Who Was Hugh Glass — The Man Behind “The Revenant” Movie?
By: Sabana Grande
Tags: Movies, Biography, History, Survival, Life

Who Was Hugh Glass — The Man Behind “The Revenant” Movie?

By Alfred Jacob Miller — Walters Art Museum: Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons.

Between being mauled by a grizzly bear and getting betrayed by his fellow fur trappers, Hugh Glass’s life was no easy ride. Also, did I mention that he was once a pirate slave and later an honorary member of the Native American Pawnee tribe? Here’s the full story of the man who inspired “The Revenant” movie.

Tragedy After Tragedy

Hugh was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania around the year 1783. Little is known about his upbringing, except that he became a sailor at a young age. By the 1810s, he was reportedly a captain. But alas, the tragic circumstances of his existence began around this time. In 1816, he was captured by a notorious French pirate, Jean Lafitte, off the coast of Texas. Jean pointed to the drowning men, women, and children surrounding the ship he had just taken over and asked Hugh if he wanted to join the pirate crew instead of joining them. It is not known why he made Hugh such an offer. But he was not alone, several men joined the crew that day alongside him.

For two years, Hugh was a slave to his French captor. He pined for his freedom during that time. Eventually, he couldn’t stand the pirate life anymore so he jumped off his ship together with another captured sailor. This also happened just off the coast of Texas. The two escapees were near enough to the shore that they could swim their way over. They must have felt relieved when they made it to dry land without having been pursued. But they were not off the hook yet. They were actually between a rock and two hard places.

Right in front of their beach was the town of Campeche — which happened to be the French pirates’ headquarters. To the east lay the lands of the Karankawa Indians. They were renowned for eating a delicacy known as “long pig” — which was what they called humans. The west was no better, as the native Tonkawas who lived there also liked to eat people, but only their hands and feet.

You may remember from “The Revenant” movie that Hugh had a lot of violent encounters with the native Americans, but those only came later.

For now, he and his colleague managed to sneak past everyone without incident. They then tried to make their way to St. Louis. On their way there, they made accidental contact with a Pawnee tribe. These guys were among the more friendly Native Americans. But for some reason, they didn’t like the two sailors and decided to stop being friendly in this instance. So Hugh and his colleague were actually captured again. The colleague was tied to a stake by the village chief and had slivers of resinous pine inserted into his flesh all over his body until he looked like a porcupine. Then he was set on fire.

Hugh kept his cool throughout all of this. When it was his turn to be lit up, he bowed calmly to the chief and then offered him a vial of powdered vermillion — a red dye. This could be used to make war paint and was quite rare. The chief was very excited to receive this gift (apparently the native Americans were not in the habit of checking prisoners’ pockets before lighting them on fire), and Hugh was allowed to live. Not only that, he was actually made an honorary member of the tribe, and he lived among the Indians for another few years.

This is probably where the rumors of him having fathered a half-Indian son came from — as shown in the movie — but the real Hugh Glass never had any kids.

In January 1823, Hugh went with an Indian delegation to St. Louis — his original destination — to broker a trade deal. But while his native friends went back to their lands, the former sailor decided to remain behind. He wanted to become a fur trapper and answered an ad placed in the “Missouri Republican” by the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, which was seeking 100 men to go to the Rocky Mountains and trap beaver there for $200 per year. Hugh thought his time with the native Americans had taught him a lot about the landscape and this knowledge would come in handy during the expedition — and he was right. But his time with the Company still wasn’t going to be easy.

The party of 100 was led by Gen. William Ashley. Among the men who enrolled were experienced fur trapper John Fitzgerald and a teenager known as “Bridger.” They all started sailing up the Missouri River in March. This is where the true story intersects with the movie. At some point in their journey, the frontiersmen stopped along the banks of the river to trade with the Arikara tribesmen. They traded gunpowder for horses. The deal went smoothly until one unidentified young man snuck into the Indian camp the night after the deal was struck and defiled one of their young maidens. This prompted the Arikara to slit his throat and also attack everyone else.

15 of Gen. Ashley’s men were killed as they struggled to escape. And Hugh himself was also shot in the leg. We know this because he wrote a letter to the parents of one of the men who died and complained about his leg in it. This is an extract: “The savages are greatly treacherous. We traded with them as friends but after a great storm of rain and thunder they came at us before light and many were hurt. I myself was shot in the leg. Master Ashley is bound to stay in these parts till the traitors are rightly punished.” As you can tell from his writing, Hugh didn’t initially know why the Arikara attacked.

But still, the company men did have their revenge. Along with 250 U.S. soldiers, they laid siege to the Arikara village and slaughtered everyone in it. Then Hugh and his colleagues continued on their way to the Rockies.

The Bear Attack And Quest for Revenge

After stopping at Fort Kiowa to resupply and regroup, the party set out overland towards Yellowstone River. They did this because the part of the river they had initially intended to sail on made them too exposed to Indian attacks.

While they were setting up camp for the night near the forks of the Grand River in South Dakota, Hugh went out foraging for berries. It was at this time that he stumbled on a female grizzly bear with two cubs. He fired a shot at her as she charged, but this didn’t stop the animal. The bear tore into his flesh with her claws and her teeth, tearing large chunks out. She then let her cubs feed while she pressed down on him with her paws. Hugh had scalp lacerations and his throat was punctured, so he couldn’t even scream for help. He slashed at the grizzly as best he could with his knife, until eventually some of his colleagues heard the struggle and shot the mother and her cubs. Hugh was left with a lot of flesh missing out of his back and only one of his arms and one of his legs were mobile.

The rest of the company expected him to die shortly. They bandaged him a little by tearing swathes of cloth from their dirty shirts and prayed for him to go to heaven. But by the next morning, Hugh was not dead. Neither did he die over the next two days, though he couldn’t move or talk. At this point, the whole company was in danger because carrying him around on a stretcher slowed down their march considerably and they were still in the lands of the Akirara tribespeople — who wanted revenge for having had one of their villages destroyed.

Gen. Ashley didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t live with himself if he left Hugh to die, but neither did he want to put the rest of his men in danger. So he asked for volunteers who would stay by the injured frontiersman’s side for another few days until he passed away… in exchange for $80. If you remember, these men were being paid only $200 for a whole year’s work so $80 was a lot of money. The aforementioned John Fitzgerald and young Bridger volunteered for this task. But Hugh stubbornly continued to not die.

So another five days later, these two men were worried sick for their lives. They knew it would only be a matter of time before the Akirara found them if they didn’t make it to Fort Henry where they were all supposed to meet up with the rest of the company. So in their desperation, they dug Hugh a shallow grave near a creek and left him in it. They also took all his weapons and tools since he wouldn’t be needing them.

Knowing that if he stayed still he would die, Hugh Glass mustered up all the strength in his frail body and dragged himself out of the grave. He then survived for a few weeks off roots, berries, and snakes. He had plenty of experience surviving off the land from his time with the Pawnee tribe. At one stage, he even stole part of a buffalo carcass from some wolves — which was a trick they taught him. He then set up a rudimentary camp and survived off that meat for a while, giving himself time to recover somewhat. But Hugh had gangrene — an infectious disease that makes the affected person’s flesh turn black and die. So he allowed maggots to live on him to eat that dead flesh, which stopped the disease from spreading. Seriously, maggot therapy is still a real form of treatment today, though it isn’t exactly fun.

Hugh survived off the land as he traveled 250 miles towards Fort Kiowa. Some friendly Sioux Indians helped him along the way by treating his wounds and giving him a boat though, so he didn’t make it without any help at all. Still, this feat of strength was pretty extraordinary and explains why his legend is so popular even today. What fuelled Hugh Glass during this time? A desire for revenge.

Near the end of 1823, he reached the fort. Then he rested for two days before heading towards Fort Henry, where he thought he might find the rest of his company. They were not there. Instead, Hugh found a note saying that they had gone on to Fort Tilton. So the still-wounded frontiersman traveled to Fort Tilton along with some French traders from Fort Kiowa (Hugh presumably knew French from his time with pirates). He parted ways with his new companions just before reaching the fort and they were all killed by Akirara tribesmen not even an hour later. Hugh was also chased but he was saved just in time by some Mandan tribesmen who were at war with the Akirara. When he reached Fort Tiltman, he found nobody there either.

Eventually, he traveled further west towards a new Fort Henry (not the same as the last one) where he found Bridger and threatened to kill him. But Bridger apologized and said that they had been in danger and it was John Fitzgerald’s idea to abandon him. On account of the fact that Bridger was only a teen, Hugh forgave him and just told him to be a better person. He also gave him a long speech about believing in God. But he still asked the kid where Fitzgerald was so he could kill him. Bridger said that he would most likely be at Fort Atkinson. After waiting at Fort Henry for another few months due to extremely harsh weather conditions, Hugh set out again.

He left with four other men who were on their way to deliver mail to Fort Atkinson. They used skin boats to sail down the Platte River to the lower end of Black Hills. There, they encountered a Pawnee settlement of 38 lodges. The tribesmen seemed friendly and invited them ashore. They rested there for a few hours, but while he was smoking a pipe in his tent, Hugh noticed that the Pawnee villagers were stealing their fighting equipment. It turned out they were not Pawnee at all, but Akirara. So Hugh legged it towards his boat just as three of his comrades were being killed. Another man survived as well but they did not meet ever again.

The worn-down Hugh eventually made it to Fort Atkinson. There, he found John Fitzgerald but also learned that he had joined the U.S. military. This meant that he was now the property of the government and killing him would be punishable by execution. Hugh told John that if he ever left the military, he would be a dead man. But he eventually forgave him as well, quite anticlimactically, if you ask me. Hugh was given a $300 recompense by Gen. Ashley for his troubles after this, as well as his tools and weapons that had been taken off him when he was left for dead.

So as you can see, the real story of Hugh Glass was actually one of forgiveness. He was a very religious man, and in the end, that side of him won out. Still, this didn’t stop his legend from spreading far and wide, as he had traveled hundreds of miles and survived many potentially lethal encounters with wildlife and Native Americans.

Several motion pictures have been made about him, including “Man in the Wilderness” and “The Revenant,” as well as the TV series “Death Valley Days.” There is now also a statue of him at the site of his mauling in present-day Perkins County, South Dakota. His story clearly continues to fascinate, and leads many people all over the world to wonder, how did he travel such long distances all while dragging around the weight of his giant testicles. I mean… the injured man saw wolves killing a buffalo and thought, “I’ll crawl over there and scare those wolves.” What the hell?

References

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW-yVdlT3Tg&ab_channel=WeirdHistory

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/real-story-revenant-is-far-867620/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Glass

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Hugh-Glass