Social Importance
Mountain men were explorers who mostly lived solitary lives in the wilderness and overcame severe adversaries through extraordinary skills and personality qualities. Turner argued in his thesis that the success of America was influenced by dominant individualism, which was characterized by an individual’s willingness to work for good and evil (O’Reilly, 2018). Central to the frontier’s success was the individual’s practical and mastery in finding expeditions and material things. The hostile conditions in the wilderness turned the mountain men into savage individuals who resorted to cannibalism in extreme circumstances.
Men who survived the wilderness had to possess a preset of qualities such as dexterity, instincts, strength, courage, and fortitude to endure the hostile environment of the uninhabited regions. Their skills such as sign reading and strong visual and olfactory senses also influenced their wilderness success. Turner pointed out that the conflicts of individualistic and community needs were an opposing force to the blend of savagery and civilization (O’Reilly, 2018). The mountain men were ferocious and instinctively violent; this was contradictory to community values of the American culture of homely and warm qualities. By the time the mountain men arrived in the West, they had extensive knowledge of the Indians. The adequate information on their patterns and customs proved to be pivotal to the survival of the mountain men in the wilderness.
Economic Importance
Mountain men were mostly organized into three trapping groups: free trappers, the ones that worked for companies, and those owned by a particular company. Free trappers worked independently as they would sell their fur to whoever paid the best price at the rendezvous. The company trappers had contracts with organizations and were indebted to selling their furs to these firms. The majority of the mountain men were heavily indebted since their businesses were owned and controlled by these organizations. These establishments would hire the mountain men to trap and skip beavers. Its skins were in high demand at the time and people would pay huge sums of money for the hats made of them.
Mountain men’s skills proved to be instrumental to American’s economic ventures in the 1800s (Tewi Inaba, 2014). They explored unmapped areas and followed streams as their main highways and reference points. Through their trail explorations, mountain men led to the discovery of new routes. When the fur trade declined, the mountain men used their skills to guide American pioneers in expeditions. Without the mountain men’s wilderness knowledge, most settlers would have died given the life-threatening situations in those regions.
The success of mountain men as traders can be attributed to their trapping skills that they acquired in the wilderness. Since many mountain men were free-trappers, their lucrative earnings from trade were derived mainly from the fur business. It was one of the most profitable businesses that fueled exploration and competition among European and Indian powers in America. The mountain men primarily traded in fur, beaver hides, coffee, alcohol, and sugar during the organized rendezvous celebrations (Tewi Inaba, 2014). The wilderness had become an important base for these celebrations where trade was combined with recreation. There, the mountain men would socialize, trade, contest, gamble, and engage in recreational activities. The introduction of alcohol into the trapper culture was destructive to mountain men as some would spend all their money on it, along with gambling or Indian and Native American women. When the fur trade died, most mountain men earned their living through guiding explorations. Joe walker, the explorer that first led the group into America, left the trapping career and ventured into mining, ranching, and guiding expeditions.
Cultural Importance
Turner asserted in his thesis that the American intellect is indebted to the contact with a rugged frontier that led to the development of new cultures. It liberated Americans from European mindsets that caused the erosion of dysfunctional customs. It was also characterized by high individualism and deterioration of civic duty (O’Reilly, 2018). The cultural influence of the mountain men with Native Americans could have contributed to the development of new cultures. The mountain formed relationships with natives and intermarried with Indians. These relations were mostly productive and successful since they taught how to survive and cope with the environment of the West (Tewi Inaba, 2014). They learned and assimilated their customs through interactions with traders during the rendezvous celebrations. Apart from learning the West culture, the mountain men also facilitated cultural diffusion of the west across the tribes they encountered. They learned the languages of the natives and used sign languages when the tribes used an unfamiliar speech.
Although the Mountain men self-identified as White, they dressed in clothing that blended with the Indian and West cultures as a form of protection. The unique dressing code of the mountain men protected them from accidental attacks of wilderness tribes. Most of them welcomed the mountain men mainly for their skills and possible contribution to their communities. Each tribe had its expectations of the mountain trappers. However, encroachment did not resonate with their mountain men’s culture as they were more interested in exploration and beaver hunting than settlements. They lived in harmony with friendly tribes and in conflict with the hostile ones.
References
O’Reilly, W. (2018). Fredrick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis, orientalism, and the Austrian militärgrenze. Journal of Austrian-American History, 2(1), 1-30.
Tewi Inaba. (2014). The mountain men documentary (1999) [Video]. YouTube. Web.