I am informed that there is but little doubt, but a clear gain of more than fifty thousand dollars has been made this year on the sale of whisky to the Indians on the river Missouri; the prices are from $25 to $50 a gallon. Major Morgan, United States sutler at Cantonment Leavenworth, says that thousands of gallons of alcohol has passed that post during the present year, destined for the Indian country.10
These official reports were supplemented by another on the same subject from William M. Gordon to General William Clark, at that time Superintendent of Indian Affairs. In his report, Gordon, writing from St. Louis, pointed out that, "whisky, though not an authorized article, has been a principal, and I believe a very lucrative one for the last several years."11
What a climax of trading methods, first to debauch the Indians systematically in order to swindle them, and then make a large revenue on the rum that enabled the company to do it! Undoubtedly it was by these means that Astor became possessed of large tracts of land in Wisconsin and elsewhere in the West. But the methods thus far enumerated were but the precursors of others. When the Indians were made maudlin drunk and bargained with for their furs were they paid in money? By no means. The American Fur Company had another trick in reserve. Astor employed the cunning expedient of exchanging merchandise for furs. Large quantities of goods, especially woolens, made by underpaid adult and child labor in England and America, and representing the sweat and suffering of the labor of the workers, were regularly shipped by him to the West. For these goods the Indians were charged one-half again or more what each article cost after paying all expenses of transportation.12 Reporting from St. Louis, Oct. 24, 1831, in a communication to the Secretary of War, Thomas Forsyth gave a description of this phase of the American Fur Company's dealings. He said: