RENDEZVOUS 2002 NEWS

With the Compliments of The Rendezvous Report (Summer 99)

"Mom" Vanderkratz's editorial in the Winter issue of Rendezvous Report reminded me that every five years or so the issue of historical authenticity, or rather the lack of authenticity, becomes a source of conflict among rendezvousers.

Most rendezvous rules of authenticity require that all visible clothing, equipment and supplies be historically authentic for the year 1840 or earlier. In theory both booshways and participants expect their rendezvous' dog soldiers to enforce the rules of authenticity. In reality dog soldiers almost never question the historical authenticity of any but the most blatant of anachronistic items.

Having served my own sentence as dog soldier, I can assure you that dog soldiers are no more knowledgeable than any other participants in this sport. I think dog soldiers often avoid questioning the authenticity of a participant's plunder because they themselves aren't sure whether or not a questionable item is authentic. According to most rendezvous' rules each individual participant is expected to be able to document the authenticity of any questionable items in his or her outfit, but many of us aren't certain how to do so.

Part I of this two part series is designed to help both participants and dog soldiers assess the authenticity of stuff found at rendezvous.

To determine whether or not an item is historically authentic, two questions must be answered. First, you must determine that the item was available to those living and working on the North American frontier prior to 1840. Assuming you are able to document that it was available you must then determine whether the particular specimen you are assessing is substantially similar to the original artifact.

To document the availability of an item you must find it listed in a document recorded at or very near the time and place in question. Such documents are considered primary resources, and are extremely reliable. Though we tend to stereotype historical frontiersmen as illiterate and perhaps a bit loutish, the business of the historical fur-trade was every bit as sophisticated as any modern endeavor.

Bean counters were as much a part of conducting the business of the fur trade as they are in modern enterprise and the trading companies generated a considerable amount of paperwork. Many historical business records, including inventories, indents (order forms), account books, journals, tax records and other documents which were generated during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries still exist, and can be used to document the presence of most historical stuff.

A few frontiersmen kept personal diaries or sent letters to the folks back home. Copies of these documents can be considered primary resources with evidence to support the presence of some artifacts, sometimes even items which were not particularly common.

Pictorial evidence supporting the presence of some stuff may be found in drawings and sketches made at the time the scene was observed. Paintings based on those sketches are NOT primary sources, however. Artists in the eighteenth and nineteenth century were no more ethical than those today, and if a paying client wanted a few "minor" details changed here and there, the artist wasn't likely to argue. Comparisons of field sketches to the finished paintings of artists such as Paul Kane and Alfred Jacob Miller provide more than enough evidence to show that their finished works are, at best, suspicious.

Finding an item in any document or drawing recorded at the time and place of your persona serves as primary evidence to support the argument that the item was indeed present at the time and place at which the document was generated. Not finding an item listed in a primary document doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't there, but it does mean that you can't document that it was there. If it can't be documented, it can't be considered historically authentic and probably shouldn't be displayed at a historical rendezvous.

Because of the growing interest in the various living history sports, more primary historical sources have been made available to amateur historians in just the past few years than ever before. One need not be a master detective to find good primary documentation because others have already found the documents for you. Here are just a few readily available sources I use in my own historical research.

To document items in use in the Old Northwest Territory and Great Lakes region immediately after the Seven Years War (F&I), the records of the firm Baynton, Wharton and Morgan are excellent. Many of those records are preserved on microfilm by the Pennsylvania State Archives. Copies of some of the more valuable Baynton, Wharton, & Morgan records can be found in the appendixes of Mark Baker's book Sons of a Trackless Forest (Baker's Trace Publishing, P.O. Box 681672, Franklin TN 37068-1672). Some of the more surprising or unusual items found in these records include scalloped jelly pans, egg slicers, cheese toasters, medium sized standishes (portable stands containing ink pots, sand box, quills and accessories which provided a stable writing surface), folding pocket lanterns, and lots of other neat stuff.

To document items available in the Greater Northwest fur-trade (Canadian and Northernmost United States) between the time of the American Revolution and 1821, I rely on documents generated by a variety of "Montreal Pedlars", the Northwest Co., New Northwest Co. (XY), and Hudson's Bay Company. Most of the surviving documents from these outfits are preserved in the archives of the Hudson's Bay Company. An excellent listing of the material culture of this trade was compiled by Angela and Jeff Gottfred and published in Volume (tk) of The North West Journal; North West Brigade Club; (tk address), Calgary, AB (postal code); 1997(?).

To document items available in the American Rocky Mountain fur-trade I rely on the research of the American Mountain Men, who have published copies of an inventory of goods available at the 1825 Rendezvous on Henry's Fork of the Green River from an inventory in Ashley's diary, Ashley's accounts from the 1825 rendezvous, an invoice of merchandise from the Rocky Mountain Outfit of 1836, and many other primary documents. The originals of those documents listed here are in the possession of the Missouri Historical Society. These copies are available free of charge at AMM's Internet Web Site, http://www.xmission.com/~drudy/mtman/html.

Other primary documents can be found easily. Simply check out the footnotes and bibliographies in your favorite historical texts or magazine articles. These will give you the name of the author or editor, the title of the book or publication, the publisher's name and location, and the date of publication or copyright. Armed with this information you can find the source in your local public or university library, or order a copy through the Inter-Library Loan System.

It's not enough to merely document the historical presence of an item. You must be able to provide your documentation to those who may question the authenticity of the thing. Since you probably won't be able to quote your source "chapter and verse," it's a good idea to record the information and place the record somewhere in your outfit where it can retrieved if needed. To document an item, you should be able to provide enough information to allow the person who questions it to find the information in historical records. This can be done in the same format as a footnote, listing the author or editor, name of the book, article or document, name of the publication in which you found it, name of the company that published it, and the year the publication was produced or copyrighted. For example, to document a rather unusual item I discovered in an actual historical record, I might record the following:

9 India Rubber Canteens.

American Mountain Men: "Invoice of Sundry Merchandise from the Rocky Mountain Outfit 1836 under charge of Fontenelle, Fitzpatrick & Co." from Papers of the American Fur Company Reel 7 vols. Y and Z: Missouri Historical Society: Copy found at the AMM Internet Web Site http://www.xmission.com/~drudy/mtman/html/rmo1836.html.

If I were taking an India rubber canteen to a historical rendezvous I would store my paper on which the documentation is recorded in my grub box, bed roll, gun case or some other container which I'd be unlikely to forget.

Every rendezvouser is responsible for documenting the historical authenticity of his or her stuff. By finding the item recorded in a primary source you can prove the existence of an artifact at a specific time and place. You can present that evidence to anyone who questions the item by recording enough information to allow the questioner to look up the documentation for himself. Simply proving that an item was available isn't quite enough, though. You must also show evidence to support the argument that your version of the item is substantially similar to the original historical artifact. We'll tackle that task in part II, in the next issue of Rendezvous Report.