The Platte River of Nebraska was famous for being “a mile wide and an inch deep,” which made it almost impossible to navigate a boat down the river. Between 1835 and 1846, when the fur trade was at its height, only one in ten attempts to ship caches of furs downstream was successful (Allin, 9). Bullboats and Mackinaw boats, pictured here, were traders’ vessels of choice. On the Platte, traders were more likely to lose furs to capsizing than to Indian attacks. Miller most likely included this scene as a sensational addition, recalling the famous 1823 Arikara attack on William Ashley, founder of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, and his men near the Missouri River.
Painted from the viewpoint of the American Indians looking out over the Platte River, Miller visually reverses the narrative of conquest. Here, the Indians surround the foreground, surveying their territory, calm, armed, and assured in their position. In contrast, the Anglo-European outsiders, symbolized only by their vessels, cautiously row forward, the wealth they reaped from the land unsecured, and their safety within the navigable waters of the west unassured.
Emily C. Wilson
