Frontier Forts: Fur Forts, Fighting Forts and Supply Bases

Frontier history includes the names of many different forts. Frontier forts with far-flung names dot early maps. To avoid confusion, it helps to understand they were not all military forts. Some were. Others were trading posts established by fur-trading companies. Still others were just army supply bases.

Due to threat of attacks and raids by various native tribes, most of these posts were, well, fortified. Hence their names. As sad events that unfolded in 1876 and 1877, all three types of fort came into play.

After Europeans discovered the “New World,” many nations went there. They searched for lands and trading opportunities. Just as the native tribes fought over homelands and hunting grounds, European nations fought over territorial claims and potential wealth. That included the fur trade. These nations included France, England, Spain and even Holland.

Russia not only teemed with furs, its adventurers also came across the Pacific Ocean to compete for furs in North America. After America won its independence, many private American companies joined the fur-trade competition. The trade began largely in what is now the eastern United States. The area around the Great Lakes became a hotbed. Many fur forts were established across North America.

These forts increased in number as fur companies pushed westward. The companies soon realized that besides trapping, it was sometimes easier and often more profitable to trade with Indian tribes for furs. Some, especially the Hudson’s Bay company, enticed tribes like the Blackfeet to trade exclusively with them. They incited tribes to avoid or even attack American trappers and traders. Forts were necessary.

Many frontier forts had short life-spans. The heyday of the fur trade was short-lived. Even military forts were often abandoned when no longer needed. The height of the fur trade lasted only a few decades – at most, roughly from 1800 to 1840. Later, most large-scale conflicts between Indian tribes and white settlers on the northern plains fell between 1860 and 1880. After that, both trading forts and army forts were often just abandoned. In some cases towns grew up there instead.

With the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the United Stated bought much of the land west of the Mississippi River from France. By the time Lewis and Clark made their Voyage of Discovery starting in 1804, many trappers and explorers had already ventured up the Missouri River from a city called St. Louis.

No military forts existed west of the Mississippi River then, but fur companies were establishing many fortified trading posts. Some of them had to be fortified, because the French and British agitated northern Indian tribes. They wanted these tribes to be hostile toward American traders and to trade only with the French and British companies. At times the Indians simply resented any white intruders.

Some fur forts like Fort Union, Fort McKenzie and Fort Owen are examples of trade forts. They were never staffed by our military. Other trade forts along the Yellowstone River lasted only a few years. Still others like Fort Shaw, Fort Abraham Lincoln and Fort Ellis were strictly military forts. It is ironic that none of those forts had outer walls, or stockades.

Ranging northward from Fort Laramie in today’s Wyoming, five forts were built to protect travel on the Bozeman Trail. The Bozeman was an offshoot from the Oregon Trail to newly discovered gold strikes in what would soon be Montana Territory. Most of these forts were stockade army forts. However, after Red Cloud’s relentless attacks, the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 resulted in three of the five being abandoned.

Fort Benton, on the Missouri River, began as a fort for trade in furs and buffalo robes. Established in 1846 by the American Fur Company, it was soon moved about 15 miles downriver. In 1850 it was named for Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton. In 1865 it was sold to the Northwest Fur Company, then in 1868 the U.S. Army began using it as a post. It served as a military fort until 1881.

A third type of fort also served military purposes but rarely had walls or other fortifications. These served merely as posts where troops could be based before being deployed elsewhere. Sometimes they served only as a depots for storing the huge amounts of food and equipment needed for supplying soldiers. These ”forts” were sometimes called “cantonments.”

Some of these posts might have been surrounded by berms, or low, sloped walls of dirt in case protection was needed from attackers’ arrows or bullets. Fort Keough was originally called the Tongue River Cantonment. It began as a supply base, but it soon became a garrison for army troops.

In 1877 Colonel Nelson Miles and his troops from Fort Keough played a significant role in area history. They were instrumental in forcing Sioux and Cheyenne bands onto reservations after Custer’s Little Bighorn defeat. They also forced the surrender of Nez Perce bands seeking freedom and peace in Canada.

The term “fort” may seem confusing to newer students of American history, especially the history of the American West. It helps to understand that not all forts were military fortifications. Some were trading posts, especially during early exploration of North America. Some were true military forts and some served only as “garrisons,” or base camps for soldiers and supplies.