South Dakota Ag Connection - New Historical Society Book Marks Fort Pierre Trade History

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New Historical Society Book Marks Fort Pierre Trade History
South Dakota Ag Connection - 10/19/2017

No other part of the West saw such a succession of trading posts as did the heart of modern-day South Dakota, where the Bad River meets the Missouri near Fort Pierre. The South Dakota State Historical Society's latest book, "Fort Tecumseh and Fort Pierre Chouteau: Journal and Letter Books, 1830--1850," transcribed and annotated by Michael M. Casler and W. Raymond Wood, details two such posts that reached their golden age under the American Fur Company in the 1830s and 1840s.

Central to the book are the forts' letter books and a journal. Company employees recorded daily activities in journals and relayed company business as well as personal information about the individuals at the post in letters. Letter books, which contained copies of all outgoing correspondence, were once common items at all posts on the upper Missouri, but only a few survive today.

"The few letter books in existence today are dynamic documents," says Jay D. Vogt, director of the South Dakota State Historical Society. "They illustrate the nature of commerce in this region and are a rich resource for historians. Scholars Casler and Wood have done a service to researchers in compiling them into one volume."

Editors Casler and Wood transcribed and annotated these rare materials, including some translated from the original French. Known for over a century, the Fort Tecumseh journal and the letter books from Fort Tecumseh and Fort Pierre Chouteau are published here in their entirety for the first time.

Casler is a former park ranger with the National Park Service and has written numerous articles on the upper Missouri River fur trade from his home in Williston, N.D. Wood is the author of numerous publications and has a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Oregon. He taught anthropology at the University of Missouri for nearly four decades.

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