BEADS, BLANKETS AND BUFFALO: TRADE AT BENT’S FORT By Leah Davis Witherow, Curator of History & Archivist CSPM is thrilled to announce its newest Children’s Gallery exhibit, Beads, Blankets and Buffalo: Trade at Bent’s Fort, which opens Saturday, November 18. The child-centered exhibit will offer CSPM visitors aged 2-10 an interactive, hands-on experience of a “day in the life” at Bent’s Fort. By exploring five key sections in the gallery: a carpenter’s shop, trade counter, kitchen, tipi and Santa Fe Trail wagon; children will discover how Bent’s Fort was a multicultural place of trade and exchange. Located approximately one hundred miles southeast of present day Colorado Springs on the mountain branch of the Santa Fe Trail, Bent’s Fort was the epicenter of international trade in the west. Founded on the banks of the Arkansas River in 1833 by brothers Charles and William Bent and trader Ceran St. Vrain, the privately owned fort was frequented by American Indians, trappers, traders, soldiers, scouts, frontiersmen, women and children. On any given day at least a half dozen languages were spoken at the fort including Spanish, Ute, Cheyenne, Comanche, Sioux, French and English. Made of adobe walls three feet thick and 15 feet high, the massive fortification was called the “Castle of the Plains.” In the center of the fort was the placita or common area, surrounded by trade rooms, bunk rooms, a blacksmith shop, carpentry shop and a kitchen and dining room all located on the perimeter of the structure. Hides and pelts were traded for an impressive variety of goods from around the world including coffee, tea, beads, cloth, needles, cookware, brass wire, hoop iron, tools and a variety of foodstuffs. Many people lived at the fort year-round including Mexican cowboys or vaqueros, cooks, hunters, herdsmen, clerks, freight-wagon drivers known as bullwhackers, blacksmiths, housekeepers, gunsmiths and wheelwrights, who were craftsmen who made and repaired wagon wheels. Additionally, Cheyenne and Arapaho often camped nearby, and travelers along the Santa Fe Trail made Bent’s Fort their temporary home for days, weeks or months at a time. For sixteen years, the fort was a crossroads of culture in the Southwest, a place of both respite for weary travelers and an exciting center of global trade. After the death of his wife Owl Woman and their fourth child, in addition to a devastating cholera outbreak that killed half of the Southern Cheyenne, William Bent ordered the fort closed on August 21, 1849. Bent’s Fort burned to the ground that same day. More than a century later, Congress declared Bent’s Old Fort a national historic site in 1960. The National Park Service used archeological evidence, paintings, drawings and diaries to reconstruct the fort in 1976, Colorado’s Centennial year. We hope families enjoy visiting Beads, Blankets and Buffalo: Trade at Bent’s Fort at CSPM, and they continue to explore the fascinating history of our region and state. MUSELETTER NOVEMBER 2017 | PG 2
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