Who is john colter

The next year, as Colter was making his way back to St. Colter was hired to guide them to the mouth of the Big Horn River. Once again, the mountain man turned back leading the party into present-day Montana , where they built Fort Raymond on the Yellowstone River, a short distance above the mouth of the Bighorn River.

In October , Lisa sent Colter out to meet with the winter Indian camps, alerting them to the presence of the Missouri Fur Company and desire to trade. Though his exact route is uncertain, Colter traveled alone with only his rifle and pack, covering an estimated miles.

In , Colter teamed up with another former member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition named John Potts and the two began to trap in the region near Three Forks, Montana. Both were wounded in a fight with Blackfoot warriors as they led a party of Crow Indians to Fort Raymond.

The next year, the men were once again attacked by the Blackfoot, and Potts was killed. Colter was captured and amazed when the Indians set him free. However, before doing so, they stripped him naked and took all his possessions. Turning and facing the Indian, Colter killed him with his own spear, took his blanket, and by hiding in the river under a pile of logs, was able to escape. Colter would remain in the wilderness until , when he returned to St.

Louis — where he is supposed to have related his tales and the route of his journey to Clark. After his journey through Yellowstone, Colter and fellow Lewis and Clarke veteran John Potts were apparently captured by members of the Blackfeet tribe on Jefferson River.

Potts was killed and dismembered while Colter was supposedly stripped naked and told to run for his life. Skip to main content Skip to footer site map. It was more complete than Thomas's version—nearly five times as long. This man came to St. Louis in May, , in a small canoe, from the head waters of the Missouri, a distance of three thousand miles, which he traversed in thirty days. I saw him on his arrival, and received from him an account of his adventures after he had separated from Lewis and Clarke's party: one of these, from its singularity, I shall relate.

On the arrival of the party on the head waters of the Missouri, Colter, observing an appearance of abundance of beaver being there, he got permission to remain and hunt for some time, which he did in company with a man of the name of Dixon. Soon after he separated from Dixon, and trapped in company with a hunter named Potts; and aware of the hostility of the Blackfeet Indians , one of whom had been killed by Lewis , they set their traps at night, and took them up early in the morning, remaining concealed during the day.

They were examining their traps early one morning, in a creek about six miles from that branch of the Missouri called Jefferson's Fork, and were ascending in a canoe, when they suddenly heard a great noise, resembling the trampling of animals; but they could not ascertain the fact, as the high perpendicular banks on each side of the river impeded their view.

Colter immediately pronounced it to be occasioned by Indians, and advised an instant retreat; but was accused of cowardice by Potts, who insisted that the noise was caused by buffaloes, and they proceeded on.

In a few minutes afterwards their doubts were removed, by a party of Indians making their appearance on both sides of the creek, to the amount of five or six hundred, who beckoned them to come ashore.

As retreat was now impossible, Colter turned the head of the canoe to the shore; and at the moment of its touching, an Indian seized the rifle belonging to Potts; but Colter, who is a remarkably strong man, immediately retook it, and handed it to Potts, who remained in the canoe, and on receiving it pushed off into the river. He had scarcely quitted the shore when an arrow was shot at him, and he cried out, "Colter, I am wounded. Instead of complying, he instantly levelled his, rifle at an Indian, and shot him dead on the spot.

This conduct, situated as he was, may appear to have been an act of madness; but it was doubtless the effect of sudden, but sound reasoning; for if taken alive, he must have expected to be tortured to death, according to their custom. He was instantly pierced with arrows so numerous, that, to use the language of Colter, "he was made a riddle of.

They now seized Colter, stripped him entirely naked, and began to consult on the manner in which he should be put to death. They were first inclined to set him up as a mark to shoot at; but the chief interfered, and seizing him by the shoulder, asked him if he could run fast?

Colter, who had been some time amongst the Kee-kat-sa, or Crow Indians, had in a considerable degree acquired the Blackfeet language, and was also well acquainted with Indian customs. He knew that he had now to run for his life, with the dreadful odds of five or six hundred against him, and those armed Indians; therefore cunningly replied that he was a very bad runner, although he was considered by the hunters as remarkably swift.

The chief now commanded the party to remain stationary, and led Colter out on the prairie three or four hundred yards, and released him, bidding him to save himself if he could. At that instant the horrid war whoop sounded in the ears of poor Colter, who, urged with the hope of preserving life, ran with a speed at which he was himself surprised.

He proceeded towards the Jefferson Fork, having to traverse a plain six miles in breadth, abounding with the prickly pear, on which he was every instant treading with his naked feet.

He ran nearly half way across the plain before he ventured to look over his shoulder, when he perceived that the Indians were very much scattered, and that he had gained ground to a considerable distance from the main body; but one Indian, who carried a spear, was much before all the rest, and not more than a hundred yards from him.

A faint gleam of hope now cheered the heart of Colter: he derived confidence from the belief that escape was within the bounds of possibility; but that confidence was nearly being fatal to him, for he exerted himself to such a degree, that the blood gushed from his nostrils, and soon almost covered the fore part of his body.

He had now arrived within a mile of the river, when he distinctly heard the appalling sound of footsteps behind him, and every instant expected to feel the spear of his pursuer.

Again he turned his head, and saw the savage not twenty yards from him. Determined if possible to avoid the expected blow, he suddenly stopped, turned round, and spread out his arms. The Indian, surprised by the suddenness of the action, and perhaps at the bloody appearance of Colter, also attempted to stop; but exhausted with running, he fell whilst endeavouring to throw his spear, which stuck in the ground, and broke in his hand.

Colter instantly snatched up the pointed part, with which he pinned him to the earth, and then continued his flight. The foremost of the Indians, on arriving at the place, stopped till others came up to join them, when they set up a hideous yell. Every moment of this time was improved by Colter, who, although fainting and exhausted, succeeded in gaining the skirting of the cotton wood trees, on the borders of the fork, through which he ran, and plunged into the river.

Fortunately for him, a little below this place there was an island, against the upper point of which a raft of drift timber had lodged. He dived under the raft, and after several efforts, got his head above water amongst the trunks of trees, covered over with smaller wood to the depth of several feet. Scarcely had he secured himself, when the Indians arrived on the river, screeching and yelling, as Colter expressed it, "like so many devils.

In horrible suspense he remained until night, when hearing no more of the Indians, he dived from under the raft, and swam silently down the river to a considerable distance, when he landed, and travelled all night. Although happy in having escaped from the Indians, his situation was still dreadful: he was completely naked, under a burning sun; the soles of his feet were entirely filled with the thorns of the prickly pear; he was hungry, and had no means of killing game, although he saw abundance around him, and was at least seven days journey 10 from Lisa's Fort, on the Bighorn branch of the Roche Jaune River.

These were circumstances under which almost any man but an American hunter would have despaired. He arrived at the fort in seven days, having subsisted on a root much esteemed by the Indians of the Missouri, now known by naturalists as psoralea esculenta [breadroot; Lewis and Clark's "Ground potato," an Indian substitute for bread]. A few inconsistencies eventually showed up between Bradbury's transcript of the story and other versions.

According to Thomas James, to whom Colter retold his story in , his first hiding place was not a raft of drift logs but a beaver den. But details such as these are of small importance in a story that quickly became more legend than history. And Bradbury—or perhaps Colter himself—omitted the fugitive's tortuous trail-breaking trek across the Gallatin Mountains east of the Gallatin River. In his more embellished version of Colter's account—almost six times as long as Dr. Thomas's—James concluded with a glimpse of the apparition that staggered into Fort Raymond: "His beard was long, his face and whole body were thin and emaciated by hunger, and his limbs and feet swollen and sore.

The company at the Fort did not recognize him in this dismal plight until he had made himself known. A t the Hidatsa village in October of Colter met another party of trappers, and for the third time in four years was invited to go back up the Yellowstone.

When Blackfeet Indians killed two trappers and captured three others that month, Colter was away at his own traps. Returning to find his dead companions, he rushed to the fort and learned what had happened.