The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 26, July 1922 - April, 1923 Page: 253
324 p. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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New Light on Pattie and Southwestern Fur Trade 253
the dates of the Pattie narrative. According to Pattie he left the
copper mines on the second of January, 1826, and traveled down
the Gila with a company of French trappers until the 28th of the
month. It was the 29th of January that he fell in with the
American company. They traveled up the Colorado and finally
reached Santa F6 on the first of August, 1826. This was before
Young's party left that place.
But Pattie's dates are very unreliable throughout his entire
narrative. Where we have contemporary documents with which
to check them as in the case of that portion of his narrative deal-
ing with events in California, we are frequently able to show
that his dates are inaccurate, in some cases, a number of months.
It seems that he depended upon his memory for the major por-
tion of his narrative, and so, while his facts usually appear to be
fairly accurate, his dates are frequently wrong. It is possible,
therefore, that he is out some nine months or more in his dates
on this trip.
Dificulty of harmonizing Pattie's dates with other events.-
There are some things in the narrative, itself, which seem to
make this conclusion imperative. In the first place Pattie speaks
of traveling the full length of the Grand Canyon through snow
from a foot to eighteen inches deep. But according to his nar-
rative it was in the month of April when they made that journey.
Traveling on the south side of the Grand Canyon it would be
rather unusual to find snow that deep at that season of the year.
Further, according to Pattie, it was the first of August, 1826,
that the company reached Santa F6 and had their furs confis-
cated. But Narbona was still governor of New Mexico until
May, 1827, and his attitude towards the American trappers had
been one of leniency. Later in this very month (August, 1826)
he issued licenses, as we have indicated, to a number of parties
of American trappers, knowing full well that they were bound
for the Gila to trap beaver. Pattie says that he left the copper
mines on the second of January and that the American party,
of which he later became a member, continued trapping until
nearly the first of the next August, when they arrived at Santa
F6. But this was contrary to the regular trapping custom. The
trapping season was the fall, winter, and spring. Never did the
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 26, July 1922 - April, 1923, periodical, 1923; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101084/m1/259/: accessed March 29, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.