Pierre's Hole
A fur trade rendezvous turned into a violent battle.
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via Wikipedia: Pierre's Hole · see source
Pierre's Hole is a shallow valley in eastern Idaho, just west of the Teton Range in neighboring Wyoming. With an elevation over 6000 ft above sea level, it collects the headwaters of the Teton River and was a strategic center of the fur trade of the northern Rocky Mountains. The valley in Teton County is now known as Teton Basin or Teton Valley. In 1984, it was designated a historic place as the site of the infamous events in the Battle of Pierre's Hole, following the well-attended Rendezvous in July 1832.
Historical overview
John Colter, a member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, claimed to have passed through the valley in 1808. The Teton River flows northward through Pierre's Hole, joining Bitch Creek before turning west into Teton Canyon. Mountain men called such low-lying valleys with abundant beaver and game a "hole." Pierre's Hole was named for "le grand Pierre" Tivanitagon, a Hudson's Bay Company trader of Iroquois descent killed in a battle with Blackfoot Indians in 1827.
The valley hosted the large Rendezvous of 1832, where hundreds of mountain men, trappers, Indians, and fur company traders gathered. After the rendezvous, a battle occurred between a group of Gros Ventre and American trappers with Nez Perce and Flathead allies. Following the fur trade's decline in the 1840s, Teton Basin became a summer hunting area for Native Americans.
Richard "Beaver Dick" Leigh, an Englishman, trapped and hunted in the basin from around 1860, later guiding F. V. Hayden's geological survey in 1872 and the Stevenson party's exploration. Leigh Lake and Jenny Lake in Grand Teton National Park are named after him and his Indian wife. Mormon farmers later settled the basin, using it for cattle grazing and hay production.
Rendezvous at Pierre's Hole
The 1832 rendezvous at Pierre's Hole was one of the largest held in the Rocky Mountains, taking place at the west foot of the Three Tetons in Teton County, Idaho. The basin was reached via a trail from the Snake River that branched off through a gap between the Big Hole Mountains and the Palisades range. Camps extended from Teton Creek north along the west side of the Teton Mountains to Tetonia, covering over seven square miles.
An estimated four hundred mountain men, one hundred and eight lodges of Nez Perce, and eighty lodges of Flatheads attended, with over three thousand horses. The yearly summer event allowed trappers to sell furs and resupply. Representatives of eastern fur-trading companies arrived with trade goods.
Employed trappers turned over their beaver furs to company representatives and received pay minus supplies; free trappers negotiated prices for their furs. Trappers and merchants stayed in the protected valley for two to three weeks, with small hunting groups obtaining meat. Recreation included contests, games, gambling, and storytelling.
Battle of Pierre's Hole
Henry Fraeb and Milton Sublette led about 100 trappers toward an area north of the Salt Lake desert, while Wyeth and ten or eleven men from New England also set out. Several groups traveled together briefly for safety from the Blackfeet. In their first night's camp, 8 miles south of Pierre's Hole, a large migratory group of Gros Ventres approached.
A chief came forward, apparently in greeting. Antoine Godin and a Flathead Indian "breed" companion, sometimes identified as Baptiste Dorian, rode forward. As the three met, Godin shouted for the Flathead to shoot, which he did, and the chief fell dead. Godin and the Flathead retreated to the trappers' camp; some accounts say Godin took the man's scalp.
This murder provoked an intense battle between the Gros Ventres, with an estimated 250 warriors, and the American trappers with Nez Perce and Flathead allies. The outnumbered mountain men sent riders for aid and prepared their camp. The Gros Ventres took shelter in a swampy thicket of willows and cottonwoods, while their women built a crude fortress from fallen trees.
More in Wars Involving the Indigenous Peoples of North America
Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Pierre's Hole (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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