Editing Jedediah Smith (section)

==Third Rendezvous of 1827 and second trip to California, 1827–28==
[[File:Mission San José.jpg|thumb |180px |left | Smith's return to [[California]] threatened Mexican authority at [[Mission San José (California)|Mission San José]].]]

As agreed, Ashley had sent provisions for the rendezvous, and his men took back {{convert|7400|lb|kg}} of Smith, Jackson & Sublette furs{{sfn|Morgan|1964|p=226}} and a letter from Smith to William Clark, then in the office of the Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the region west of the [[Mississippi River]], describing what he had observed the previous year.  Smith left to rejoin the men he had left in California almost immediately after the rendezvous. He was accompanied by 18 men and two French-Canadian women, following much of the same route as the previous year.{{sfn|Morgan|1964|pages=240–41}} In the ensuing year, the Mojave along the Colorado River who had been so welcoming the previous year had clashed with trappers from [[Taos, New Mexico|Taos]] and were set on revenge against the whites.{{sfn|Sears|1963|p=4}} While crossing the river, Smith's party was attacked; 10 men, including Silas Gobel, were killed, and the two women were taken captive. Smith and the eight surviving men, one badly wounded from the fighting, prepared to make a desperate stand on the west bank of [[Colorado River]], having made a makeshift breastwork out of trees and fashioned lances by attaching butcher knives to light poles.{{sfn|Morgan|1964|p=240}} The men still had five guns among them, and as the Mojave began to approach, Smith ordered his men to fire on those within range.{{sfn|Sears|1963|p=4}} Two Mojaves were shot and killed, one was wounded, and the remaining attackers fled.{{sfn|Morgan|1964|p=240}} Before the Mojave could regroup, Smith and eight other surviving men retreated on foot across the Mojave Desert on the Mohave Trail to the San Bernardino Valley.{{sfn|Morgan|1964|p=243}}

[[File:Map_california_central_valley.jpg|thumb|180px|California's [[Central Valley (California)|Central Valley]].  Smith and his men explored the southern San Joaquin Valley in 1826–27, and the northern Sacramento Valley in 1828.]]

Smith and the other survivors were again well received in San Gabriel. The party moved north to meet with the group that had been left in the [[San Joaquin Valley]], reuniting with them on September&nbsp;19, 1827. Unlike in San Gabriel, they were coolly received by the priests at [[Mission San José (California)|Mission San José]], who had already received warning of Smith's renewed presence in the area. Smith's party also visited the settlements at [[Monterey, California|Monterey]] and [[Yerba Buena, California|Yerba Buena]] (San Francisco).

Governor Echeandía, who was at the time in Monterey (capital of Alta California), once again arrested Smith, this time along with his men. Yet despite the breach of trust, the governor once again released Smith after several English-speaking residents vouched for him, including [[John B. R. Cooper]] and [[William Edward Petty Hartnell]] in Monterey. After posting a $30,000 bond, Smith received a passport, on the same promise&nbsp;– to leave the province immediately and not to return.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Woolfenden|first1=J.| last2=Elkinton |first2=A.| year=1983| title=Cooper: Juan Bautista Rogers Cooper, sea captain, adventurer, ranchero, and early California pioneer, 1791–1872 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xBg6AAAACAAJ| location=Pacific Grove, CA |publisher= Boxwood Press | pages=35–38 |isbn=0-910286-95-7}}</ref> Also as before, Smith and his party remained in California hunting in the Sacramento Valley for several months.{{efn|Most notably along the American River, which was named for the party.<ref name=Chittenden>{{cite book|last=Chittenden|first=Hiram M.|title=American Fur Trade of the West. A History of the Pioneer Trading Posts and Early Fur Companies of the Missouri Valley and the Rocky Mountains and of the Overland Commerce with Santa Fe | url=https://archive.org/details/americanfurtrad00chitgoog|publisher=Francis P. Harper| location=New York |year=1901|page=286}}</ref>}} Upon reaching the northern edge of the valley, the party scouted the route to the northeast afforded by the [[Pit River]] but determined it to be impassable,{{sfn|Barbour|2011|page=203–04}}{{efn|This determination was probably the end of Smith's belief in the possibility that what [[Luis Antonio Argüello]] had called the Buenaventura, the [[Sacramento River]],{{sfn|Barbour|2011|p=183, 185–86}} flowed from the Great Salt Lake region.}} so veered northwest toward the Pacific coast to find the Columbia River and return to the Rocky Mountain region.  Jedediah Smith became the first explorer to reach the [[Oregon Country]] overland by traveling north on the California coast.<ref name=Auld>{{cite web
 |title        = Biography – Jedediah Strong Smith January 6, 1799 – May 27, 1831
 |website      = Discovering the Lost Legacy of Jedediah Smith
 |url          = http://www.jedsmithlegacy.com/JCAJedBio.htm
 |publisher    = Auld, James C.
 |access-date  = October 4, 2015
 |archive-date = March 5, 2017
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20170305001910/http://www.jedsmithlegacy.com/JCAJedBio.htm
 }}</ref>

===Trip to the Oregon Country===
[[File:Sir George Simpson, 1792–1860 (cropped).jpg|thumb|left|180px|Smith met with [[George Simpson (Pre-Confederation Canada politician and trader)|George Simpson]], Governor-in-Chief of the HBC, at Fort Vancouver, after the Umpqua massacre.]]

When Smith's party left Mexican Alta California and entered the Oregon Country, the [[Treaty of 1818]] allowed joint occupation between Britain and the United States. In the Oregon Country, Smith's party, then numbering 19 and over 250 horses,{{efn|Smith bought the wild Spanish horses in California in hopes of selling them in the Rocky Mountains for a profit.<ref name=Auld/>  He had learned the previous year that horses in California were so plentiful that the rancheros (owners of [[Ranchos of California|Ranchos]]) would round up hundreds of them into an enclosure, take out the best, and leave the rest to starve to death. Smith was disgusted by the practice{{sfn|Barbour|2011|p=127}} but saw a chance at profit. The next year, after having lost so many men at the Colorado River, he wanted to hire more in California for the trip north, but Mexican officials forbade this. In defiance of the orders, Smith hired Richard Leland who was an excellent horseman.}} came into contact with the [[Umpqua people]]. The tribes along the coast had monitored the party's progress, passing news of conflicts between the group and indigenes, and the Umpqua were wary.{{sfn|Barbour|2011|p=233}}  One member of Smith's party, Harrison Rogers, described a conflict between the party and the Umpqua that took place on July 11:<blockquote>"Had several Inds. along; one of the Ind. stole an ax and we were obliged to seize him for the purpose of tying him before we could scare him to make him give it up. Capt. Smith and one of them caught him and put a cord round his neck, and the rest of us stood with our guns ready in case they made any resistance, there was about 50 Inds. present but did not pretend to resist tying the other."<ref name=":1" /> </blockquote>On July&nbsp;14, 1828, while Smith, [[John Turner (fur trapper)|John Turner]] and Richard Leland were scouting a trail north, his group was attacked in its camp on the [[Umpqua River]] by a group of Umpqua people.{{sfn|Eddins|2002|p=}} 

On the night of August 8, 1828, Arthur Black arrived at the gate of Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) post at [[Fort Vancouver]], exhausted and almost destitute of clothing. He believed himself to be the only survivor of the men at camp but did not know of the fate of Smith and the two others. Chief Factor [[John McLoughlin]], superintendent at the fort, sent word to the local tribes that they would be rewarded if they brought Smith and his men to the fort unharmed, and began organizing a search party for them.<ref name=Carey289>{{cite book |last1=Carey|first1=Charles Henry| last2= McLoughlin | first2=John | title =History of Oregon | publisher =Pioneer Historical Publishing Co. | chapter=American Fur Traders and Mountain Men; footnote 11, excerpt of John McLoughlin's Memoirs |date =1922 | location =Portland | pages =[https://archive.org/details/historyoregon00henrgoog/page/n300 289]–90 | chapter-url =https://archive.org/details/historyoregon00henrgoog}} McLoughlin died in 1857, and his memoirs can be found in their entirety in {{cite book|editor= Oregon Pioneer Association | chapter= Copy of a Document found among the Private Papers of the Late Dr. John McLoughlin |chapter-url = https://archive.org/details/OregonPioneerAssociationTransactionsFor1880| title = Oregon Pioneer Association Transactions for 1880|others = John McLoughlin|volume =3–14 |publisher=E. M. Waite, Steam Printer and Bookbinder|location=Salem, Oregon|year = 1881|pages=[https://archive.org/details/OregonPioneerAssociationTransactionsFor1880/page/n45 46]–55|id = ark:/13960/t7mp8fg3b}}</ref> Smith and the two others, having been alerted to the attack, had climbed a hill above the camp and witnessed the massacre; they arrived at [[Fort Vancouver]] on August 10, two days after Black.{{sfn|Eddins|2002|p=}}{{efn|Several early sources stated that only three men survived the massacre.<ref name=Chittenden /><ref name=Carey289 /><ref name=Lang184>{{cite book |last=Lang|first= Herbert O. |year=1885|url=https://archive.org/details/histwillvalley00langrich |title=History of the Willamette Valley, Being a Description of the Valley and Its Resources, with an Account of Its Discovery and Settlement by White Men, and Its Subsequent History Together with Personal Reminiscences of Its Early Pioneers|publisher= G.H. Himes, Book and Job Printer|pages= [https://archive.org/details/histwillvalley00langrich/page/194 194]–95}}</ref><ref name=Dale196>{{cite book|last1=Dale|first1=Harrison C.|last2=Rogers | first2=Harrison G. |last3=Ronda|first3=James P. (intro.)|title=The explorations of William H. Ashley and Jedediah Smith – 1822–1829|publisher=University of Nebraska Press |location = Lincoln |year=1991|orig-date=1918|isbn=0-8032-6591-3|page=196}}</ref> However, McLoughlin had documented that Black had arrived two days before "Smith arrived with two men".<ref name=Carey289 /> [[James Nesmith]] stated in 1880 that "Smith, John Turner, and the other man, name unknown, who had been absent from the camp" had avoided the attack.<ref>{{cite book|editor= Oregon Pioneer Association |chapter-url = https://archive.org/details/OregonPioneerAssociationTransactionsFor1880| title = Oregon Pioneer Association Transactions for 1880|chapter=Annual Address|others = James W. Nesmith|volume= 3–14 |publisher=E. M. Waite, Steam Printer and Bookbinder|year = 1881|location=Salem, Oregon|pages=[https://archive.org/details/OregonPioneerAssociationTransactionsFor1880/page/n23 24]|id = ark:/13960/t7mp8fg3b}}</ref> Neihardt had documented that one source stated that Smith went off with "a little Englishman" that morning,{{sfn|Neihardt|1970|p=276}} but confusion over the identity of the fourth survivor ceased when Smith's narrative, found by Maurice Sullivan around 1930, corrected the name of Richard Leland (previously documented as "Richard Taylor"{{sfn|Dale|Rogers|Ronda|1991|pages=237–38}} and "Richard Laughlin"<ref name=Lang184/>), an Englishman who Smith met in California and who joined the party in December 1827.{{sfn|Smith||McLeod|1992|pages=48–49}} allowing Sullivan to determine he was the third Smith man in the canoe,{{sfn|Smith||McLeod|1992|p=108}}  Leland's survival was later confirmed by [[Dale Morgan]].{{sfn|Morgan|1964|p=269}}}}

McLoughlin sent [[Alexander Roderick McLeod|Alexander McLeod]] south with Smith, Black, Turner, and Leland, and 37 HBC men to rescue any other men that had been in the camp that had possibly survived,{{efn|Some early versions written about the incident stated that Smith had gone off by himself and that Turner and/or Leland had been at camp, fought their way out with a burning log and met up with Smith en route to Fort Vancouver. This appears to be based on Turner's experience in a subsequent massacre.  The currently accepted version is that Turner and Leland were in the canoe with Smith and avoided the attack. A discussion of the versions can be found in Don Whereat's ''Our Culture and History''.<ref>{{cite book|last=Whereat|first=Don|title=Our Culture and History|chapter=Jedidiah Strong Smith – 1798–1831|chapter-url=http://www.yachats.info/history/Indigenous/Our_Culture_&_History.pdf#page=76|via=Yachats.info|access-date=December 1, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304065840/http://www.yachats.info/history/Indigenous/Our_Culture_%26_History.pdf#page=76|archive-date=March 4, 2016}}</ref>}} and their goods. After recovering several horses in bad condition, Black and Leland remained with some HBC men to care for them, and the HBC horses and Smith, Turner, and 18 HBC men proceeded to the massacre site.  On October 28, they reached it and found 11 decomposed bodies, which they buried.{{sfn|Smith|McLeod|1992|pages=128–29}}{{efn |From their earlier communications with the indigenes they had encountered, they had hopes that 4 men had survived the massacre and where in the hands of the "Cahoose Indians", but as no trace of them was found elsewhere, their bodies had possibly been swept away by the river while trying to escape the massacre.{{sfn|Morgan|1964|p=278}}}} They ultimately confirmed that all 4 of the unaccounted-for men had died<ref name=NPS>{{cite web|last=Hussey|first=John A. |title=Old Fort Vancouver, 1824–1829
|url=http://www.nps.gov/fova/learn/historyculture/oldfova.htm
|website=National Park Service| access-date=November 11, 2015}}</ref> and recovered 700 beaver pelts, 50 river otter pelts, 4 sea otter pelts, and 39 horses, as well as Harrison Rogers' journals.{{efn|Rogers was Smith's clerk.  He had accompanied Smith to California on the 1825 trip and was left in charge during the four months Smith was gone to the 1827 rendezvous.  After Smith's death, Rogers' journals ended up in Ashley's hands.  Ashley's grand-niece donated them to the [[Missouri Historical Society]] and were the source of much early information about Smith's travels.<ref name=Dale196/>}}

On October 25, 1828, while McLeod's recovery expedition was in the field, HBC Governor [[George Simpson (HBC administrator)|George Simpson]] coincidentally arrived at Fort Vancouver on an inspection tour. When Smith returned, he and Simpson negotiated the purchase of the recovered property by the HBC. Simpson estimated that the recovery expedition had cost the Company £1,000{{efn|equivalent to $4,444 at the time,<ref name=Holloway/> £{{inflation|UK|1000|1828|fmt=c}} in {{inflation/year|UK}},{{inflation/fn|UK}} and ${{inflation|US|4444|1828|fmt=c}} in {{inflation/year|US}}{{inflation/fn|US}}}} in lost revenue, and the salaries of the HBC men who spent three months on the trip cost an additional £171,{{efn|equivalent to $760 at the time,<ref name=Holloway/> £{{inflation|UK|171|1828|fmt=c}} in {{inflation/year|UK}},{{inflation/fn|UK}} and ${{inflation|US|760|1828|fmt=c}} in {{inflation/year|US}}{{inflation/fn|US}}}} yet HBC turned the recovered property over to Smith at no charge. Then Simpson paid Smith generous prices for the recovered furs and horses, totaling £582,{{efn|equivalent to $2,587 at the time,<ref name=Holloway/> £{{inflation|UK|582|1828|fmt=c}} in {{inflation/year|UK}},{{inflation/fn|UK}} and ${{inflation|US|2587|1828|fmt=c}} in {{inflation/year|US}}{{inflation/fn|US}}}} and added a lump-sum bonus of £400;{{efn|equivalent to $1,778 at the time,<ref name=Holloway/> £{{inflation|UK|400|1828|fmt=c}} in {{inflation/year|UK}},{{inflation/fn|UK}} and ${{inflation|US|1778|1828|fmt=c}} in {{inflation/year|US}}{{inflation/fn|US}}}} the payment totaled £982.{{efn|equivalent to $4,365 at the time,<ref name=Holloway/> £{{inflation|UK|982|1828|fmt=c}} in {{inflation/year|UK}},{{inflation/fn|UK}} and ${{inflation|US|4365|1828|fmt=c}} in {{inflation/year|US}}{{inflation/fn|US}}}}<ref name=Holloway>{{cite journal |first=Thomas H. |last=Holloway |title=Killing Competition with Kindness: Jedediah Smith, George Simpson, and the Aftermath of the Umpqua Massacre|journal=Rocky Mountain Fur Trade Journal |volume=17 |year=2023 |page=4}}</ref> In return, Smith apparently agreed that the firm of Smith, Jackson, and Sublette would confine its operations to the region east of the Great Divide.<ref>{{cite book |last= Victor |first= Frances Fuller |title= River of the West |publisher= Bliss & Co. | year= 1870 | location= Hartford and Toledo | page= 60}}</ref>  Smith remained at Fort Vancouver until March 12, 1829, when he and Arthur Black traveled up the [[Columbia River]] with the HBC's [[York Factory Express]] to [[Fort Colvile]], where they acquired horses and supplies for the trip east to meet up with his partners in Pierre's Hole, on the west side of the Grand Tetons.<ref>{{cite newsletter |first=William G. |last=White |title=Jedediah Smith Outbound Via the Columbia River, 1829 |work=Castor Canadensis |date=Fall 2022 |page=5}}</ref>

===Blackfeet expedition, 1829–30===
[[File:Bodmer -- Blackfoot Indian, 1840-1843.jpg|thumb|150px|right|Blackfoot warrior<br />Bodmer (''1840–1843'')]]
In 1829, Captain Smith personally organized a fur trade expedition into the [[Blackfoot Confederacy|Blackfeet]] territory. Smith was able to capture a good quantity of beaver pelts before being repulsed by hostile Blackfeet. [[Jim Bridger]] served as a riverboat pilot on the [[Powder River (Wyoming and Montana)|Powder River]] during the profitable expedition. In the four years of western fur trapping, Smith, Jackson, and Sublette were able to make a substantial profit and, at the 1830 rendezvous on the [[Wind River (Wyoming)|Wind River]], they sold their company to [[Thomas Fitzpatrick (trapper)|Tom Fitzpatrick]], [[Milton Sublette]], Jim Bridger, [[Henry Fraeb]], and John Baptiste Gervais who renamed it the Rocky Mountain Fur Company.{{sfn|Barbour|2011|page=247-48}}

===Return to St. Louis===
[[File:John Eaton.jpg|thumb|left|150px|Secretary of War<br /> [[John H. Eaton]]]]

After Smith's return to St. Louis in 1830, he and his partners wrote a letter on October 29 to Secretary of War Eaton, who at the time was involved in a notorious Washington cabinet scandal known as the [[Petticoat Affair]]<ref name=Latner>{{cite journal |last = Latner|first = Richard B. | title = The Eaton Affair Reconsidered.| journal = Tennessee Historical Quarterly |volume = 36 |issue = 3 |year =1977|pages = 330–51|jstor = 42623838 }}</ref> and informed Eaton of the "military implications" of the British allegedly alienating the indigene population towards any American trappers in the Pacific Northwest. According to biographer Dale L. Morgan, Smith's letter was "a clear sighted statement of the national interest".{{sfn|Morgan|1964|p=323}}  The letter also included a description of Fort Vancouver and described how the British were in the process of making a new fort at the time of Smith's visit in 1829. Smith believed the British were attempting to establish a permanent settlement in the Oregon Country.<ref name=NPS />

Smith had not forgotten the financial struggles of his family in Ohio. After making a sizable profit from the sale of furs, over $17,000 (more than ${{inflation|US|17,000|1830|fmt=c}} in {{inflation/year|US}}){{inflation/fn|US}}  Smith sent $1,500 ({{inflation|US|1500|1830|fmt=eq}}){{inflation/fn|US}} to his family in Green Township, whereupon his brother Ralph bought a farm. Smith also bought a house on First Avenue in St. Louis to be shared with his brothers. Smith bought two African slaves to take care of the property in St. Louis.{{sfn|Morgan|1964|p=323}}

The partners' busy schedules in St. Louis also found them and Samuel Parkman making a map of their discoveries in the West,<ref name=Lyman>{{cite book|last1=Lyman|first1=Betsy Converse|title=Pioneer and General History of Geauga County: With Sketches of Some of the Pioneers and Prominent Men.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Eu0uAAAAYAAJ|publisher=The Historical Society of Geauga County|access-date=May 2, 2015|page=705|date=1880}}</ref> to which Smith was the major contributor.  On March&nbsp;2, 1831, Smith wrote another letter to Eaton, now a few months away from resigning because of the Petticoat Affair,<ref name=Latner/> referencing the map<ref name=Smith>{{cite journal|last=Smith | first=Jedediah |title=A Letter from Jedediah Smith| editor=James S. Hutchins| journal=Museum of the Fur Trade Quarterly | year=2001|pages= 2–7}}</ref> and requesting to launch a federally funded exploration expedition similar to the Lewis & Clark expedition.{{sfn|Morgan|1964|p=323}}{{efn| President [[Andrew Jackson]], opposed federal funding for western overland exploration during his first term, but relented during his second term creating [[United States Exploring Expedition]] in May 1836.}} Smith requested that Reuben Holmes, a West Point graduate and military officer, would lead the expedition.<ref name=Smith/>

Smith and his partners were also preparing to join into the supply trade known as the "[[Josiah Gregg#Commerce of the Prairies|commerce of the prairies"]]. At the request of William H. Ashley, Smith Jackson and Sublette received a passport from Senator [[Thomas Hart Benton (politician)|Thomas Hart Benton]] on March 3, 1831, the day after Smith wrote his letter to Eaton, and they began forming a company of 74 men, twenty-two wagons, and a "six-pounder" [[artillery]] [[cannon]] for protection.{{citation needed|date=December 2015}}