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The existence of trappers in the West in any numbers started with Manuel Lisa in 1807 [1]. A major influx of trappers was started by the expedition of Ashley's Hundred in 1822. This gave rise to yearly trapping expeditions with the trappers leaving St. Louis with supplies, returning with pelt s which were used to pay off debts and traded for supplies, whiskey and other necessities.
In 1824 the rendezvous system began [2] which hauled supplies to the mountains in the spring and brought back pelts in the fall. Major W. H. Ashley started this system through the Rocky Mountain Fur Company . He sold this business to the outfit of Smith, Jackson and Sublette while still taking the profits by selling that firm their supplies. This system continued with other firms, particularly the American Fur Company , entering the field.
The beaver pelt s had been needed to make the beaver hats then popular in England. FashionA fashion consists of a current (constantly changing) trend, favoured for frivolous rather than practical, logical, or intellectual reasons. Fields prone to fashions Fashions are social psychology phenomena common to many fields of human activity and thins changed in the early 1840s making beaver less valuable at a time that they were harder to find because of overtrapping . The opening of the Oregon TrailFor other uses of the term, see Oregon Trail (disambiguation The Oregon Trail was one of the key overland migration routes on which pioneers traveled across the North American continent in wagons in order to settle new parts of the United States of Americ and the use of the Mormon TrailThe Mormon Trail was the overland route the Mormon emigrants followed west from Nauvoo, Illinois to Salt Lake City, Utah beginning in 1846. It is now part of the U. National Historic Trail system. External links Historic U. trails and roads. gave employmentEmployment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee . In a commercial setting, the employer conceives of a productive activity, generally with the intention of creating profits, and the employee contribute to the trappers who did not want to return to civil society.
1. Orville C. Loomer, "Fort Henry," Fort Union Fur Trade Symposium Proceedings September 13-15, 1990 (Williston, Friends of Fort Union Trading Post, 1994), 79.
2. Fred R. Gowans, Rocky Mountain Rendezvous (Layton, Utah: Gibbs M. Smith, 1985), 13.
Fur tradeThe fur trade was a huge part in the early economic development of North America. European traders and trappers explored the continent and established relationships with local Native American communities in order to obtain the best pelts. Beaver was espec