Speaker 1: Following the Louisiana Purchase, American traders to the tribes on
Speaker 1: the Red River inadvertently resolved centuries of precious metal stories
Speaker 1: in the Southwest, but their discovery turned out to be
Speaker 1: more a boon to global science than an avenue to
Speaker 1: personal wealth. I'm Dan Flores, and this is the American West,
Speaker 1: brought to you by Velvet Buck. Still in barrel, Velvet
Speaker 1: Buck arrives this summer just in time for the season
Speaker 1: that calls us home.
Speaker 2: A portion of.
Speaker 1: Every bottle supports backcountry hunters and anglers to protect public lands,
Speaker 1: waters and wildlife, enjoy responsibly beyond the Earth's curve mysteries.
Speaker 1: Sometime in the century we're in, maybe even by twenty fifty,
Speaker 1: a nation or one of our proliferating private space companies
Speaker 1: will fly a drone through the Valumeronaris Canyon on Mars.
Speaker 1: Right now, America's NASA is in the lead for that honor,
Speaker 1: having successfully put a drone in the air on Mars
Speaker 1: and planning to fly one called Dragonfly on a future
Speaker 1: mission to Saturn's moon Titan. But whoever explores the Valumeronneris
Speaker 1: will have a chance to resolve all kinds of mysteries
Speaker 1: about the biggest red rock fissure in our Solar system,
Speaker 1: A gorge that both resembles the West's biggest, the Grand Canyon,
Speaker 1: but absolutely dwarfs that Arizona Marble in every particular measurement.
Speaker 1: Literally an other worldly desert landscape, the Valu Marionnaris truly
Speaker 1: is west of everything. Also a good modern stand in
Speaker 1: to help understand the way many explorers and map makers
Speaker 1: thought about the American West two hundred years ago.
Speaker 2: What's out there?
Speaker 1: How will we feel in the close presence of a mystery?
Speaker 1: In Mars's case, what kind of emotional reaction will we
Speaker 1: experience watching video footage from a drone flying through a
Speaker 1: world of soaring red spires and cliffs on an astounding scale?
Speaker 1: Is it possible the planet is so small its horizons
Speaker 1: will obscure the opposing canyon walls one from the other,
Speaker 1: even in a gorge twenty five thousand feet deep? Was
Speaker 1: that canyon formed by the biggest flood in Solar System history?
Speaker 2: Was their life there then? Is their life there now?
Speaker 1: In the case of the West, in the early eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: the world was equally uninformed. Could rumors of mountains of
Speaker 1: pure salt in the west be believed. Was there really
Speaker 1: a single mountain from which waters flowed to the Pacific,
Speaker 1: the Arctic, the Gulf. Were native people in the West
Speaker 1: descendants of the lost tribes of Israel? Or did some
Speaker 1: possibly migrate from Wales where their elephants unicorns are dragging
Speaker 1: like water serpents. There did masses of precious metals lurk
Speaker 1: hidden in the mountains or even lie about on the prairie,
Speaker 1: waiting for the ambitious or the lucky to cash in
Speaker 1: beyond all their dreams. At the beginning of the nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: these were all possibilities in the West, which was real
Speaker 1: because humans evolved to be curious and to be travelers. Eventually,
Speaker 1: we'll answer our questions about Mars. We certainly answered all
Speaker 1: the ones I just posed about the American West, But
Speaker 1: there's one I wanted to address here more. Particularly, this
Speaker 1: mystery spond several frontier generations to imagine easy, unfathomable riches
Speaker 1: in the Southwest, aiding a widespread image of America as
Speaker 1: a kind of Eden of infinite resources, an idea that
Speaker 1: some still hold. It's a story that evokes everything that
Speaker 1: excites us about venturing into new worlds and finding things
Speaker 1: we absolutely never expected. In the same decades when fascinated
Speaker 1: Americans were hearing about a mysterious Western region associated with
Speaker 1: early mountain maned John Coulter, a place where mud pots
Speaker 1: bubbled and scalding water spewed, or were absorbing the story
Speaker 1: of Hue Glasses mauling by a giant bear down on
Speaker 1: the southwestern frontier, there was another story remarkable enough to
Speaker 1: rival those. In the years between eighteen ten and eighteen
Speaker 1: thirty five, versions of it circulated through the saloons of
Speaker 1: towns like Natchez, New Orleans, and Nacotish in Louisiana, and
Speaker 1: San Antonio and Austin in Texas. Culture's hell became Yellowstone Park,
Speaker 1: of course, and the Hugh Glass story would morph into
Speaker 1: a modern movie called The Revenant. On the Southwestern Frontier,
Speaker 1: the story I'm about to tell, though, eventually faded away. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: an Eastern scientist put together what had generated such excitement
Speaker 1: in the early eighteen hundreds, but in the West, by
Speaker 1: then the story was almost forgotten. John Coulture and Hugh Glass,
Speaker 1: like so many other Americans heading into the West, launched
Speaker 1: from Saint Louis and traveled up the Missouri River. The
Speaker 1: counterpart to Saint Louis on the southern plains was the
Speaker 1: old French city of Nacotish in Louisiana, founded in seventeen
Speaker 1: fourteen and the last outposts of supply on the River,
Speaker 1: a watercourse that penetrated into the west towards the Rocky
Speaker 1: mountains and far distant Santa Fe. For decades, French traders
Speaker 1: had followed the Red to reach the Wichita villages several
Speaker 1: hundred miles up river. Like the Mandans and the Aricaras
Speaker 1: on the Missouri, the Wichitas had built fixed towns as
Speaker 1: far up the Red as farming was possible. Catto and
Speaker 1: speakers related to the Pawnees and sometimes called by that name,
Speaker 1: The Wichitas freely welcomed traders and explorers, as did the
Speaker 1: nomadic Comanchee bands in the prairies around them. Now, with
Speaker 1: the Louisiana purchase, Americans had taken over possession of the
Speaker 1: lower Red used to manipulating the Spanish and French against
Speaker 1: one another for Indian affections. The Southern Plains tribes were
Speaker 1: intrigued by this new player on the scene. As I
Speaker 1: described in the last episode of the American West. Thomas
Speaker 1: Jefferson's eighteen oh six attempt to send a Lewis and
Speaker 1: Clark type exploration up the Red River had been cut
Speaker 1: short by a Spanish force. Simultaneously with that confrontation, words
Speaker 1: spread on the frontier that Aaron Burr, Jefferson's vice president,
Speaker 1: who had just killed his rival Alexander Hamilton in a duel,
Speaker 1: was fleeing the US to the southwest, ostensibly to launch
Speaker 1: an American style revolution against the Spanish monarchy. With these provocations,
Speaker 1: for several weeks in the winter of eighteen o six
Speaker 1: and seven, Spanish and American armies actually circled one another
Speaker 1: west of Nacolush in a game of bluff that never
Speaker 1: got called. When tensions finally relaxed, Spanish officials in the
Speaker 1: colonies of Texas and New Mexico decided that in the
Speaker 1: future it would be good to avoid any noisy disturbances
Speaker 1: with the Americans. As they put it, that decision allowed
Speaker 1: American traders more freedom to penetrate the planes. By the
Speaker 1: first decade of the eighteen hundreds, the American foot was
Speaker 1: in the door to the southwest, and it was still pushing,
Speaker 1: led by their point man in Nacodish doctor John Sibley,
Speaker 1: a new Englander. President Jefferson appointed Indian agent for the
Speaker 1: region in eighteen oh five. The Americans had a new plan.
Speaker 1: If government expeditions to the west aroused Spanish suspicions, why
Speaker 1: not invite potential Indian allies and trade partners like the
Speaker 1: Wichitas and Comanches to come to Nakotish instead. Sibley's invitation
Speaker 1: produced two great councils in Nacodish with the tribes of
Speaker 1: the Southern Plains in the year eighteen oh seven, feasts
Speaker 1: and gift giving kept by forty seven year old Sibley,
Speaker 1: wrapping himself in an American flag before the assembled throng,
Speaker 1: then wrap the same flag around high ranking warriors from
Speaker 1: the western tribes.
Speaker 2: Sibley told the tribes.
Speaker 1: That the Americans were natives of the same land you are,
Speaker 1: in other words, white Indians. For their part, the Comanches
Speaker 1: claim they had so much wealth in the form of
Speaker 1: horses and mules that the animals were to them like grass.
Speaker 1: But coming as far as Nakotis to trade, they averred,
Speaker 1: was too inconvenient. So Sibley promised that if they would
Speaker 1: spurn the Spanish and fly US flags over their villages.
Speaker 1: He would send private traders to them in large numbers,
Speaker 1: and unlike the Spanish, whose policies forbade arming Indians, the
Speaker 1: Americans would freely trade guns, lead, and powder so the
Speaker 1: tribes could hunt and prosecute their wars. As Sibley sagely
Speaker 1: told President Jefferson, whoever furnishes Indians the best and most
Speaker 1: satisfactory trade can always control their politics.
Speaker 2: Within a few weeks of these.
Speaker 1: Grand councils, in the town of Natchez on the east
Speaker 1: bank of the Mississippi, a Pennsylvania immigrant and hardware store
Speaker 1: owner there decided to take Sibley up on this offer
Speaker 1: to the tribes. Anthony Glass was around thirty five at
Speaker 1: the time, had recently seen his young wife pass away,
Speaker 1: and was in a town that swirled with rumors about
Speaker 1: the mysterious West. Some books on the Natchez trace the
Speaker 1: famed Woodlands trail from Natchez to Kentucky and Tennessee see
Speaker 1: Glass's hardware store doubling as a depot for outlaws on
Speaker 1: the trace to fence stolen goods. What's more certain about
Speaker 1: Glass is that he had watched for years as wealth
Speaker 1: of various kinds had flowed from the West into the South.
Speaker 1: Early in eighteen o eight, he determined that the time
Speaker 1: was right to set out on a western expedition of
Speaker 1: his own. He asked Sibley for a license and secured
Speaker 1: two thousand dollars in trade goods for the journey. Sibley
Speaker 1: was delighted enough there is good reason to believe the
Speaker 1: Indian agent himself became an investor in the proposition. Unlike
Speaker 1: farther north, it was not the pelts of beavers or
Speaker 1: muskrats that drew traders to the southern plains. Indian processed
Speaker 1: buffalo robes were available, but were too bulky and heavy
Speaker 1: for private traders to transport. There were deer skins that
Speaker 1: could be made into leather to be sure, and honey
Speaker 1: from European bees spreading westward. But as Sibley and his
Speaker 1: Comanche contacts had discussed, in the southern West, the primary
Speaker 1: tradable wealth consisted of the hundreds of thousands of horses
Speaker 1: running wild across the plains. In a later episode, I'll
Speaker 1: tell the fuller story of the little known Western horse trade.
Speaker 1: But since the early seventeen nineties, Americans like Philip Nolan
Speaker 1: had been driving herds of wild horses that had contrived
Speaker 1: to capture or had acquired in the Indian trade to
Speaker 1: furnish stock for the advancing Southern frontier. That live horses
Speaker 1: could walk themselves to market was one of their great attractions.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, in the Southwest, there had always
Speaker 1: been another possibility for wealth. From the start of European
Speaker 1: interest in the region, there had been rumors of precious medals,
Speaker 1: even of golden cities. In the fifteen thirties, the shipwrecked
Speaker 1: spaniard Cabeza Devaca had said that natives somewhere in Texas
Speaker 1: had presented him with bags of well the early editions
Speaker 1: of his account called them bags of silver. A few
Speaker 1: years after that, having failed to find cities of gold
Speaker 1: among the Zunis and Pueblo people, Francisco Coronado and fifty
Speaker 1: of his men travel led most of the way across
Speaker 1: the southern plains because a clever and manipulative native informant
Speaker 1: told them that in Quaverra, the Wichita country, the Indian
Speaker 1: leaders wore bracelets of metal. Carnado interpreted that to mean
Speaker 1: silver or gold, until in Quavera he met a Wichita
Speaker 1: headman wearing a metal necklace. The necklace was made of copper.
Speaker 1: But as the American frontier had advanced past the Mississippi,
Speaker 1: these stories did not go away, and in the seventeen
Speaker 1: seventies they were actually joined by a fresh version, this
Speaker 1: time from a source that seemed unusually reliable.
Speaker 2: Word went out that the.
Speaker 1: Highly experienced French trader from Nacanus Athena's day Messiree had
Speaker 1: returned from a foray up the Red River in seventeen
Speaker 1: seventy two with an account of widespread Indian excitement over
Speaker 1: what the frenchman heard was a giant mass of silvery
Speaker 1: metal out on the disc planes. This mystery was apparently
Speaker 1: located somewhere on the Comancheria in Comanche Land, but a
Speaker 1: Wichita Indian claimed to be its discoverer. A band of
Speaker 1: Pawnees from Nebraska were said to have journeyed hundreds of
Speaker 1: miles to see the phenomenon and had proclaimed it a deity.
Speaker 1: Perhaps these stories were just misunderstood exaggerations, like those of Cabeza,
Speaker 1: Devaka or Coronado. But maybe there was something truly valuable
Speaker 1: out there in the vast distances towards the sunset at
Speaker 1: the Grand councils in eighteen oh seven. Sibley had naturally
Speaker 1: inquired what the Indians knew of such stories. One of
Speaker 1: the Comanche headman, who had wrapped himself in the American flag,
Speaker 1: knew the correct response to a question like that. Of course,
Speaker 1: he said, in their country there was silver or plenty.
Speaker 1: It's difficult now to know exactly what Sibilan or Anthony
Speaker 1: Glass believed a journey to the interior might ultimately reveal
Speaker 1: in the West, but at the time Orleans Territorial Governor
Speaker 1: William Clayburn was highly suspicious Sibley, the governor claimed, accurately,
Speaker 1: was supplying Glass with US flags to carry to Indians
Speaker 1: whom the Spanish government believed.
Speaker 2: To be their subjects. With respect to Glass, who had.
Speaker 1: Decided to outfit himself with a military jacket and dress sword,
Speaker 1: Clayburn heard that Sibley was now referring to the hardware
Speaker 1: store owner as Captain Glass. Of course, Sibley rightly believed
Speaker 1: that as Indian agent, he was furthering Jefferson's own policies
Speaker 1: towards the Southwest, but it was particularly annoying when Clayburn
Speaker 1: further argued to Washington that while Glass portrayed himself as
Speaker 1: a horse trader. The Glasses party true intent was to
Speaker 1: conduct a silver mine expedition. Whatever else Glass had in
Speaker 1: mind when he assembled his outfit and party for an
Speaker 1: early July eighteen oh eight departure up the Red River,
Speaker 1: he intended to trade. His outfit included sixteen pack horses
Speaker 1: to ferry that two thousand dollars in trade goods, along
Speaker 1: with a remuda of thirty two additional mounts. His party
Speaker 1: was hardly an invading army. There were only eleven of them.
Speaker 1: Among them were three pass veterans of the Red River trade,
Speaker 1: a mixed blood interpreter Joseph Lucas whose Indian name was Tallapoon,
Speaker 1: and a pair of horse traders named John Davis and
Speaker 1: William Alexander, who had been among the Wichitas and Comanches
Speaker 1: two years earlier.
Speaker 2: The party also.
Speaker 1: Included a fifteen year old named Peter Young and a
Speaker 1: man named George Shamp who was highly excited about the
Speaker 1: silver ore Davis and Alexander claimed to have seen on
Speaker 1: their past expeditions. The root Glass plan involved an eastern
Speaker 1: detour around the Great Raft, the enormous log jam that
Speaker 1: blocked the Red River above Nakaish, and then a crossing
Speaker 1: of the Red through a bank side village of newly
Speaker 1: immigrated Creek Indians known as Koshatas. At that point they
Speaker 1: would fall onto the regular Indian trail that led from
Speaker 1: the lower Red.
Speaker 2: To the Wichita towns far up river.
Speaker 1: Once Stead looped the Great Raft, their course would be northwesterly,
Speaker 1: not intersecting the Red River itself again until they were
Speaker 1: nearly to the Wichita villages. Two centuries later. We know
Speaker 1: what happened during the eight months Glass and his party
Speaker 1: were in the West, what the Red River country was like,
Speaker 1: the specific people they met, what Glass in others experience
Speaker 1: living with Indians, and how the Americans reacted to an
Speaker 1: astounding mystery. Because of a simple thing, Glass kept a
Speaker 1: journal of the trip. In fact, Sibley had insisted that
Speaker 1: Glass regularly put down the details of his journey. As
Speaker 1: a store owner. Glass was literate, and there's a good
Speaker 1: chance few, if any of the rest of the party were.
Speaker 1: Glass's journal then is a kind of time travel window
Speaker 1: into how the West struck this group of travelers into
Speaker 1: the unknown. Like most people who journeyed across the West
Speaker 1: in those days, Glasses party intended to live off the land,
Speaker 1: but following an ancient Indian trail did not necessarily make
Speaker 1: that easy. There was almost no wildlife in the vicinity
Speaker 1: of the Kashata village on the Red and with a
Speaker 1: party of Catto Indians ahead of them on the trace
Speaker 1: through Northeast Texas, deer and other animals were spooked. Three
Speaker 1: weeks of travel, however, gradually brought the party out of
Speaker 1: the pinewood and into the tall grass prairies at the
Speaker 1: edge of the Great Plains. The whole country was now
Speaker 1: becoming a gently rolling parkland populated with brand new creatures
Speaker 1: prairie chickens, wild horses, and prairie dogs, all the first
Speaker 1: Glass had ever seen. Within a month's travel, they were
Speaker 1: north of present Dallas, surrounded by great numbers of wild horses,
Speaker 1: as Glass put it, and feasting daily on fresh buffalo glasses.
Speaker 1: Party crossed to the north side of the Red River
Speaker 1: on August eighth. He found the country remarkably pleasant, as
Speaker 1: he said, with herds of bison in sight everywhere. They looked,
Speaker 1: deer as tame as domestic stop since no one bothered
Speaker 1: to hunt them, and the Wichita towns now only fifty
Speaker 1: miles up River. Three days later, a large party of
Speaker 1: well mounted Indians escorted the Americans into their villages. A
Speaker 1: trio of town's arrayed on both banks of the Red
Speaker 1: River in a setting Glass described as beautiful, the land
Speaker 1: of first quality, he said, with excellent abundant springs of water.
Speaker 1: Like the Mandans and Ricaras on the Missouri. These divisions
Speaker 1: of the Wichitas were agricultural people, who Glass soon realized
Speaker 1: grew large quantities of corn, beans, pumpkins, and melons, so
Speaker 1: they had a surplus to trade for meat with their
Speaker 1: buffalo hunting allies, the Comanches. Their towns were made up
Speaker 1: of framed thatched houses, as Glass put it, in the
Speaker 1: form of a sugar loaf seventy or eighty feet in
Speaker 1: diameter at the base and thirty or forty feet high.
Speaker 1: Each of the towns had a civil chief, but there
Speaker 1: was a presiding grand chief, a waha Kai or great bear,
Speaker 1: who struck Glass as about fifty years old. When Glass
Speaker 1: delivered his speech to the assembled tribe extolling American friendship,
Speaker 1: it was clear Awa was the first personality among them,
Speaker 1: as responsible as Sibley for making glasses expedition possible. That
Speaker 1: reality brought immediate rewards. The chief is in our mess,
Speaker 1: Glass confided in his journal, and we want for nothing
Speaker 1: the town affords and live in plenty. Glass and most
Speaker 1: of his men spent the rest of August and half
Speaker 1: of September trading for Indian horses and marveling at Wichita culture.
Speaker 1: At one point they watched as mounted bow wielding Wichita
Speaker 1: hunters killed every last animal from a herd of forty
Speaker 1: one buffalo. They also formed a good sense of why
Speaker 1: the Wichitas and Comanches were so eager to trade for firearms.
Speaker 1: On three different occasions, Glass woke to discover that an
Speaker 1: enemy of the Wichitas, the Osages, had raided the villages
Speaker 1: and stolen horses from their communal herds, including many of
Speaker 1: the ones he had only just bought. In the third instance,
Speaker 1: all lies with astonishment and fury that an Osage raider
Speaker 1: was riding what he called a remarkable paint horse that
Speaker 1: used to be my own riding horse. The o Sages
Speaker 1: were well supplied with guns from American traders out of
Speaker 1: Saint Louis, but when the Wichitas pursued the raiders, only
Speaker 1: a third of the Wichita party could muster firearms of
Speaker 1: any kind. In the weeks just before the Americans had arrived,
Speaker 1: Glass learned the Osages had made off with five hundred
Speaker 1: Wichita horses in broad daylight. The raiders were so well
Speaker 1: armed the Witchitals had merely watched in sullen silence, unable
Speaker 1: to raise any resistance.
Speaker 2: To the outrage.
Speaker 1: While Alexander and Davis had now departed for a camp
Speaker 1: of Comanches they knew from prior trips West Glass had
Speaker 1: other things on his mind. For one thing, he had
Speaker 1: made friends among the Wichitas, specifically with an Indian couple,
Speaker 1: a highly distinguished warrior named Tatsuk, a brave, subtle, and
Speaker 1: intrepid man, Glass said, who in fact was a Spaniard
Speaker 1: captured as a child and raised as an Indian, and
Speaker 1: along with his wife, who Glass described as a Pawnee woman,
Speaker 1: just as remarkable for her address and intrigue. And Glass
Speaker 1: was discovering he was living among a people famous for
Speaker 1: their sexual liberation. The Wichitas are great libertines, both men
Speaker 1: and women, the American wrote, not addicted to jealousy, and
Speaker 1: nothing is more common than for a man to loan
Speaker 1: or hire out his wife, particularly to strangers who visit
Speaker 1: the nation. As Glass confessed in his journal, this couple
Speaker 1: became my most intimate acquaintance. It seems to have been
Speaker 1: these friends. Glass began to interrogate about the mystery that
Speaker 1: had obviously played some role in launching his expedition. On
Speaker 1: September eighteenth and nineteenth, he confided in his journal that
Speaker 1: he had been informed of a remarkable piece of metal
Speaker 1: some days journey distant to the southward on the waters
Speaker 1: of River Brazos.
Speaker 2: Later, he wrote, hearing more of.
Speaker 1: This singular metal, to which they attributed singular virtues and
Speaker 1: curing diseases, I resolved to obtain permission to see it
Speaker 1: if I could, and proposed to them to go with me.
Speaker 1: While they had known about this mystery for at least
Speaker 1: four decades, the Red River tribes had never allowed a
Speaker 1: white man to lay eyes on it. Various wichitas Glass
Speaker 1: approached with his hope to see the object very likely
Speaker 1: the headman Awagkai, were resolute in their refusal. So Glass
Speaker 1: turned to the couple he had befriended, and ultimately elicited
Speaker 1: from them a promise to show him the tantalizing mystery.
Speaker 1: Scribbling in his journal by firelight, he put his hopes
Speaker 1: this way, the more I heard about the object, the
Speaker 1: more my anxiety was increased, suspecting from their account of
Speaker 1: it and great veneration for it, it might be platina, platinum,
Speaker 1: or something of great value. Two weeks later, on October
Speaker 1: of eighteen oh eight, Glass and a party of Wichita's
Speaker 1: that included his new friend Tatasuk, the grand chief Owa Kai,
Speaker 1: and the Wichita warrior who had found the object decades earlier,
Speaker 1: crossed the Red River and headed in a southwesterly direction
Speaker 1: towards a Comanche village in this country.
Speaker 2: Tatasuk told him they would.
Speaker 1: Find the mysterious mass that had now become an obsession
Speaker 1: for Glass and his men. In the Comanche village, things
Speaker 1: at first did not go well. Leaders objected the mystery,
Speaker 1: after all, was on their land. After some altercation, Glass wrote,
Speaker 1: it was finally agreed that if it should turn out
Speaker 1: to be of considerable value, what it brought should be
Speaker 1: divided between both Comanches and Wichitas. But at that point
Speaker 1: the mystery's original discoverer was overcome with doubt, and I
Speaker 1: was obliged to flatter and bribe him to go on,
Speaker 1: Glass confessed. Here is how Glass described the remarkable events
Speaker 1: that culminated on October fourteenth, eighteen oh eight. Our whole
Speaker 1: party now became very numerous, containing of men and women
Speaker 1: and children, near one thousand souls and three times that
Speaker 1: number of horses and mules. Moving slowly on to the west,
Speaker 1: crossing the River Brazos, about fifty miles, we approached the
Speaker 1: place where the metal was, the Indians observing considerable ceremony
Speaker 1: as they approached. As they neared the phenomenon across open prairie,
Speaker 1: what the Americans first saw was a wide variety of
Speaker 1: native offerings surrounding the object in every direction.
Speaker 2: At the center of the.
Speaker 1: Pipes, beads, and bags of pollen, their eyes fell on
Speaker 1: a dimpled, blackish metal object resting on the surface of
Speaker 1: the ground and balanced on its heaviest end. It was
Speaker 1: roughly four feet tall by two feet wide, and massively heavy.
Speaker 1: The Indians were reverent. The Americans mystified a magnet glass
Speaker 1: had brought along showed an attraction to the object, but
Speaker 1: they could see no rust on it anywhere it could
Speaker 1: be indented. It was malleable enough for the Indians to
Speaker 1: fashion jewelry and arrowpoints from it, and it peeled like
Speaker 1: a bell when struck rubbing, it produced a brilliant polish,
Speaker 1: and it gave off sparks when struck with a flint.
Speaker 1: But it was untarnished, which meant it could not be
Speaker 1: a giant nugget of silver.
Speaker 2: But what then? In wonder?
Speaker 1: Glass contrived to file off some samples. Then their vast
Speaker 1: party rode away, leaving the object to its splendid isolation.
Speaker 1: The stories of Anthony Glass and of this baffling Western
Speaker 1: mystery began to unwine from one another at this point.
Speaker 1: Except for his interpreter and the teenager Peter Young, the
Speaker 1: rest of glasses party now departed with their horses for Louisiana,
Speaker 1: with secret plans, several of them began to formulate. Initially,
Speaker 1: Glass traveled farther south to trade with the Comanche bands
Speaker 1: along the Colorado River of Texas. By the first of
Speaker 1: eighteen oh nine, he had turned back towards the wichitav villages,
Speaker 1: first pausing in the Grand Prairie west of today's Fort
Speaker 1: Worth to try his hand at driving and corralling the
Speaker 1: thousands of wild mustangs there. By late February he was
Speaker 1: back in the Wichita towns, and on March the twenty first,
Speaker 1: he Lucas and Young finally set out for Nacolus with
Speaker 1: their horse herd. They arrived in May to discover that
Speaker 1: their adventures had inflamed the whole frontier. Doctor Sibley was
Speaker 1: as excited as the men in the taverns, and quickly
Speaker 1: posted this report to his superiors in Washington. Captain Glass
Speaker 1: has just returned here from a trading voyage towards the
Speaker 1: head of Red River. During his travels and residents amongst
Speaker 1: the Indians, where he spent more than eight months, he
Speaker 1: was conducted by Indians to a place where he saw
Speaker 1: in large masses of many thousands of pounds weight. A
Speaker 1: singular kind of mineral and color resembles iron, but whiter.
Speaker 1: It is hard as steel, yet malleable as gold or silver.
Speaker 1: It is obedient to the magnet, but less so than iron.
Speaker 1: It is not flexible, and the greatest heat that can
Speaker 1: be produced in a blacksmith's furnace. It will neither corrode
Speaker 1: nor rust by exposure to the atmosphere. It receives a
Speaker 1: polish as brilliant as a diamond, and of a quick
Speaker 1: silver color. If it is not platina or platinum.
Speaker 2: I do not know what it is.
Speaker 1: Simply had sent a sample to Philadelphia to be essayed.
Speaker 2: He wrote.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, what he had heard might be one hundred thousand
Speaker 1: pounds of it, yet lay out on the distant prairie,
Speaker 1: a giant nugget of platinum. That was the consensus, and
Speaker 1: not just among the frontier traders. Even Sibly, the best
Speaker 1: educated man on the scene, agreed. So there was nothing
Speaker 1: for it but to go fetch the Red River mystery
Speaker 1: back to civilization, and as fast as possible. In terms
Speaker 1: of who would do that and how, though there was
Speaker 1: no consensus, Glass for his part, opted out. He'd had
Speaker 1: his fill of the planes and life with the Indians,
Speaker 1: but the rest of his party had not, and instead
Speaker 1: of cooperating with one another, they formed two rival groups
Speaker 1: for in effect a mining rush. One party, launched from
Speaker 1: Nakelash and led by George Shamp and William Alexander, included
Speaker 1: five of the original Glass party. Beyond a supply of rifles, ammunition,
Speaker 1: and blankets, the exact quantity of trade goods they took
Speaker 1: haven't come down to us, only that they had wealthy benefactors,
Speaker 1: including the Indian agent doctor Sibley. They set out in
Speaker 1: the early summer of eighteen oh nine. The other party,
Speaker 1: led by another Glass party man John David, recruited largely
Speaker 1: from Natchez in Mississippi, and was the first to arrive
Speaker 1: at the location of the mystery mass. Lacking a means
Speaker 1: to transport it, however, they attempted to hide it from
Speaker 1: the other party, who soon enough appeared with the Wichita
Speaker 1: and Comanche owners, with whom they had apparently struck a
Speaker 1: trade deal. The Shamp Alexander party had managed to get
Speaker 1: a wagon to the spot, and levering the huge and
Speaker 1: heavy mass into the buckboard, they now set out for
Speaker 1: the Red River with the plan of floating it to Nacolush.
Speaker 1: The field had become even more crowded, though, word reached
Speaker 1: them that a fifty two men Spanish cavalry from San
Speaker 1: Antonio was coming after them with the intent of arresting
Speaker 1: American interlopers illegally mining Platina in Spanish Texas. Setting fire
Speaker 1: to the planes behind them, Shamp's party made it to
Speaker 1: the Red Fashioned a barge and headed downriver.
Speaker 2: They and their arrived to wild.
Speaker 1: Excitement in Nacotish on June fourth of eighteen ten. For
Speaker 1: nearly a year, the mysterious object resided in Nacotish, while
Speaker 1: various would be investors offered varying sums to buy the
Speaker 1: shares from the retrieving party. In eighteen eleven, Sibley and
Speaker 1: others arranged to boat the baffling object to New Orleans,
Speaker 1: accompanied by two members of the shamp Alexander party. There
Speaker 1: it was loaded aboard a vessel bound for New York
Speaker 1: so it could be properly assayed. Within a year, Sibley
Speaker 1: assembled the anxious members of the group that had labored
Speaker 1: to retrieve the mass and relayed very bad news. The
Speaker 1: medal had assayed as some kind of alloyed iron. After
Speaker 1: all their effort and all the excitement, the object had
Speaker 1: no value. Of course, an essay determining that the object
Speaker 1: was neither silver nor platinum did not answer the elephant
Speaker 1: in the room question, what on Earth was it? In fact,
Speaker 1: maybe it wasn't of Earth after all, and a lucky coincidence,
Speaker 1: The retrieval of the West's most confounding object took place
Speaker 1: in the first decade in human history when science was
Speaker 1: able to answer a question like that. In eighteen oh three,
Speaker 1: residents of the village of Le Guel, France, had reported
Speaker 1: that during a night of flying stars, stones had rained
Speaker 1: from the sky onto their town. Four years later, a
Speaker 1: Yale professor named Benjamin Sillimon happened to be on hand
Speaker 1: to see a similar shower of debris from the heavens
Speaker 1: near western Connecticut. Sillimon was dumbfounded and at a loss,
Speaker 1: arguing that the pieces must have broken off from the
Speaker 1: Moon or been discharged by some distant volcanic eruption. Following
Speaker 1: the lead of French scientists, he now believed such objects
Speaker 1: were related to shooting stars or meteors. However, by eighteen
Speaker 1: oh eight, scientists were writing in American journals and using
Speaker 1: the term meteorites to refer to debris from the sky,
Speaker 1: gaining access to the metallic mass. In eighteen fourteen, a
Speaker 1: newly aware professor Sillimon published the first in a series
Speaker 1: of experiments on it and surmised that it too was
Speaker 1: a meteorite. He labeled it a siderite, the new term
Speaker 1: for an iron nickel alloy meteorite. Since it hadn't been embedded,
Speaker 1: it was likely a direct motion object that fell at
Speaker 1: low velocity between midnight and noon in the direction of
Speaker 1: the Earth's spin. Named Red River, the one thousand, six
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty five pound mass became the prize meteorite
Speaker 1: and the largest in the world for most of the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century. In an effort to recreate its discovery in
Speaker 1: the eighteen twenties, Silimon interviewed doctor Sibley and Nacadish and
Speaker 1: prevailed on him to send along a copy of Glasses
Speaker 1: Journal with the first description anyone had written of this mystery.
Speaker 2: From the West.
Speaker 1: Science may have been delighted with Red River, but the
Speaker 1: frontier traders were never satisfied with this outcome. The American
Speaker 1: geographer William Darby was in Nacotish when Sibley delivered the
Speaker 1: bad news, and Darby.
Speaker 2: Spoke to two of them.
Speaker 1: They were convinced they had been swindled. In Darby's opinion,
Speaker 1: the persons engaged were in general too ignorant to understand
Speaker 1: the decisive results of such tests and unwilling to abandon
Speaker 1: a pleasing delusion.
Speaker 2: The result was.
Speaker 1: That, for at least the next two decades, accounts of
Speaker 1: silver and platina out on the plains became an unending
Speaker 1: frontier conversation.
Speaker 2: In the Southwest.
Speaker 1: Ordinary history has preserved those conversations, primarily in the form
Speaker 1: of the lost silver Mine of Alamo casualty Jim Bowie.
Speaker 2: As for the.
Speaker 1: Native people, while their most pressing need when the Americans
Speaker 1: arrived was clearly for the weaponry Spanish trade denied them,
Speaker 1: they do appear to have known that the giant meteorite
Speaker 1: was associated with shooting stars, what the Wichitas called the
Speaker 1: light that flies. That heavenly association, plus the essential mystery
Speaker 1: of the object makes me think their instinct to venerate
Speaker 1: it was hardly naive. They very well may have sent
Speaker 1: something profound about it. Among our current hypotheses for how
Speaker 1: life arose on Earth, one with a strong following involves meteorites.
Speaker 1: A striking piece of evidence for their possible role in
Speaker 1: launching life on Earth comes from the discovery that, while
Speaker 1: biology can be equally either left handed or right handed,
Speaker 1: all organic molecules on Earth, even our NA and DNA,
Speaker 1: are asymmetrically left handed, which makes meteorites particularly intriguing. Space
Speaker 1: derived organic molecules brought to Earth by meteorites have been
Speaker 1: gathered from all over the world, and like earthly life itself,
Speaker 1: they show a strong orientation for left handedness.
Speaker 3: Dan.
Speaker 2: A thing you mentioned.
Speaker 4: Is what's the name of the canyon on Mars, the
Speaker 4: v a Ma nears, you should if you can take
Speaker 4: a stab at explaining again, like how big it is.
Speaker 4: But the thing that I took me a minute to
Speaker 4: realize what you're saying is that I'm trying to equate
Speaker 4: it to like if you're standing on the shore, like
Speaker 4: on our Earth, if you're standing on a shore line.
Speaker 2: Looking out in the.
Speaker 4: Ocean, there's a couple of reasons why you can't see
Speaker 4: the next continent. But one of them is that the
Speaker 4: Earth rolls off right, and which you can. You know,
Speaker 4: you can kind of demonstrate with certain objects where the
Speaker 4: curvature of the Earth gets in the way.
Speaker 2: Even if you can see island sometimes can appear out
Speaker 2: of the water.
Speaker 4: Even if you could see infinity, you still wouldn't see
Speaker 4: the other continent because the curvature of the Earth throws
Speaker 4: you off. But it took me a minute to realize
Speaker 4: that you're saying that, like on Mars, that this canyon
Speaker 4: could be so big that on one side of the
Speaker 4: canyon looking across be the same as standing on the
Speaker 4: continental shelf. Yeah, and you might see the other side.
Speaker 2: You couldn't see that.
Speaker 4: I had to keep like think about that being like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: that's a great point.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So you know, when you're in the Grand Canyon, obviously
Speaker 1: you can see the other side. You can see the
Speaker 1: cliffs on the other side. If you're on the south rim,
Speaker 1: you can see the cliffs on the other side, And
Speaker 1: when you're down in the bottom of it, you can
Speaker 1: see the cliffs on both sides. What one of the
Speaker 1: questions about this canyon, which is the largest canyon in
Speaker 1: the Solar System, and you know, I am invoking it
Speaker 1: because this is one of those mysteries that's out there,
Speaker 1: sort of like the kind of mysteries that the West
Speaker 1: presented in eighteen hundred. But one of the mysteries about
Speaker 1: this valum Mariner's Canyon, which is this gigantic canyon twenty
Speaker 1: five thousand feet deep.
Speaker 2: Is that Mars is so small that the question is whether.
Speaker 1: Or not you can stand at the foot of the
Speaker 1: cliffs on one side and actually see the cliffs on
Speaker 1: the other side of the canyon. Even though it is
Speaker 1: a perfectly vertical canyon with the two cliffs opposing one another,
Speaker 1: the curve of the planet is so sharp that it
Speaker 1: may put the other side out of view.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, you have flat earthers if you had
Speaker 4: flat Mars ors that get there and they'd be like, ah, there.
Speaker 2: It is, I knew it. It does end.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's so my As I said, the reason
Speaker 1: I was invoking that is because it's one of those
Speaker 1: mysteries that we're probably going to know the answer to
Speaker 1: in another fifty or sixty years, once we have drones
Speaker 1: flying around Mars. And it's to me kind of analogous
Speaker 1: to some of the things that people were wondering about
Speaker 1: with respect to the West in eighteen hundred.
Speaker 2: What's out there and.
Speaker 1: What kind of strange things are we going to encounter
Speaker 1: that have a logical explanation that now seem to be
Speaker 1: you know, probably not logical at all.
Speaker 4: And I thought it was a great parallel Yeah, well, yeah,
Speaker 4: like our questions about our questions about Mars being a
Speaker 4: great parallel to and then plus all the fantastical ideas people.
Speaker 1: Had, Yeah, they had a lot of fantastical ideas, and
Speaker 1: you know, and the one I resolved on was, you know,
Speaker 1: this fairly little known story, but it's my analogy is
Speaker 1: that it was kind of the Southern West version of
Speaker 1: Culter's Hell, where John Coulter comes back after Lewis and
Speaker 1: Clark expedition and goes into what is present day Wyoming
Speaker 1: in Montana, and he encounters a place that a lot
Speaker 1: of people didn't believe existed because his descriptions of it
Speaker 1: seemed to be just, you know, really far out of line.
Speaker 1: And this was a story from the southern Prairies that
Speaker 1: kind of produced that same effect. What in the world
Speaker 1: is this object that's out there that has Native people
Speaker 1: so excited? And is it truly the realization of this
Speaker 1: long standing myth of the Southwest harboring all kinds of
Speaker 1: precious metals that you know, had sent everybody from Cobza,
Speaker 1: well not Cobza to Vaca really because he sort of
Speaker 1: starts the whole idea of there being precious metals in
Speaker 1: the in the West. But uh, certainly Coronado. Coronado's expedition
Speaker 1: was all about the idea that, uh, just as in
Speaker 1: Mexico and in Peru, probably the American Southwest held untold,
Speaker 1: unfathomable riches. And that's sort of the kind of genre
Speaker 1: that this particular story plays in.
Speaker 5: I think, Dan, when I read this, the comparison to
Speaker 5: Mars and the the Canyon, it triggered for me a
Speaker 5: memory of house sitting for you one summer in the
Speaker 5: Bitter Root, and I went into the shed where he
Speaker 5: kept the batteries for Solar system and on the wall,
Speaker 5: it's one of my favorite memories of that place. There's
Speaker 5: just a little yellowed image and underneath you had hand
Speaker 5: labeled it Olympus Mons, the largest mountain in the Solar System,
Speaker 5: and then parentheses Mars and there's no other context and Sydney.
Speaker 5: It's been a while trying to figure out why that
Speaker 5: was there, but.
Speaker 2: It was a place to put it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in the Solar But I the next thought I
Speaker 1: had was.
Speaker 5: Like, you have a special fascination with outer space, and
Speaker 5: there are all these parallels and pop cultures.
Speaker 3: I didn't.
Speaker 5: I just remember talking about when the movie John Carter
Speaker 5: from Mars came out. You were excited for that because
Speaker 5: it was vastly disappointed, vastly disappointed. But like all this
Speaker 5: early sci fi culture drew so strongly on the parallel
Speaker 5: to the West. And yeah, I don't know if you
Speaker 5: can expand on that, but I mean it's sort of
Speaker 5: an under It's one of those things where when you
Speaker 5: take a step back and re examine what you know,
Speaker 5: it makes sense, and you see these parallels clearly, but
Speaker 5: it's something that didn't really occur to me naturally.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I have always probably been fascinated with.
Speaker 2: Space and space.
Speaker 1: Expiration, probably because I was one of the Star Trek
Speaker 1: kids in the sixties. I mean I was probably sixteen
Speaker 1: years old or something when Star Trek was first on,
Speaker 1: and that was you know, that sort of really compelled me,
Speaker 1: I think, to be interested in space.
Speaker 2: But it also does have.
Speaker 1: A space expiration and Western exploration, to me, are pretty
Speaker 1: strong analogs of one another, because there's the whole idea
Speaker 1: of going into a country that you don't know anything about,
Speaker 1: and I think humans have done that. We've done that
Speaker 1: ever since. We Africa and went to the Middle East,
Speaker 1: and went to Europe and went to Asia and finally
Speaker 1: found the America's I mean, there's always been that idea
Speaker 1: of discovery and moving into new realms and finding new things,
Speaker 1: new creatures, new landscapes, new kinds of landforms, and so yeah,
Speaker 1: that you know, and I know.
Speaker 2: I'm not alone in that.
Speaker 1: I mean Kim Stanley Robinson, you know, the who's probably
Speaker 1: the best science fiction writer of our time. In his
Speaker 1: Great Trilogy Red Mars, Blue Mars, and Green Mars. His
Speaker 1: primary character in the first of those those books is
Speaker 1: a guy named John Boone, and John Boone has this
Speaker 1: wonderful experience of getting to go out in a rover
Speaker 1: with a laptop and do some sort of drug I'm
Speaker 1: not sure, I don't remember what they call it, but
Speaker 1: it's some sort of mine expanse drug and driving out
Speaker 1: through the landscapes of Mars and recording his impressions, you know,
Speaker 1: of a kind of a discovery of Martian terrain and
Speaker 1: Martian landforms. So yeah, there's probably in writing a piece
Speaker 1: like this, given the conclusion where that's the story goes.
Speaker 1: And I tried deliberately not to reveal what this object
Speaker 1: was out there until we get to the end of
Speaker 1: the story because I want there, wanted there to be
Speaker 1: a little bit of a mystery about what in the
Speaker 1: world is this this object that is compelling all this
Speaker 1: fascination by these traders who are going west. But yeah,
Speaker 1: because of its association.
Speaker 2: With with space, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I clearly, you know, was willing to invoke Mars and
Speaker 1: the and the giant canyon on Mars.
Speaker 4: You know what, when you when you read about you
Speaker 4: mentioned Coronado, and you read about coronat Or and you
Speaker 4: get this sense of I use the word fantastical or
Speaker 4: like they have these it seems like they're driven by
Speaker 4: these like overblown expectations, cities of gold and all this.
Speaker 4: But if you look at like what they were able
Speaker 4: to sack from the Aztecs, I mean, was it overblown jonesy? Like,
Speaker 4: wasn't what they actually what the Spanish actually like pulled
Speaker 4: out of the Aztec Empire? I mean that was like
Speaker 4: staggering wealth for real, right.
Speaker 1: It was staggering wealth in fact, So the combination of
Speaker 1: the sacking of the Assec Empire and the destruction of
Speaker 1: the Incas in Peru produced two hundred times over the
Speaker 1: amount of gold and silver that had ever been known
Speaker 1: in the Old world. So when Spain does that, of course,
Speaker 1: and what that does is that it sets up this
Speaker 1: expectation that these are not the only two places there
Speaker 1: are going to be. And so that's why Spain and
Speaker 1: these Spanish explorers like Carnado or so convinced that farther
Speaker 1: north there's going to be another one of these grand discoveries.
Speaker 4: Because you look at him and party wants to be
Speaker 4: like you idiots.
Speaker 2: But then on their head they're like, well, look, yeah,
Speaker 2: look what happened.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so two hundred times more, two.
Speaker 1: Hundred times the amount of gold and silver that had
Speaker 1: existed in the Old world came out of those mines
Speaker 1: and in the New world. And so it was yeah,
Speaker 1: it was Yeah, it was a spectacular discovery. And so
Speaker 1: that's one of the reasons you can look at someone
Speaker 1: like Carnado and feel a certain sympathy for his expectation.
Speaker 1: And that's why you know he takes when he doesn't
Speaker 1: find cities of gold at Zooni. He hears word, as
Speaker 1: I describe him, from this very clever and manipulative native
Speaker 1: informant that far out on the great Plains, on the prairies,
Speaker 1: there is a civilization where its leaders wear metal ornaments,
Speaker 1: necklaces and bracelets and various kinds of other ornaments. And
Speaker 1: so he Cornado takes fifty of his men and strikes
Speaker 1: out from New Mexico across the plains and travels all
Speaker 1: the way into present day Kansas on the Arkansas River
Speaker 1: and finds this country Quaverra, which is the country of
Speaker 1: the Wichita Indians when they were living up on the
Speaker 1: Arkansas and as I say in the Peace, he does
Speaker 1: find civil leaders who are wearing jewelry, but it's bronze,
Speaker 1: it's copper, it's stuff. It's copper actually from the mines
Speaker 1: up around Lake Superior. So the story, and that's kind
Speaker 1: of what propels the primary story in this piece, is
Speaker 1: that there is something. It's just when you see it
Speaker 1: through the eyes of expectation, you're very likely going to
Speaker 1: be disappointed. As these traders from Louisiana and Missus Zippy who
Speaker 1: go to this tremendous effort to haul back this object
Speaker 1: from the Southern pliance had up being they're disappointed.
Speaker 2: Ultimately it doesn't pay off.
Speaker 5: For one of the people that you write about in
Speaker 5: this in this piece is I think George Sibley, John Sibley,
Speaker 5: Doctor John's. Yeah, the Indian agent. And that's a term
Speaker 5: that you see again and again in accounts from the
Speaker 5: nineteenth nineteenth century, you know, US West history, and it's
Speaker 5: also one that doesn't really have a contemporary parallel, and
Speaker 5: it's I wonder if you could sort of unpack that
Speaker 5: for people that haven't encountered it before, because it's sort
Speaker 5: of a diplomat, sort of a trade controlling access to
Speaker 5: food stuffs and resources, especially as the reservation.
Speaker 4: You're sometimes sometimes an exploiter and.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, exactly, I mean tremendously powerful people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they were tremendously powerful. And doctor John Sibley of
Speaker 1: Louisiana was a kind of a prototypical Indian agent. He
Speaker 1: was one of the very first ones, and his duties
Speaker 1: were rather more limited than what we associate with later
Speaker 1: Indian agents, say after the Civil War, where they are
Speaker 1: doing things like providing food in order to enable reservation
Speaker 1: people who have been placed on reservations to survive, and
Speaker 1: they're acting in effect, the Indian agent's role is to
Speaker 1: act as kind of a diplomatic go between between the
Speaker 1: government in Washington and the native people themselves. And so
Speaker 1: this fellow John Sibley is I mean, he's not the
Speaker 1: only one. There are Indian agents, particularly appointed by the
Speaker 1: Jefferson administration in many places. William Clark becomes an Indian
Speaker 1: agent after the Lewis and Clark expedition is over. He's
Speaker 1: in charge of he's the representative and the diplomat to
Speaker 1: the Indians of the Missouri River country. So these people
Speaker 1: are attempting to execute Washington's geopolitical strategy for the Louisiana
Speaker 1: Purchase in the West. And the reason Sibley becomes important
Speaker 1: is because he's the Indian agent of a part of
Speaker 1: the West in the early nineteenth century where the boundaries
Speaker 1: are disputed between Spain and the United States. And that's
Speaker 1: why when I talked in one of the last episodes
Speaker 1: about that Jeffersonian expedition up the Red River that got
Speaker 1: turned around by Spain, that's the milieu in the context
Speaker 1: in which Sibley is operating. So Washington has just attempted
Speaker 1: to explore the southern parts of the Louisiana Purchase, and
Speaker 1: the official Jeffersonian expedition has been blocked by a Spanish
Speaker 1: force and turned around and sent back. And so what
Speaker 1: Sibley is attempting to do is to execute Jeffersonian policy
Speaker 1: for the West in a place where everything is vague
Speaker 1: and the boundaries are not clear. And what he's attempting
Speaker 1: to do then is to win over the tribes of
Speaker 1: the deep plains of the southern West. And that's really
Speaker 1: as far as his ideas extend. Nobody knows exactly how
Speaker 1: far out the true Southwest, say Santa Fe is, which
Speaker 1: everybody knows is in possession of Spain. That seems to
Speaker 1: be rather beyond the reach of somebody like Sibley, But
Speaker 1: he knows that up a river like the Red River
Speaker 1: or the Arkansas, there are all these tribes on the plains.
Speaker 1: So what he's trying to do is he's trying to
Speaker 1: win them away from from Spanish control to American control.
Speaker 1: And his primary attempt in doing that is to send
Speaker 1: these traders out with the promise of two things. If you,
Speaker 1: the Wichitas or the Comanches, will take down the Spanish
Speaker 1: flags flying over your villages and run American flags United
Speaker 1: States flags up your flag poles, and sort of declare
Speaker 1: yourselves to be Indians of the United States, then what
Speaker 1: we're going to do in return is we're going to
Speaker 1: set you up with a trade. If you recall that
Speaker 1: sort of crafty line where he simply says something like
Speaker 1: whoever offers Indians the best trade can always control their politics.
Speaker 1: What we're going to do is send traders out. And
Speaker 1: we know that Spain has not traded guns and ammunition
Speaker 1: to you. That's against the imperial policy of the Spanish Empire.
Speaker 1: They do not arm their native people. They try to
Speaker 1: convert them into being agriculturists and not hunters, and as Americans,
Speaker 1: we're going to offer you guns and ammunition. We're going
Speaker 1: to trade guns to you. And so that's what a
Speaker 1: lot of this story hinges around, is simply sending a
Speaker 1: trading expedition out to the Wichitas and the Comanches with
Speaker 1: the promise that I mean, what the traders are going
Speaker 1: for is they're bringing back horses that they've traded for,
Speaker 1: plus whatever the strange object is that everybody has heard
Speaker 1: rumors about, and the other aspect of courses, they're going
Speaker 1: to trade them guns. And I tried in that story
Speaker 1: to explain why the Wichitas and Commanches in particular desirous
Speaker 1: of having firearms, because they've got an enemy, the O Sages,
Speaker 1: who are well armed from their trading partners in Saint Louis,
Speaker 1: and the O Sages are attempting to block Saint Louis
Speaker 1: traders from getting out to the which Taws and the
Speaker 1: Comanches so that they can when they want to as
Speaker 1: they do three times while Glasses with them, this trader,
Speaker 1: Anthony Glasses living in the Witchdov villages. Three times you
Speaker 1: O Sage is right in and just steal half the
Speaker 1: horse herds that the Wichitas have and sort of, you know,
Speaker 1: wave somen of a bitch at them as they're riding
Speaker 1: away because they know that these Indians out on the
Speaker 1: deep planes aren't well armed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a good parallel would be us today, you know,
Speaker 3: saying to Iran, like, we don't want you to have that.
Speaker 4: Well, we're going to block other people from Britain to you.
Speaker 4: That's exactly the technologies that we have that we'd rather.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't want you to have that. And here
Speaker 2: somebody else pops up and says, oh we'll trade it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: well we'll absolutely supply you.
Speaker 1: And so that's what the United States, that's what JEFFERSONI
Speaker 1: and Indian policy must of it was about during these decades,
Speaker 1: is to try to win over the tribes. And one
Speaker 1: way to win them, the surefire way to win them
Speaker 1: is through trade. And you know, and then there's the
Speaker 1: secondary goal of this particular group of traders who have
Speaker 1: heard these stories about the Indians for the last thirty
Speaker 1: or forty years, have been talking about some remarkable, large
Speaker 1: chunk of metal out on the plains. And what they
Speaker 1: all think, what the Americans all think, is here's the
Speaker 1: silver oar. We've been hearing about in the Southwest for
Speaker 1: decades and decades and decades. And they go out and
Speaker 1: somehow Glass is able to persuade the Wichitas and the Comanches,
Speaker 1: probably with promises of trade of guns and so forth,
Speaker 1: to take him to see this object. And he's they're
Speaker 1: the first white people to ever see it. The Indians
Speaker 1: had never let any other white people see it before.
Speaker 4: Well, Dan things, the insights man, Yeah, you bet, we
Speaker 4: should probably say or should we tell people, well, they're
Speaker 4: going to hear.
Speaker 1: What this object is. But of course what the what
Speaker 1: the object is is it's the largest meteorite iron nickel
Speaker 1: meteorite discovered in the world in the nineteenth century. And
Speaker 1: these guys, these traders, hauled back to civilization thinking it
Speaker 1: is a gigantic nugget of platinum.
Speaker 4: With a lot of exertion, but a lot of exertion.
Speaker 4: Ye