2 Joseph J. Hill Southwest. But few people, perhaps, realize that there was any considerable fur trade in the Far Southwest. They think of fur-bearing animals as living only in the colder regions to the north. They do not seem to ap- preciate the significance of the many "Beaver" and "Nutrias" creeks still on the map of the Southwest— in- delible evidence of the presence of those much coveted animals in that region. This is due largely to the fact that documents relating to this trade in the Southwest have been both consciously and unconsciously ignored by leading writers on the subject. Chittenden, in his monumental work, The Amer- ican Fur Trade in the Far West, sums up the work of the Patties after their arrival in Santa Fe, in the fall of 1824, as follows : "The career of the Patties for the six years thereafter was mainly in the Far Southwest, in New Mexico, Arizona, and California, and does not fall within the scope of this work." 2 And yet the Pattie narrative gives an account of some half dozen trapping expeditions in that region. Chittenden, therefore, virtu- ally says that the Southwest is not a part of the West. The American fur trade in the Far West to him seems to have meant the American fur trade in the Northwest, only. Difficulties of the problem. With this attitude toward a document which he had in his hand and pretended to use, there is little wonder that he failed to find and use other documents containing material on the fur trade in the Southwest. On the whole, however, it is much more difficult to put the account together of the fur trade in the Southwest than it is to give the corresponding ac- count of that industry in the Northwest. The reasons for this are quite apparent. The character of the busi- ness, itself, is one of the principal difficulties in the way of getting at its history. We need but to remark that the greater portion of the trade in this region was clan- 2 11:507-8.
