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3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
Adventures on land and sea Apr 21, 2006
No sooner had Lewis and Clark completed their exploration of the American interior in 1804, than John Jacob Astor sponsored a fur-trading expedition across the continent. He sent two teams. One would follow the Louis and Clark route on land. The other would go by sea around Cape Horn. The two teams would meet up at the mouth of the Columbia River.
The land expedition included experienced Canadian fur trappers who would be dropped off here and there along the way to trap beavers. A new trading post would be built at mouth of the Columbia, where the trappers would deliver their pelts. The fur would then be shipped to China or wherever in the world they were desired.
It's hard for a reader who enjoys historical adventure to decide which party he would rather have accompanied. The seafarers contended with an aptly named Captain Thorn, whose temper and paranoid disposition caused trouble the whole way. There were also jealousies and conflicts among the partners employed by Astor. They stopped in Hawaii and met King Kamehameha, John Young, and other figures in Hawaiian history. They proceeded to the coast of North America, where Captain Thorn's temper got the whole expedition into disastrous trouble with the natives.
The over-land party mostly followed the route of Lewis and Clark. At that time it was necessary for a continental crossing to be large and well-armed, essentially an army. A small expedition would be wiped out by one or another native tribe along the way. After multiple dangers and privations, the survivors made it to their destination, where they built a miserable, wet fort and quarreled with the natives and among themselves. They called the fort Astoria, in honor of their sponsor. (The town is still there.)
Astor recognized from the correspondence and survivors' tales what a ripping yarn the expeditions would make, and he engaged one of the most prominent authors of the time, Washington Irving, to organize the story and compose it into a book. The result is an immensely enjoyable adventure story. It is also very informative about early Hawaii before the arrival of missionaries or whalers. The readers also learn about North American Indians, a trapper's way of life, the economics of the fur trade, and the political significance of getting there before the British. The book was written before a writer would have been obligated to spin the story in a particular political direction. There is no Indian-hating. Nor is there any tiresome political correctness.
Irving gives the book a novelistic feel by describing the personal idiosyncrasies and personality conflicts of the adventurers and the people they met along the way. He describes, for example, King Kamehameha in his "old suit of regimentals, with a sword by his side, and seemed somewhat embarrassed by his magnificent attire." The king's pig-trading skills are excellent. He makes good use of a royal monopoly and insists on payment in gold.
This book seems overlooked, perhaps because it is out of the mainstream of political history. Amazon will charge you a whopping $50 for it, suggesting that there is specialist interest in it. But I found my copy for less than $10 on a bargain table at a local bookstore, among all the other unshiftable books the store just wanted to get rid of.
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