The "cutting edge" of opportunity in America for 200 years lay in the Frontier, and specifically, with the Indian Trade. Furs. Coastal opportunities had been monopolized by European Lords in the Colonial period of sot-weed factors and rum-runners. The Indian Trade was the single most lucrative enterprise open to the folks who did not have titles and powdered wigs.
John Jacob Astor, a German-born son of a butcher, took immediate interest in the opportunities. He set up a trading post in New York, and then franchised the concept, losing money on the furs -- paying more and selling for less -- but becoming wealthy from the appreciation of the land around the network of posts. He also was one of the first to realize the capacity of the Clipper Ship, a uniquely American technology, for the globalization of trade. The fur trader became the richest man in America.
By the 1800's, however, the furs and the Indians were disappearing. In a daring move, Astor hired French-Canadiens to set up a trading posts across the Pacific Northwest from a hub at the mouth of the Columbia. Astor keenly appreciated the experience the Frenchmen had with the wilderness and the Indian trade.
One of these voyageurs was Gabriele Franchere, the author of a journal kept of his 1810-1814 travels on behalf of Astor in this project of opening the Pacific Northwest to his vision of world-wide trade.
The Journal speaks to the initiative, and to the failure, of the project, without boast or whining, or unnecessary bitterness. In fact, Franchere is often quite wooden about the account -- describing the surrender of Astoria (and the loss of his hopes for a fortune) to the British who seized the post, as simply "...for we were inferior in point of numbers, although our position was exceedingly advantageous." [143]
The Voyage included a visit to Hawaii 32 years after Cook was killed there. Described Tamehameha, the usurper who conquered all of the islands, and witnessed a trial he conducted. [40] Contradicts some of the details collected by Washington Irving in his "ASTORIA" [qv][291] which clearly drew from this author's accounts. ( )