Guns, Furs, and Gold

An American West History of Indigenous Peoples and Explorers

By: Larry E. Morris

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Hardcover | 1 December 2025

At a Glance

Hardcover
277 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
16.1 x 23.7 x 3.1

Hardcover

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Guns, Furs, and Gold offers a riveting narrative of the American West by exploring the interactions of the Arikaras, Crows, Cheyennes, and Arapahos with each other and with Euro-American traders, explorers, and settlers from 1804, when Meriwether Lewis and William Clark embarked on their voyage of discovery, to 1864, when the U.S. Army attacked both Confederate forces in the South and Native nations in the West. Larry E. Morris recounts the nineteenth-century experience of these four tribes by detailing their interactions with four legendary survivors of a fight with the Arikaras in 1823. These renowned figures include the remarkable trailblazer blazer Jedediah Smith, the unparalleled interpreter Edward Rose, the premier guide and Indian agent Thomas Fitzpatrick, and the grizzly-bear-mauling survivor Hugh Glass. Their careers illuminate the fate of four Indian nations, revealing howâ"despite the best efforts of several explorers to treat the Indigenous peoples respectfullyâ"the guns, furs, disease, and gold rushes of the interlopers put the Indiansâ way of life, their lands, and their very lives at grave risk. The sixty-year period comes to a close when more than 150 Plains Indians, most of them women, children, and elderly, were ambushed and slaughtered by Colonel John Chivingtonâs Third Colorado Cavalry on the banks of Sand Creek.

Industry Reviews

"Guns, Furs, and Gold presents a well-researched and engaging account of some of the most compelling people and events to tell the often-overlooked early history of the American West at the beginning of a major cultural change."-Clint Gilchrist, executive director of Museum of the Mountain Man "Larry Morris skillfully follows Lewis and Clark, Edward Rose, and Thomas Fitzpatrick as they encounter Indigenous peoples of the Rocky Mountains. His dramatic frontier also shows us Eagle Feather, Grey Eyes, Jedediah Smith, Jim Bridger, the Sublettes, and more."-Jerry Enzler, author of Jim Bridger: Trailblazer of the American West

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