Social Importance Mountain men were explorers who mostly lived solitary lives in the wilderness and overcame severe adversaries through extraordinary skills and personality qualities. Turner argued in his thesis that the success of America was influenced by dominant individualism, which was characterized by an individual’s willingness to work for good and evil (O’Reilly, 2018). Central to the frontier’s success was the individual’s practical and mastery in finding expeditions and material things. The hostile conditions in the wilderness turned the mountain men into savage individuals who resorted to cannibalism in extreme circumstances. Men who survived the wilderness had to possess a preset of qualities such as dexterity, instincts, strength, courage, and fortitude to endure the hostile environment of the uninhabited regions. Their skills such as sign reading and strong visual and olfactory senses also influenced their wilderness success. Turner pointed out that the conflicts of individualistic and community needs were an opposing force to the blend of savagery and civilization (O’Reilly, 2018). The mountain men were ferocious and instinctively violent; this was contradictory to community values of the American culture of homely and warm qualities. By the time the mountain men arrived in the West, they had extensive knowledge of the Indians. The adequate information on their patterns and customs proved to be pivotal to the survival of the mountain men in the wilderness. Economic Importance Mountain men were mostly organized into three trapping groups: free trappers, the ones that worked for companies, and those owned by a particular company. Free trappers worked independently as they would sell their fur to whoever paid the best price at the rendezvous. The company trappers had contracts with organizations and were indebted to selling their furs to these firms. The majority of the mountain men were heavily indebted since their businesses were owned and controlled by these organizations. These establishments would hire the mountain men to trap and skip beavers. Its skins were in high demand at the time and people would pay huge sums of money for the hats made of them. Mountain men’s skills proved to be instrumental to American’s economic ventures in the 1800s (Tewi Inaba, 2014). They explored unmapped areas and followed streams as their main highways and reference points. Through their trail explorations, mountain men led to the discovery of new routes. When the fur trade declined, the mountain men used their skills to guide American pioneers in expeditions. Without the mountain men’s wilderness knowledge, most settlers would have died given the life-threatening situations in those regions. The success of mountain men as traders can be attributed to their trapping skills that they acquired in the wilderness. Since many mountain men were free-trappers, their lucrative earnings from trade were derived mainly from the fur business. It was one of the most profitable businesses that fueled exploration and competition among European and Indian powers in America. The mountain men primarily traded in fur, beaver hides, coffee, alcohol, and sugar during the organized rendezvous celebrations (Tewi Inaba, 2014). The wilderness had become an important base for these celebrations where trade was combined with recreation. There, the mountain men would socialize, trade, contest, gamble, and engage in recreational activities. The introduction of alcohol into the trapper culture was destructive to mountain men as some would spend all their money on it, along with gambling