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Show 22 including the furnishing of women to the trappers.22 This post was supplied by goods brought to Utah from Santa Fe, Taos, and Abiquiu, except for the women who were enticed from the adjacent areas to "sweeten" the exchange. The nature of the trade made relations between the trappers and the Indians unsatisfactory. Besides the traffic in women, the post also served as a magnet which drew other whites to it thus making it a threat to the economic interest of the Utes. They were well aware that the furs could not be sold by them if they were caught by the white trappers, and the presence of the post caused increasing friction between the whites and the native people. The post was burned in 1844 while its proprietor was away. It may have been that the declining price of furs had some influence on its burning by the Utes. During the time of the existence of this post it had several important visitors, such as Marcus Whitman, Reverend Joseph Williams, John Charles Fremont, and others. It was a bastion deep in the "wilderness" which was very much like those on the upper Missouri two decades earlier. The normally peaceful exchange that occurred at the fort caused it to escape the level of violence visited upon like establishments in other parts of the West. As the Uintah Basin was being scoureu' for fur, the major factor in that pursuit, Antoine Robidoux, was well situated on the western 22Ibid. |