Goods from all over the world made their way to Bent's Fort long before highways, railroads, cars, and airplanes. You could find tea from China, glass beads from Italy and France, sugar from Mexico, or Hudson Bay blankets from Canada. How did all of these fabulous goods make their way to an adobe fort on the arid plains, 600 miles from the United States?

Rocky Mountain PBS's Colorado Experience: Bent's Fort

William J. Convery, Ph.D. State Historian, History Colorado


Established in 1821, the Santa Fe Trail connected St. Louis, Missouri, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and northern Mexico. Goods arrived in St. Louis from around the world—either by way of New York City and canals that took goods to the Ohio River and then to St. Louis or from New Orleans and up the Mississippi River. Mule and ox-drawn wagons carried manufactured goods west from eastern factories along the Santa Fe Trail. Buffalo hides (used for robes), coats, and machine belts; along with beaver pelts (used for hats), traveled east back to St. Louis.

Plains Indians knew the region along the Arkansas River in today's southeastern Colorado as an oasis of shelter, firewood, and good hunting surrounded by grasslands. By the mid 1700s, the Comanches controlled trade in this natural gathering place. They exchanged horses, hides, and dried meat for pottery and textiles from the southwest, American and European goods from the east, and guns and manufactured items from French, Spanish, and British traders who came west to trap beaver. In the 1830s, Cheyenne and Arapaho rivals began competing with the Comanches for control of trade.

El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, or "the Royal Road," linked Santa Fe to the outside world. Descending the Rio Grande Valley, it extended 1,200 miles through El Paso to Mexico City. Bent's Fort traders sent pots, kettles, pans, knives, guns, gun powder, blankets, and manufactured goods south, while gold, silver, mules, sugar, and chocolate came north.

Goods destined for Bent's Fort often arrived in the United States through the ports of New Orleans or New York. Goods that arrived in New Orleans traveled up the Mississippi River to St. Louis by steamboat. From there, they were loaded onto wagons headed down the Santa Fe Trail. Goods that arrived in New York traveled down a system of canals to the Ohio River, connecting to the Mississippi River at Cairo, Illinois, and then on to St. Louis.

Standards for 1848 Trade Routes

College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework