Fort Union and the Upper Missouri Fur Trade

Fort Union and the Upper Missouri Fur Trade. By Barton H. Barbour. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001. Pp. xvi, 304. Illustrations, maps. $34.95.) In its heyday, Fort Union loomed large in the Upper Missouri fur trade. From the time of its founding in 1830 until its demise in 1867, the American Fur Company (AFC) outpost was one of the largest and most profitable trading centers on the northern plains. Native peoples representing various Upper Missouri tribes, luminaries from the American and Canadian fur trade, governmental functionaries, and an assortment of noteworthy travelers routinely passed through the gates of the bustling establishment. Barton H. Barbour has left few stones unturned in his attempt to fashion a comprehensive new portrait of that venerable installation. There is much to like in this book. The prose is clear and the research exhaustive. Barbour's careful documentation of the fort's construction and its changing appearance is not likely to be surpassed. The author is at his best when describing how the fur trade operated and how members of the socially and culturally diverse fur trade society at Fort Union carried out their assigned tasks. But Barbour has a larger purpose in mind. He proposes to use Fort Union's story "as a lens for examining several aspects of the western fur trade . . . [and] as a vehicle for testing the validity of some historical interpretations of the trade" (xi). In seeking to set the record straight, Barbour aims to provide more complex and subtle explanations of the western fur trade. And in that undertaking, the results are less satisfactory. A critic of the new western history pioneered by Patricia Limerick and Richard White, among others, Barbour favors a more traditional kind of history unhindered by any particular theoretical perspective. In an attempt to allow the documents to speak for themselves, the author eschews looking for "ulterior motives, hidden agendas, and other strange extractions visible-and comprehensible-mainly to readers with an avant-garde approach to historical scholarship" (xiii). But Barbour's old-fashioned approach to historical study reflects the faults of that genre along with its virtues. A more analytical reading of the documentary records might have tempered some of his conclusions and assisted his effort to "render their world and its meaning in realistic terms" (xi). Barbour finds that most historical accounts are unduly critical of fur traders, and it is his intent to provide a more balanced assessment. Though his assertions are not wholly unfounded, his well-intended efforts occasionally cast him in an apologist's role. He is especially at pains to rehabilitate the image of Pierre Chouteau Jr., a dominant figure in the history of the Upper Missouri fur trade and Fort Union. Admittedly, Chouteau was not as villainous as his severest critics suggested, but neither was he as altruistic and benign as Barbour would like us to believe. The author justifiably lauds Chouteau's willingness to accommodate noteworthy scientists, artists, journalists, missionaries, and foreign dignitaries during their travels up the Missouri, but his characterization overestimates the Frenchman's interest in the advancement of science and underplays the strings that he attached to his patronage. …