The most important distinction between Antonio Valverde and Etienne de Véniard, sieur de Bourgmont, didn’t arise from their characters. Both were resilient enough to survive disgraces following military catastrophes: the one by expanding his hacienda near El Paso, the other by producing a detailed description of the Missouri river.
The defining experiences occurred when they entered the New World as young men. Zacatecas and the other mining towns of northern New Spain were urban oasis surrounded by hostile natives. Even the largest landowners spent most of their time in towns where plaza life had been transferred from Spain.
France had not found wealth in the residium of geological history that supported large settlements. Their income came from the fur trade, which required men willing to go to ever-shifting frontiers to trade. Bourgmont was apprenticed in the ways of coureurs who lived with bands, and married their women.
While he was with the Mascouten and the Missouri, Valverde was in a garrison isolated among Christian pueblos hemmed in by combative Suma and Faraón Apache. At El Paso, he no doubt heard tales of the Pueblo Revolt retold by survivors who didn’t return, and reheard memorats from their descendants. It was likely the same miasma of fear that preconditioned Leonor Domínguez’s response to the San Juan.
The differences in their familiarity with other ways of living colored how the men and their soldiers behaved on bivouac. When Bourgmont’s party was traveling with the Kansa, it was the native leader, not Bourgmont, who "ordered his camp master to place the French camp on the right, with the Missouris next and their tribes in two lines, with the head of our camp facing west and the rear facing east."
When Bourgmont and his entourage of Missouri and Osage had first approached a small encampment of Kansa, "They welcomed him and the Frenchmen who were with him with calumet raised high and with great rejoicing. After inviting the Frenchmen to smoke, they spread out the warmat and offered a feast consisting of the food they had all prepared. They also invited to the feast the Osages and Missouris."
Bourgmont and his escort were taken to the main Kansa camp, where the supply convoy had not yet arrived. Bourgmont was placed in a difficult position. He did not expect to be treated by the Kansa, nor did he expect the Missouri and Osage to poach on their hunting grounds. He told his chronicler, "that he had 160 Indians to feed and that it was necessary to trade European goods every day for their subsistence."
He did not begin to discuss his mission to the Apache until the goods arrived. After he laid out the goods, "corresponding to the presents the Kansas had given him," he concluded: "For that, you have only to collect many peltries and to announce right away in your village to your people - men, women, and even children - that they may come to trade their peltries to the Frenchmen who are with me, whom I have instructed to trade with you. Bring whatever horses you have, I will trade for them and pay you well, for I need them for my voyage to the" Apache.
Negotiations were difficult. The Kansa claimed they had been paid twice what was being offered by other Frenchmen and by the Illinois. Bourgmont broke off trade. Then an Iowa stole one of his horses, and Bourgmont got angry. The Kansa chief made appeasing noises and trade resumed.
Apparently the trade had two purposes: provisioning the expedition and financing it. Philippe de la Renaudiére noted that just before the group resumed its journey west, "Our pirogues left at eight this morning to return to Fort d’Orléans with our sick, and the slaves and peltries that the Frenchmen had acquired by trading."
Notes: Bourgmont deserted his command after gunfire at Fort Ponchartrain killed the Jesuit priest dead. Valverde was governor when an expedition he sent to the Pawnee was destroyed by an ambush. Pirogue is a flat-bottomed boat. The history of Leonor Domínguez appeared between March 26 and April 21 of this year.
Norall, Frank. Bourgmont, 1988.
Renaudiére, Philippe de la. Journal of the Voyage of Monsieur de Bourgmont, translation in Norall.
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