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Show Rocky Mountains which impinged in Ute territory. There began an intense search for furs in the area of present- day Colorado, a search which initiated many arguments between Spanish officials at Santa Fe and United States citizens who were trapping. One group headed by Chouteau and De Mun from St. Louis were captured and taken to Santa Fe. In their party was a man by the name of Etienne Provost. By the early 1820s Etienne Provost was trapping in the area of the city in Utah which now bears his name. Several of his party were killed by Indians he called Snakes ( but were probably Utes) during the winter of 1823- 24. The following winter, 1824- 25, he spent at the fork of the White and Green Rivers near the present- day hamlet of Ouray, Utah. * Also deep into Ute territory in the 1820s was Antoine Robidoux, who was to become the leading figure in the Uinta Basin area in fur trading. A member of a St. Louis family famous in the fur trade, Antoine Robidoux was a person with whom the Utes of Utah dealt for 20 years. 5 By 1825 a great number of people were entering Utah to gather furs. From the northwest came Peter Skene Ogden and his men of the Hudson's Bay Company into the area at the northern edges of the Ute domains. William Henry Ashley from Missouri came down the Green River in that year and visited the Uinta Basin where he found Utes, and also trappers from Santa Fe. 6 Jedediah S. Smith crossed Utah from north to south and east to west and continued his north- south journey to Los Angeles. The knowledge of this route to Los Angeles ( the Old Spanish Trail) became a factor of great importance in the changing fortunes of Ute Indians. 1 It is of interest to note that it was on the northern Ute borders where the international forces met in their push for furs: Ogden and his brigade from the Hudson's Bay Company posts in Canada, Ashley's men from St. Louis, and Etienne Provost and his party from the Mexican frontier in northern New Mexico, s During the 1830s the trickle of white adventurers became a stream. The government of the United States was sending men into the West for a variety of reasons- exploration, surveying, and reconnaissance. All were the harbingers o ^ imperialism. Also during the 1830s the fur trade was regularized. A fur trading post was established in Utah's Uinta Basin in the heart of the Ute fur gathering area. The year of its founding was near the end of the great fur trading experience. The fort, Fort Robidoux, existed from 1837 until 1844 when the Utes burned it while Antoine Robidoux was in New Mexico. 9 Another important feature of the 1830s was the use of the Old Spanish Trail from Santa Fe to Los Angeles. Sections of this trail had been opened by Jedediah Smith and others, but about the year 1830, it became a regular trade route for woven cloth from New Mexico and horses and cattle from Los Angeles. The Utes were able to lay tribute on the caravans as they crossed the Green River near the present town of Green River, Utah. The trail gave the |
