In Santa Fe, the Bents met an ex-trapper and Taos trader named Ceran St. Vrain who joined the Bents in a venture to establish a base of trade near enough to the Rockies to draw trappers, near the hunting grounds of the Plains Indigenous tribes, and on the Santa Fe Trail where wagons began to roll between the Missouri River and Santa Fe.
Construction of Bent’s Fort took thought and planning, since the region had limited timber. The three traders turned to adobe, a building material long favored by Native nations of the Southwest. Adobe came from clay, water, and sand mixed with straw or wool as binders, then formed into bricks and dried in the sun. Though the bricks required maintenance of the adobe plaster, they proved reasonably durable in the dry climate. A visitor to the fort described a first impression, saying, “At a distance it presents a handsome appearance, being castle-like with towers at its angles and the design answering all purposes of protection and as a residence.”
The fort was a haven and oasis for travelers who had been two months on the trail, and needed to refresh themselves and their livestock, repair wagons, and replenish supplies. Beaver pelts, silver, buffalo robes, Navajo woven blankets, horses, mules, and firearms were common wares to be sold or traded. William Bent built and maintained the company’s good reputation among the Indigenous populations. Often Bent lived with his Cheyenne wife Owl Woman in her village, where he was known as “Little White Man”. Several inter-tribal councils between the Cheyenne, the Arapahoe and the Pawnee took place at the fort. The Bents had a vested interest in these talks, knowing that a stable trading environment was good for business. They had gained the trust of the Southern Plains tribes by seeking out their villages and offering plentiful trade goods. William’s marriage into the Cheyenne tribe helped cement good relations among settlers and the region’s Indigenous nations.
However, in 1846 the fort began to take on a decidedly military role, as its strategic location made it the ideal staging point for an invasion of Mexico in the coming war. This development, with growing number of settlers and gold seekers, polluted water holes, decimated cottonwood groves and contributed to declining bison, disrupted the carefully nurtured trade with Indigenous communities.
Escalating tensions between Indigenous peoples and settlers resulted in the death of Charles Bent in 1847, as he was killed in an uprising protesting the U.S.’s occupation of, what is now, New Mexico in the Mexican-American War and the Taos Revolt. The following year St. Vrain tried unsuccessfully to sell the fort to the U.S. Army. In 1849 William Bent moved to Big Timbers, some 40 miles downriver near present day Lamar, Colorado. There he constructed Bent’s New Fort in 1853.
Information for this story came from the National Park Service, which provides tours and activities at Bent’s Old Fort National Historic Site, located 8 miles east of LaJunta on Colorado Highway 194. For High Plains Public Radio, I’m Debra Bolton in Manhattan Kansas.
High Plains History is a production of High Plains Public Radio.
