Deadmen on the Missouri

De: David Burton Flint

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

Eighteen years have passed since Robert Flint, and Joshua Wells along with their wives, Lily, and Rebecca had three adventurous sons, frank, and Peter Flint, and Benjamin Wells. Soon they would embark on their dreams that they had been thinking of while living, and working upon the Missouri, and Mississippi River trading with St. Louis, and new Orleans on their keelboat Halfmoon. The west had exploded from St. Louis up the Mississippi, and down to New Orleans after Lewis and Clark returned from their historical journey to the Pacific Ocean. Still the Missouri River was wild, and un-tamed. Independence, Missouri was the hub for any westward expansion, a rough and dangerous town. Here the brave and weathered men would head west to Santa fe alone, or with their families. The demand for furs was high, and soon the trappers, would become mountain men. These harden, brave, and very independent mew would branch out into the high mountains, and hidden valleys to trap the beaver, and fox, and in time, the buffalo. The Missouri River was wild, and nearly 2600 miles long, withy its hidden sand bars, and log jambs. The Blackfoot, Crow Missouri, and Oto Indians called this land theirs, and few whit men ventured into their lands. In 1804 Fort Atkinson was founded, and a stopping point by Lewis and Clark. Here known as Council Bluffs was where the military would keep the peace, and sign treaties with the surrounding Indians. here is where the great fur trade would begin, and this is where the adventurous sons of Robert Flint, and Joshua Wells would soon be part of, and beyond, just like their fathers. Little did they know how they would be involved in opening up the Missouri River, and beyond to its mouth near the three Great Falls, and the adventures that they would have to endure to get there. The steamboats were slowly being introduced in New Orleans, and the way of hauling supplies on the Mississippi River was about to change, and expand. Peter, and Frank Flint, along with Benjamin Wells seen this, and they knew they had to expand as well with a steamboat to survive the massive demand for furs, and for new settlers heading west. They also knew that slavery was starting to expand, and now that Missouri had become a state, so came the laws, as well as the way the Negroes would be controlled, and punished. They knew as their folks did, that the slave issue was always on the their minds, as well as the expanding their trading business, and trying to survive this time when the areas growth was quickly changing, economically, and politically.