Astor Expedition
1810 CE to 1812 CE
The Astor Expedition of 1810-1812, is the next overland expedition from St. Louis, Missouri to the mouth of the Columbia River after the Corps of Discovery, led by Lewis and Clark.
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Later, Nuthall will explore the Indian Territory (Oklahoma), the Oregon Trail, and (in 1834-35) even Hawaii.
His book A Journal of Travels into the Arkansas Territory is an important account of frontier life.
Although Nuthall is the most traveled Western naturalist before 1840, unfortunately most of his documentation and specimens are lost.
John Jacob Astor's Pacific Fur Company sends the Astor Expedition to found Fort Astoria as its primary fur-trading post in the Northwest; it will in fact be the first permanent U.S. settlement on the Pacific coast.
An extremely important post for American exploration of the continent, it will be influential in establishing American claims to the land.
The Astor Expedition is sometimes referred to as the "Hunt Party" due to Wilson Price Hunt being in charge of the group.
However, it has been suggested that the title "Overland Expedition of the Pacific Fur Company" might be more accurate with the members of the party referred to as "Overland Astorians."
A search had commenced for a suitable governor for the Louisiana territory following the death of Meriwether Lewis in October 1809.
Jophn Jacob Astor Astor hoped to propose a solution with his proposed route west.
Astor's plans are to create a company that aims to control the entire existing fur trade, as well as extend it all the way to the Pacific.
However, the British have claims to the area Astor hopes to control with the establishment of The Pacific Fur Company.
Astor's plans are not only in defiance of the British, but the organization of the Astoria party is also not welcomed by established companies including the North West and the Hudson Bay Company.
Another trade war is plausible, due to the organization and implementation of such an organized group.
Just as other American fur merchants refuse, Astor will not "concede so lucrative a trade to their British and Canadian counterparts without a spirited contest."
Astor, understanding his proposal for the expedition to be as much political as it is commercial, needs to get the support of the government in order to be successful in his endeavor.
Astor, along with his Canadian partners, Alexander McKay, Duncan McDougall, and Donald Mackenzie, meet in New York to sign the Pacific Fur Company's provisional agreement on June 23, 1810 (by which time President James Madison had appointed Kentucky Congressman Benjamin Howard as governor).
Astor owns a one-half interest in the Pacific Fur Company (half of the shares being held by the American Fur Company, which is solely owned by Astor).
The other half-interest of the Pacific Fur Company is divided among working partners, each owning two-and-a-half to five shares (with some shares held in reserve).
The working partners will all venture to the Columbia River, either overland or by ship.
On 5 October, the ship had come within sight of Boa Vista in the Cape Verde Islands.
The enforced policy of impressment by the United Kingdom has made Thorn wary of passing British vessels.
As a consequence, he had decided against staying at the holdings of the Kingdom of Portugal and avoided the Cape Verde Islands.
After sailing down the coast of West Africa, the Tonquin had made way for South America.
Off the coast of Argentina an extreme storm had struck, ruining many of the sails and adding two additional leaks in the hull.
As the voyage continued on, the freshwater supplies dwindled to three gills a day per sailing member.
The vessel lands at the Falkland Islands on December4 to make repairs and take on water supplies, with a suitable source of freshwater located at Port Egmont.
Captain Thorn sets sail on December 11 without eight of the men, including partner David Stuart, Gabriel Franchère and Alexander Ross.
Having only a rowboat, the eight men spend over six hours rowing before they catch up with the Tonquin.
Robert Stuart quickly threatens Thorn to stop the ship, saying if he refuses then "You are a dead man this instant."
This display makes Thorn order the Tonquin crew to sail back and pick up the stranded crew.
Thorn's actions lead to increasing tensions between him and the employees of the Pacific Fur Company.
Communication between company workers is no longer held in English to keep the captain excluded from discussions.
Company partners hold talks in their ancestral Scottish Gaelic and hirde PFC workers use Canadian French.
The atmosphere of "their jokes and chanting their outlandish songs" greatly frustrates Thorn.
On December 25, the Tonquin will safely traverse around Cape Horn and sail north into the Pacific Ocean.
The American Fur Company's sea expedition is to transport fur from the Pacific Fur Company by the ship Tonquin, under the command of former Navy officer Jonathan Thorn, an impatient and hard man who had quickly established a reputation as a strict and abrasive martinet.
Having left New York on September 8, 1810, the Tonquin reaches the Kingdom of Hawaii on February 12, 1811, dropping anchor at Kealakekua Bay.
The possibility of men deserting the ship in favor of the islands becomes a major threat.
Thorn has no choice but to make amends with the PFC partners to police the crew.
Several men abandon ship but the cooperation of the nearby Native Hawaiians sees their return.
One man is flogged, another put in chains.
Thorn assembles all of the crew and PFC employees and harasses the men to remain on the ship.
Commercial transactions eventually begin with the Hawaiians; the crew purchases cabbage, sugar cane, purple yams, taro, coconuts, watermelon, breadfruit, hogs, goats, two sheep, and poultry for "glass beads, iron rings, needles, cotton cloth".
A courier from government agent John Young orders the Tonquin to visit him for meat supplies and then to have an audience with King Kamehameha I, who resides on Oʻahu.
Marín acts as an interpreter in negotiations with Kamehameha I and Kalanimoku, a prominent Hawaiian government official.
Besides his work in discussion between the Hawaiian Monarch and the PFC officers, Marín also acts as the pilot to guide the ship into port, for which he receives five Spanish dollars.
Twenty-four Hawaiian kanakas are recruited for three years service, half in the fur venture and the other half as laborers on the Tonquin.
One of the Hawaiians, Naukane, is appointed by Kamehameha I to oversee the interests of these laborers.
Naukane will be given the name John Coxe while on the Tonquin and will later join the North West Company.
The Tonquin and its crew leave the Hawaiian Kingdom on March 1 1811.
The Tonquin arrives at the Columbia River on March 22, 1811, but its dangerous bar poses a major problem.
Thorn sends five men in a boat to attempt to locate the channel, but the rough surf capsizes the vessel and its crew is lost.
Two days later another attempt by an additional small boat also sinks.
Of the five crew members, which include two Hawaiian Kanakas, only an American and a Hawaiian survive.
In total eight men die attempting to find a safe route past the Columbia Bar.
Finally, on March 24, the Tonquin crosses into the Columbia’s estuary and lays anchor in Baker’s Bay.
The personnel then proceed fifteen miles up the river to present-day Astoria, Oregon, where they will spend two months laboring to establish the first American-owned (if Canadian-staffed) outpost on the Pacific Coast, Fort Astoria (present-day Astoria, Oregon) which is near the Lewis and Clark 1805–1806 winter camp of Fort Clatsop at the mouth of the Columbia River.
Some trade goods and other materials that compose the cargo will be transferred to the new trading post.
During this work, small transactions with curious Chinookan Clatsop people occur.
Most of the men in the Overland Party are engaged as hunters, interpreters, guides and Canadian Voyagers.
The party also includes one woman, Marie Dorion, an Iowan Indian and wife of Pierre Dorion, and their two young sons.
Wilson Price Hunt, a St. Louis businessman who has no outback experience, leads the overland party to the Columbia River.
Hunt makes a number of decisions which, in hindsight, are disastrous to the Astor Expedition.
However, those mistakes are to lead to the expedition's (and the company’s return expedition under Robert Stuart) most famous discoveries.
Hunt had taken the unusual step of starting his expedition just before the winter as he left St. Louis on October 21, 1810.
The expedition travels four hundred and fifty miles up the Missouri River before setting up winter camp on Nodaway Island at the mouth of Nodaway River in Andrew County, Missouri just north of St. Joseph, Missouri.
Hunt's expedition breaks the Nodaway winter camp on April 21, 1811.
The Tonquin had left Baker’s Bay on June 5, 1811, with a crew of twenty-four and sailed north for Vancouver Island to trade with various Nuu-chah-nulth peoples living on the island's west coast.
Alexander McKay is aboard the ship as supercargo and James Lewis as clerk.
Near Destruction Island, a member of the Quinault nation, Joseachal, is recruited by Thorn to act as an interpreter, being recorded as "Joseachal" by McDougall in company records.
He has a sister married to a Tla-o-qui-aht man, a factor that has been attributed to his later survival on Vancouver Island.
While anchored at Clayoquot Sound, the Tonquin crew engage in fur trading activities with the natives.
Members of the neighboring Tla-o-qui-aht band board the ship in large numbers to trade.
Commercial dealings are negotiated between an experienced elder, Nookamis, and Thorn.
Thorn offers an exchange rate found to be unsatisfactory by the elder, who wants five blankets for every fur skin sold.
These discussions continue on throughout the day and Thorn increasingly becomes frustrated at the indigenous intransigence to accept his terms.
The interpreter later informs McDougall that Thorn "got in a passion with Nookamis", taking one of Nookamis' fur skins and hitting him on the face with it.
After this outburst, Thorn orders the ship prepare to depart, with the Tla-o-qui-aht still on board.
The Tla-o-qui-aht consult among themselves and on June 15, as the Tonquin is close to leaving the area, offer to trade their fur stockpiles again.
They propose that in return for a skin, the PFC officers sell three blankets and a knife.
McDougall recounts that "A brisk trade was carried on untill all the Indians setting round on the decks of the Ship were supplied with a knife a piece."
Violence immediately erupts as warriors led by Wickaninnish attack the crew on board, killing all but four of the men.
Three crew members escape in a rowboat during the confusion, and one badly wounded man, James Lewis, is left aboard the ship.
The crew members who had escaped during the initial massacre are allegedly captured and tortured to death by the Tla-o-qui-aht following the explosion.