Trader

Trade in the Southwest.

The trade between Anglos and Native Americans proved crucial to westward expansion in the nineteenth century. Few people were as central to that trade on the southern | Great Plains as William Bent. Born into a large family on 23 May 1809 in St. Louis, Bent joined his older brother Charles in a Missouri River trading expedition in 1827. William and Charles then took a caravan of American goods along the Santa Fe Trail in 1829. Though proving profitable, William temporarily left the Santa Fe trade and began trapping. In the winter of 1829-1830 he saved the lives of two Cheyenne, thus inaugurating his long bond with these Indians. After an unsuccessful trapping excursion into Arizona, Bent resumed his commercial ventures by joining the company established by Charles and his partner, Ceran St. Vrain.

Ties to the Cheyennes.

In 1831 the Bent brothers and some southern...