Early in 1885 the métis began organizing for resistance and invited Louis Riel to come back from his exile in Montana, where he had fled for safety after some earlier trouble. Riel set up a provisional government at Batoche and seized government stores at Duck Lake, killing twelve Northwest Mounted Police in the process. The Canadian government brought in an army from eastern Canada and overwhelmed a force of 500 métis and 500 Indian allies on May 12, 1885. Louis Riel was captured and after a stormy trial was found guilty and hanged on November 16, 1885, thus achieving martyrdom in the eyes of many French Canadians.
16. The Oregon and California Trails
From the eastern slope of South Pass, Wyoming, the little streams drain off into the Sweetwater River, then into the Platte, and eventually into the Missouri, hundreds of miles to the east. The gentle slope of the streams, their broad valleys, and their rather direct easterly courses combine to make this an inviting way for the traveler. The Platte River, with its strong flow of water from the mountains, gliding down a broad valley with no canyons, falls, or even bad rapids along its course, seemingly should be a good route for water-borne traffic, comparable to the Missouri. But the Platte carries such a volume of sand from its upper reaches that its bed consists of a multitude of sand bars, over which the water flows in trickles, sometimes four miles from bank to bank, but only an inch or two deep.
During the spring floods, it was sometimes possible to take boats of shallow draft down the river, but no one would attempt to go up the Platte in either a boat or a canoe. Even for boats riding on the spring flood, sand bars could be quite a problem. Robert Stuart, on his way from Astoria to St. Louis, had this experience with dugout canoes on the North Platte in March 1813:
Breakfasting at an early hour we embarked but on descending a few hundred yards found the water so low that Mr. McClellan and myself went by land hoping thereby that the Canadians would be able to proceed. The other canoe being small went on tolerably; but it was with very considerable labour in wading and dragging that ours got down eight miles by the middle of the afternoon…. To the Fork we went on well, but immediately below the river became much wider and so shallow that it was with great exertion we reached another Pen on the left bank, seven miles below our last station… being very doubtful whether we can in any reasonable time proceed by water, it was agreed we should try it once more on foot… the river running… so shallow as makes us happy at having abandoned our canoes for its bed is for the most part upwards of a mile wide and the sand bars so numerous and flat it would require more water than we have any right to expect to make it fit our purposes.
In some years flat-bottomed boats could get down the river on the spring flood, but it was hard going:
We started in a Mackinaw boat which had been made at the foot of the mountains… thirty-six feet long and eight feet wide. We had several hundred buffalo robes on board and four hundred buffalo tongues…. The water was very shallow and we proceeded with great difficulty, getting on sand bars every few minutes. We were obliged to push the boat most of the way for three hundred miles which took us forty-nine days.
This is the most successful voyage on the Platte for which a good account is given.
Even when the river was in full flood, the problems were there. John Charles Frémont, an officer in the United States Topographical Corps, recorded a party's misadventures on the river in late April 1842.
Sixty days since they had left the mouth of Laramie's Fork, some three hundred miles above, in barges laden with the furs…. They started with the annual flood, and drawing but nine inches of water, hoped to make a speedy voyage… but after a lapse of forty days, found themselves 130 miles from their point of departure. They came down rapidly as far as Scott's Bluffs, where their difficulties began. Sometimes… they toiled from morning until night, making only two or three miles in as many days. Sometimes they would enter an arm of the river, where there appeared a fine channel, and after descending prosperously for eight or ten miles, would come suddenly upon dry sands, and be compelled to return, dragging their boat for days against the rapid current… finding the Platte growing every day more shallow they discharged their cargoes… and leaving a few men to guard them, attempted to continue their voyage, laden with some light furs and their personal baggage. After fifteen or twenty days more struggling in the sands, during which they made but 140 miles, they sunk their barges… and commenced their journey on foot to St. Louis.
At times a boat caught on a sand bar might have other problems. This is from Francis Parkman in 1846:
Fifty times a day the boats had been aground; indeed, those who navigate the Platte invariably spend half their time upon the sand bars. Two of the boats… got hopelessly involved in some shallows, not very far from the Pawnee villages, and were soon surrounded by a swarm of the inhabitants. They carried off everything they thought valuable, including most of the robes, and amused themselves by tying up the men left on guard, and soundly whipping them with sticks.
Even this kind of boating was possible only in the spring and early summer. The large amount of furs brought east each year from the rendezvous usually came across South Pass and down the Platte Valley in August, and no attempt was made to use boats at that season of low water. The furs came by pack train and wagon all the way from the rendezvous to Westport on the Missouri.
While the Platte River presented obstacles to boatmen, pack trains and wagon trains found the broad, sandy valley a good highway that needed no grading or bridges. Even though the river carried a large flow of water, it was so wide wagons could ford it at several places, although they had to keep moving to avoid sticking in the sand.
Heading for California in 1849 to prospect for gold, J. Goldsborough Bruff noted in his journaclass="underline"
My New York friends got all their train over without an accident, except one wagon, which sank so in the sand that they had to leave it for the day. It was about fifty yards from shore, and about 400 below the landing and the camp, and contained a sick man. It looked queer to see a man wading down the stream, waist deep in the rapid river, with a pot of coffee in one hand and a plate of bread and meat in the other, going to the wagon, to the relief of his comrade.
The next morning a team of twelve mules dragged the wagon out.
The river was turbid with a heavy load of sediment, but the water was drinkable and the low banks posed no problem to the draft animals going down to drink. In this respect the Platte route differed greatly from the Santa Fe Trail, with its miles of desert between water holes for most of the year.
The Platte River attracted the wagon trains, for it led directly to South Pass, where the wagons could cross the continental divide with little difficulty. Then they crossed the Green River country into the upper Snake Valley and on to Oregon. The Platte was the boundary between lands claimed by the hunting tribes, so travelers along its banks did not have to cross any of the tribal hunting grounds. However, they were in the path of raiding parties using the north-south trails.
Minor Indian troubles developed along the eastern end of the Oregon Trail, from the Kansas River crossing for about 250 miles northwest to the Platte near Fort Kearney. This stretch was divided about equally between the Kaws and the Pawnees, and both tribes made it a practice to rob lone travelers or small groups. The Kaws in 1839 drove the buffalo away from the main trail to keep the travelers from doing their own hunting and force them to purchase meat from the Indians.