goods.
The Fort was a haven for settlers, Indians, trappers and traders alike. Early in the venture, beaver pelts were the main commodity making the trek back to Eastern markets, but that market began to fade and it was replaced by silver and furs. Many settlers also purchased horses and mules here, essentials for starting a life as a homesteader. In exchange for such goods, wagon trains from the east brought cloth, hardware, glass and tobacco, supplies which were in high demand in the west. The Apaches brought rugs from the south, and the Cheyenne, Arapaho and Kiowa brought Buffalo hides from the north and west. So trusted by the Indians were the Bents and St.Vrain, that later in it’s existence the fort was home to the Upper Platte & Arkansas Indian Agency. The fort was a sanctuary where many cultures were able to socialize in a safe and peaceful environment, often holding dances or ceremonies together. Laborers, craftsmen, traders and Indians all slept in their own separate areas, and although they dined in the areas in which they slept, they would often share food out of a common pot.
For thirteen years, prosperity reigned at this bastion of cooperative commerce. In 1846 and the following years, three major factors aided in the downfall of the venture. First was the onset of hostilities between Mexico and the United States. The fort became a staging ground for Stephen Watts Kearney’s “Army of the West”. The Indians did not trust the army, but had even less fondness for the second group, adventurers brought west by the prospect of gold. The final blow to the trust of the Native Americans was the Cholera epidemic which decimated the local tribes. Charles Bent had seen the end coming, and after the surrender of Santa Fe, was made the Provisional Governor of New Mexico by Kearney. This seemed like an ideal appointment for Bent, but in 1847, he was the victim of an assassination of the most brutal kind. The Taos Revolt was staged by a group of men unhappy with becoming subjects of the growing American Empire. Early in the morning of January 19th, the rebels began the revolt by breaking down the door of Bent’s residence and killing and scalping the governor in front of his wife and children. The mob continued on killing and scalping anyone they saw as allies of the American Government. The American military responded quickly to quell the rebellion, and using help from St. Vrain and his group of volunteers, ended the uprising by taking back Taos and defeating the larger group of rebels at the Battle of Mora. Trials followed and resulted in the execution of most of the surviving insurgents.
After all of the fighting with Mexico had subsided, William Bent expected that the United States would make him a fair offer to buy the fort, since he had been so loyal and had paid such a high price for this loyalty. Such an offer never came, despite St. Vrain’s negotiating for one. The watering holes in the area were polluted and Indians no longer came to the fort to trade. William had already decided to move his base of operation down the river, and, instead of allowing the fort to fall into hands of the US military by default, William blew up the fort. This last incident is argued over by historians to this date. Some have suggested that the fire which destroyed the fort was accidental, some are convinced the fort was never blown up, that it was simply allowed to become derelict and was looted by Indians and white settlers alike.
Things didn’t get any better for William. His new fort was profitable for a while, but competition and the use of other routes drained away at his business. He eventually sold his new fort to the United States Army. The hardest blow came in his personal life. In 1864, Colonel John Chivington kidnapped one of Bent’s sons, Robert, and forced him to lead the army to an Indian encampment near Sand Creek in Eastern Colorado. Despite white flags and attempts by the Indians to peacefully surrender, Chivington and his forces murdered between 400 and 800 of the Cheyenne and Arapaho camped there. The incident would become known as the Sand Creek Massacre. Robert later testified against Chivington in court, but no punishment was ever handed out to him by the legal system. So infuriated by this injustice were two of Bent’s other sons, Charles and George, joined the infamous Dog Soldiers, a group of renegade Indians who ignored Black Kettle’s pleas for peace and fought to restore the West to the control of the Native Americans. Legend says that Charles even tried to kill his own father in this capacity later in his life. Heartbroken, William moved to Kansas and lived out his life as a lonely rancher, dying in 1969 at the age of 60.
Things went considerably better for St. Vrain. He was hailed as a hero for coming to the government’s aid during the Taos. In 1855, he left Taos and moved to Mora County, New Mexico, where he built a flour mill that supplied flour to nearby Fort Union. When he died in October of 1870, he was given full military honors. His funeral was attended by over 2,000 people, including all the troops garrisoned at Fort Union.
The fort that stands on the site today is a reproduction of the original fort based on drawings from the time, most notably those of Lieutenant James Albert. The Bents and St. Vrain chose to build an adobe fort, a building material long favored by the Mexicans. The reproduction is exceptional. Many of the important rooms have also been reproduced. The council room, where terms of trade were often agreed on, and the trade rooms, where much of the actual trading took place, have been set up with displays to show what the rooms would have looked like. Some of the item in the trade rooms, Buffalo robes and Beaver pelts, blankets, guns, powder, clothes, ropes, glassware, and wagon parts. The storerooms are even more crowded. With crates marked as guns, powder and shot, they show how the US military relied on the fort as a staging grounds for it’s war with Mexico.
Interpreters make visiting a Fort a rich historical experience. The day I was there, an interpretive program was taking place in the blacksmith’s shop. It demonstrated the important of metal working at the fort. After more than two months on the trail, even the sturdiest of wagons were in need of repair. Interpreters also explained how the business of trade was done. One of the young men was a Native American and he talked about how Indians and white men thought differently about trade, and how the fort was a place where both ideas about trade could be respected and profitable for both sides.
I spent two hours strolling around this excellent reproduction. The NPS had gone as far as placing peacock inside the fort to give it more authenticity. I was the only visitor for much of my time here, and while having the site to myself was an enjoyable experience, the fort lacked the feel of organized chaos it was famous for in its day. I walked down to take a look at the Arkansas River, which is much smaller now than it was in those times, mostly through mad-made alterations, such as dams further up the river. The blacksmith demonstration was top notch, the interpreter was a man who rally knew his stuff.
The day was warm, sunny and in the upper 80s and it was only the middle of May. I couldn’t think of how sweltering it must have been during the summer months and how unbearably cold and windy it must have been in the winter. Those wagon trains must have really looked forward to seeing this ‘castle of the plains’ rising in the distance.