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Forts of the West, An Introduction

© Mary Trotter Kion

FORTS OF THE WEST, An Introduction

Until the mid-1840s about the only protection for westward bound travelers was Fort Leavenworth in present-day Kansas. Leavenworth's major function, at that time, was to protect travelers on Santa Fe Trail during the highly profitable trade with New Mexico. The west was a big, wide-open land that provided little protection for white adventurers. Further west, towards the Rocky Mountains, there were some establishments. These mostly had been erected by various mountain men and fur trading companies and whose major intent was to act as trading post such as Fort Hall in present-day Idaho and Fort Bridger in present-day Wyoming.

In time folks began to leave the east and head west, looking for gold or a new plot of land to sink their plow into. At the time, Fort Laramie, located many treacherous miles away in Wyoming, became the closest thing to civilization once these stouthearted people left the comforts of Saint Louis, Missouri. At first Fort Laramie served the multitude of travelers along the Oregon Trail. Eventually it also lent its services to those traveling the California and Mormon Trails, all headed west for an increasing variety of reasons. In the years following 1849 and the discovery of gold in California, Laramie became a noted milestone of the westward movement.

Previously, in 1847, Fort Kearny had been built in Nebraska and was also intended to protect the Oregon Trail. This Nebraska fort should not be confused, however, with Fort Phil Kearney, Wyoming, built in 1866, to protect white travelers along the Bozeman Trail. This later famous fort became the source of many colorful and bloody conflicts between whites and Indians until Red Cloud burnt it to the ground.

The Plains Indians were at first amazed, then enraged, by the number of whites that crossed the plains in those early years. The Indians' anger increased as the migration of the buffalo was interrupted and prairie grasses were trampled and depleted by oxen and mules. Then cholera, smallpox, and many other white mans' diseases came west with the wagon trains and made their deadly introduction to the Indians.

Due to the increase of white travelers along the Oregon Trail, in 1851, the government negotiated a treaty with the Plains Indians in order to clear the westward routes of 'marauding savages.' Some ten thousand Sioux, Crow, Cheyenne and Arapahos gathered near Fort Laramie and signed this treaty, agreeing to relocate to reservations.

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