Fort Union and the Upper Missouri Fur Trade

Military Review, July-August, 2003 by Kevin L. Jamison

Barton H. Barbour, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 2001, 304 pages, $34.95.

Barton H. Barbour creates a vibrant portrait of Fort Union, the earliest American trading post on the upper Missouri. The fort, which was active from 1829 to 1869, is now in western North Dakota. Barbour recounts the techniques that went into the fort's construction and the people it served. He describes the various demographic groups in the area: the Indians, the artists, the traders, the trappers, the clerks, and the soldiers. Barbour also outlines American Indian policies during the period leading to the plains Indians wars.

While called a fort, Fort Union only occasionally served soldiers; mostly it served private enterprise, and served it well. Despite small trading companies looking for short-term profits, the dominate company, the American Fur Company, had a vested interest in leaving the Indians to hunt as they pleased, and treating them fairly, finding them canny traders.

Barbour details the laws that Fort Union's residents lived by, those that attempted to govern the Indian trade, and those with which the residents chose to govern themselves. Despite being on the frontier, the fort was safer than many eastern cities. The balance of terror between the walking arsenals, who populated the fort, and the need for mutual cooperation worked against Hollywood frontier violence. Only twice in four decades were area residents "outlawed" by the community in the Old English sense. This status was essentially an open contract on their lives, a contract satisfied by sending them out of the country. Rich historical detail makes this book a valuable asset for scholars of the frontier and of Indian history.

Kevin L. Jamison, Attorney at Law, Gladstone, Missouri