Brooks: Diplomacy and the Borderlmds


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The westward course of the frontier turns our study, as it even-
tually did the eyes of the pioneers, toward the Northwest. There
the narrative is largely of fur, and of a cauldron of international
rivalry which was already boiling late in the previous century.
Though that region had usually been approached from the sea, to
Adams and Onis it was a part of the overland frontier. Explora-
tion across the continent had indeed been infrequent. After the
French and Indian War, although the Scotch and English fur
companies penetrated western Canada, the exploration of the up-
per Missouri country lagged until the time of the Louisiana Pur-
chase. Even before Jefferson knew of that great acquisition, he had
been instrumental in starting William Clark and Meriwether
Lewis on their famous venture. His purpose appears to have been
the promotion of the fur trade, rather than eventual territorial
aggrandizement. The arrival of that party at the mouth of the
Columbia River in 1805 proved to be the soundest-basis for the
subsequent claim of the United States to the Oregon country. But,
although Jefferson had expressed interest in linking upper Lou-
isiana with the Pacific, it was evidently some time after the pur-
chase that he decided it could be done under a legal claim to the
Northwest area."
 In succeeding years other trappers and traders journeyed up
 the Missouri, gradually increasing the knowledge, influence, and
 interest of the United States in the more remote regions. The base
 for these enterprises was St. Louis, the great trading center of the
 upper Mississippi This town, which numbered more than fourteen
 hundred population in 1810 and was growing steadily," had ad-
 ministrative importance as the capital of Missouri Territory. But
 it had more significance as the economic metropolis of the great
 valley.
 Among its residents who were early active in pushing westward
 the sphere of Indian trade was Manuel Lisa. He traded profitably
 on the Big Horn River in the winter of 1807 and 1808, and a year
 later helped form the St. Louis Missouri Fur Company, which con-
 ducted an unsuccessful trading experiment at the headwaters of
 the Missouri. Individuals carried the exploration still farther,
 some of their exploits being definitely recorded and some indicated