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· 130 · C H A P T E R T W E L V E  Conclude a Treaty for the Country upon the Saginac Bay  B y now some settlers from the eastern United States were coming to southeastern Michigan, though not in large numbers. Plans were also under way by a company of investors to build the village of Pontiac on the Saginaw Trail at the Clinton River crossing, a point about midway between Detroit and the Flint River. These developments would cause the wilderness to recede even further and bring more newcomers into contact with the Indians. Territorial officials wanted to prevent hostile incidents from occurring, since bloodshed would hurt the expansion of white settlements and towns; it could require tough and expensive military responses against the Indians, and that would be bad for the business of selling land to settlers. Of course, the issue of alcohol was a concern because of its devastating effects on the Indians and the possibility it would fuel violence.1 As noted previously, traders like Jacob Smith weren’t supposed to trade or give alcohol to the Indians with whom they were doing business, but American traders , like others, ignored the prohibitions. There had been a long history of traders routinely dealing or providing rum or brandy or whiskey in their transactions with the Chippewa and other tribes. But since the fur trade was a highly competitive business, it was perhaps inevitable that agents of the powerful American Fur · 131 · Conclude a Treaty for the Country Company, based at the company’s Great Lakes headquarters on Mackinac Island, learned from their traders in Saginaw that Smith was doing just that. Astor’s agents, Ramsay Crooks and Robert Stuart, had for months been feuding with Major William Puthuff, the veteran U.S. Army officer who was given the job of federal Indian agent at Michilimackinac by Gov. Lewis Cass. Puthuff knew many independent fur traders from his time in Detroit, and he had the authority to regulate and penalize traders. He didn’t like Astor’s powerful company, which had bought out all of the South West Company’s interests. Crooks and Stuart charged that Puthuff was a despotic and perhaps corrupt bureaucrat who improperly seized their traders’ boats, property and possessions; they said he wrongly charged their traders for licenses and banned Astor’s Canadian traders and their employees from taking part in the fur trade in U.S. territory. Crooks and Stuart maintained this was unfair.2 The complaint by Astor’s men centered on a federal law that made it illegal for anyone but American citizens to be in the fur trade on U.S. territory. While the law was aimed at creating and preserving American control of the trade in the U.S. territories of the Great Lakes and the West, the reality was that Astor needed Canadian employees to carry on his trade far and wide. With his strong connections and influence on the Monroe administration and Lewis Cass, Astor expected that his agents in Michigan should be granted special exceptions so they could continue to use Canadian employees and traders. Major Puthuff, however, knew American traders such as Jacob Smith from his time in Detroit. He insisted he was only doing his job, enforcing U.S. law and trying his best to oppose the interests of the hated Astor. Crooks and Stuart, back in New York early in 1818, charged that Puthuff employed a double standard: While he enforced rules that made things difficult for John Jacob Astor’s men, he allowed other fur traders who broke the law to go unpunished. Jacob Smith, they claimed, was one of these scofflaws whom Puthuff ignored. “The first thing we learned on arriving at Mackinaw last June, was the injury of our outfits had sustained at Sagina Bay on Lake Huron, and at Grand River, of Lake Michigan; from the clandestine introduction of Spirituous liquors; at the first place by Jacob Smith from Detroit,” the American Fur Company agents complained. “These acts were made known to Major Puthuff, and evidence offered in support; but we are not aware that he ever took the trouble to investigate their merits.”3 Jacob Smith, of course, was doing what every other fur trader had done, · 132 · c h a p t e r t w e lv e including those who worked for Astor’s company, one of the biggest and most powerful fur-trading concerns that ever existed. The complaint about Smith...

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