Retirement of the Fur Trade

[Leifer]

"...In the early 1850s the Denigs sent their eldest son, Robert, to Chicago for schooling. By 1856, concerned about their other children's need for security and education, the Denigs quit Fort Union for the Red River settlement in Canada, which was something of a retirement community for fur companies' aged employees. Many mixed-blood families did likewise rather than suffer abuse and humiliation in "civilized" locales where white prejudice was far more openly expressed..."

-- "Fort Union and the Upper Missouri Fur Trade", Barbour, Barton H., University of Oklahoma Press, 2001

Interesting to think of "retirement communities" that far back. In its context it's a rather niche retirement community, but it makes sense. These people at least understood them while their family and friends "back home" did not.

Leifer

[Duane]

I doubt that it was any kind of retirement community,but rather a place where they could be who they wanted to be mixed blood or not.My great grandfather was in Red River in 1870 as a soldier,apparently thought it was a place where a white man could get killed very easily,of course that was during the
Louise Real fiasco..

[Rod]

This is actually something I've pondered about in relationship to Denig. I wonder if he didn't see the handwriting on the wall for the fur trade when the Stevens railroad survey came through Ft. Union in the 1850s. He was astute enough to realize that the trade was in steep decline, and a railroad would spell the end for the Upper Missouri posts, so he got out while he could. I know some forts hung on for 20 more years, but the profitability was questionable, and the ones that survived into the Indian Wars era were either remote, or on reservations.

I think Denig may have chosen Red River specifically for his family, he couldn't/wouldn't go back to Chambersburg, PA, and things went badly for his friends Alexander and Natawista Culbertson when they tried to retire to Peoria. Red River wasn't specifically designed as a fur trader's retirement community, but it seemed to be the way it turned out. It was originally a settlement of landless Scots established by HBC majority stockholder Lord Selkirk, more or less as a way to gain HBC control over an area that was NWC controlled. The Forks area was a major fur trade crossroads, and Selkirk thought he could kill two birds with one stone---help the dispossessed Scots, and stick it to the NWC at the same time. The colony staggered along until amalgamation in 1821, then the HBC started sending it's retired traders there in earnest. That also might have been to influence and 'leaven out' the large Métis community that was already there, the Métis were often somewhat of a thorn in the side of the HBC.

At any rate, by the mid-1800s, Red River had become the place to go when you were done with the trading life. Very fertile Red River valley land, so farming was an option that many took up. And having an Indian wife and métis kids wasn't looked down upon as it would have been in other parts of Canada/US.

Rod

[clydescott]

Retirement Community is the primary term for a major part of the retirement scene..Amazing things about this community that i have to learn through this post..So,thanks for this..
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