The Astor Expedition

In 1806, Lewis and Clark completed a two year journey to the mouth of the Columbia River and back, becoming the first people to cross the continent.  Okay, that's not true, a Scottish guy named Alexander Mackenzie was the first to do it in 1793, but screw that guy.  Anyways, this isn't about any of them.  This is about the people that came after.  The people who wanted to make some damn money. 

In 1810, the Pacific Fur Company was formed by John Jacob Astor, millionaire New York real estate tycoon and fur trader, with the goal of creating a worldwide trade network.  Lewis and Clark had come back with tales of giant beaver, and Astor dreamed of exploiting the shit out of them to increase his fortune.  His scheme involved setting up a fur trading operation in the Pacific Northwest, selling the furs to China for exorbitant prices, and then using the money to buy exotic Chinese goods to sell in Europe and the United States.  It was an idea way ahead of its time.  To make his dream a reality, Astor hired the best of Scottish fur trappers, French voyageurs, and American hillbillies.  He then sent them westward to set up the fur trapping portion of his scheme.  This strange international conglomeration of an expedition was made up of two parts; an overland group led by some idiot named Wilson Hunt and a naval group led by a half crazed war hero named John Thorn.  If they succeeded, overcoming their national and cultural differences, they would create the greatest commercial venture up until that time in history.  Of course they fucked it up.   

The naval group was given the task of sailing around South America and then north to the mouth of the Columbia River.  From the outset it became apparent that Thorn and the Scottish traders he had with him hated each other.  When Thorn landed at the Falkland Islands to take on water, he tried to leave the Scots behind, but was stopped when the remaining trader onboard put a gun to his head.  This did little to improve Thorn’s already shitty temperament for the rest of the voyage.  When a man tried to desert in Hawaii, because of the nice weather and plethora of topless women, Thorn nearly beat him to death.  When they finally reached the mouth of the Columbia River after seven months of sailing, Thorn sent several men to their deaths trying to find a way across a sandbar.  It was probably only coincidental that they were all people who had spoken out against him.  It goes without saying that the Scottish traders were glad to get off the ship, even if it meant that they had to start the hard work of building Fort Astoria. 

The overland group didn’t have much better luck.  Wilson Hunt was a nervous man who couldn’t make a decision if his life depended on it, which as it turned out, it did.  The overland group’s departure was severely delayed by Hunt’s dilly-dallying.  It originally followed the Lewis and Clark route up the Missouri River, but diverted when they heard some of the local native tribes were killing any white people they found, probably because Lewis and Clark had killed some of them.  Abandoning their boats, the expedition headed west on horses, eventually discovering the Grand Teton mountains, which the French voyageurs enthusiastically named the Big Tits.  It goes without saying that it gets pretty damn lonely out there.  After crossing the Rockies they abandoned their horses and tried to take canoes down the Snake River.  However, they gave this up after several people drowned and they lost most of their supplies.  They then proceeded on foot, breaking apart as food ran short and the winter snows piled up, eventually arriving at Fort Astoria close to a year behind schedule.        

Things at Fort Astoria were not going well.  Captain Thorn had left to trade for furs farther north along the coast.  However, after beating the crap out of a native chief, the local tribes attacked and massacred Thorn and his crew, the last member of which blew up the ship to keep it from being captured.  The Scottish fur traders spent most of their time hunkered in crude shelters, cursing the never-ending rain and waiting for the natives to get the bright idea that murder was easier than bartering.  To stave off this threat, one of the traders got the bright idea of telling the natives that a small glass bottle of water contained small pox.  Strangely enough, throwing around threats of mass death did little to improve their relationship with locals.

Things got a little better when a new supply ship finally arrived, at least until Wilson Hunt got the bright idea of taking it north to trade with Russian trappers in Alaska.  Negotiations with the Russians involved Hunt getting extremely drunk and then ordering the ship to take him to Hawaii for no good reason.  He then just up and disappeared for about a year.  In 1812, war broke out between the United States and England, and in 1813 a British warship arrived at Fort Astoria.  Remembering that they were British citizens, the Scottish fur traders sold the whole kitten kaboodle to a Canadian fur trading company for a severely discounted price.  This ended Astor’s dream, which is kind of lucky considering it had already killed 61 men and driven a further two insane.  

Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alfred_Jacob_Miller_-_Trapping_Beaver_-_Walters_371940111.jpg 

Tulip Bubble

In 1554, the Ottoman Empire sent a goodwill gift to Vienna to tell the Holy Roma Empire that they totally wanted to best friends.  Included in the goodwill gift was a strange flower called the tulip.  Europeans were mesmerized by the tulip’s bright colors and cup like pedals.  The had never seen anything like it before.  However, nobody could imagine that it would eventually bring the greatest economic power of the time to its knees.   

In 1581, the Dutch won their independence from Spain, and not being lazy, soon after set to work transforming themselves into an economic powerhouse.  Within fifty years of becoming free, the Dutch controlled the majority of the world's major sea lanes, dominating the lucrative trade routes linking the exotic riches of Asia and Africa to Europe.  The United Provinces, later called the Netherlands, became the cultural and technological center of the western world.  Its well-educated population enjoyed the highest standard of living in the world, and Dutch artists and craftsman were considered to be the best in Europe. 

 Tulips were first introduced into the United Provinces in 1593 as a luxury item for the rich to show off to other rich assholes.  Eventually normal tulips became rather passé, so Dutch botanists began creating newer and more fancy varieties, the most popular being those involving the mixing of different colors in a streaked pattern.  For the members of Dutch high society, you just weren’t really a somebody unless you had some streaky colored tulips.  Of course, all of this cost quite a bit of money, because tulips were a real bitch to grow.  On average it takes 7 to 12 years for a tulip seed to develop a bulb, which can then be used to regrow the plant year after year.  Tulips only bloom for about a week in May, and then go dormant from June through September.  It’s only during this dormancy phase that the bulbs can be uprooted and moved about, which means there’s only a limited time to buy and sell them.     

The Dutch were the creators of many of the tools of modern commerce, so of course they came up with all sorts of funky ways to trade tulip bulbs.  By 1610, an entire market had been set up.  To widen the trading window from the naturally forced period of June through September, the Dutch created the first futures contracts, where tulip traders promised to pay immediately for bulbs that they would then be given at a later date.  As the United Provinces became richer and richer, the prices professional tulip growers got paid grew higher and higher, with fortunes being exchanged for some of the most sought after varieties.  By 1634, the rising prices attracted in speculative money from across Europe.  People were hoping to make a butt load of cash by buying tulip futures and then selling the bulbs at an even higher price later.  This of course drove the price up even higher, which in turn attracted in more speculative money.  Things pretty quickly got out of hand.  By 1636, tulip future contracts were changing hands as many as ten times a day.  People were mortgaging all of their possessions to buy tulip futures.  Prices skyrocketed higher and higher, with some of the best varieties trading for more than the average workman made in a year. 

It all came crashing down in 1637.  Tulip buyers failed to show up to a major tulip auction in the town of Haarlem, probably because most people in Haarlem were dying of the Bubonic Plague.  The failure of the auction sparked a panic which led to the bubble’s collapse.  People holding tulip futures contracts suddenly found them worthless.  The Dutch economy was so badly hurt that the government was forced to create a bailout of sorts to stave off total collapse.  Even so, the bubble bursting continued to have negative effects for years.  All of this just for a fucking pretty flower.   

Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Judith_leyster_tulipFXD.jpg        

Christopher Columbus Was A Douche

Back in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue, and then he discovered America.  Okay, he didn’t really discover it, he just alerted most of Europe that it was there.  Also, being a stubborn jackass, he spent most of his life refusing to believe it.  However, all of that is rather unimportant compared to what Columbus did after he arrived in America.

Throughout his first voyage, Columbus took numerous natives prisoner in order to cart them back to Spain to show them off the same way you show off knick-knacks you buy at the airport.  Most of the natives did not survive the voyage back to Spain.  Along with people, Columbus also brought back such marvels as potatoes, corn, and a particularly virulent form of syphilis which turned its victims, at least physically, into rotting zombies.  This led to an epidemic that ended up killing just a literal shit ton of people.  Of course, it wasn't a one way exchange.  Columbus gifted the Native Americans with smallpox, typhus, and malaria; diseases that would decimate the tribes of the Caribbean, and eventually the entire Western Hemisphere, over the coming centuries.  Of course, neither one of these disease exchanges were on purpose, but still, holy shit.

Columbus' discovery of the New World made him an instant celebrity.  So of course, as with anybody who gains sudden celebrity, he went straight up batshit crazy.  In 1493, he departed again, this time with a much larger fleet and a whole mess of anxious colonists.  Columbus had been named Governor of the New World by the kingdom of Spain, a role that would quickly prove that celebrity has little do with actual ability.  Upon arrival back in the New World, Columbus rewarded his most loyal followers by giving them native women to warm their beds. The women weren't exactly agreeable with this, so Columbus had them beaten until they did as they were told.  The main purpose of the new colony was to mine for gold, but the Spanish colonists didn’t really see themselves as the gold mining type.  Instead they forced the local natives to do the work, killing any who failed to bring back enough gold, which was quite few given the fact that there really wasn’t that much gold in the area.  To try and supplement the colony’s income, Columbus began rounding up the natives and sending them back to Spain to be sold as slaves.  However, they proved not to be very good slaves, since most quickly died of disease upon arrival. 

Things somehow only grew worse as time went on.  Several hurricanes severely damaged the colony, which in turn damaged the Spaniard’s crops, leading to a famine.  The natives, for god only knows what reason, then rebelled.  Columbus dealt with this via dismemberment and torture.  As soon as the native rebellion was put down, the colonists then rebelled, which Columbus again dealt with via dismemberment and torture.  This did little to increase his popularity.  Sensing that it would probably be better to get the fuck out of Dodge for awhile, Columbus went exploring for new lands to despoil.  However, while he was gone, the colonists sent envoys back to Spain to complain about what a dick he was being.  When Columbus returned to the colony, he was put into chains and shipped home to Spain.     

As it turns out, Columbus was a bit of charming fella.  Rather than getting his comeuppance, he instead managed to convince the king and queen of Spain to free him because he swore he totally would be able to actually find India if given one more chance.  Columbus left on his final expedition in 1502, but instead of finding India, his ship sank and he became stranded on Jamaica for more than a year, which wasn’t near as sweet back then as it is today.  Despite the fact that most people were pretty happy with the idea of just leaving his ass stranded, Columbus was eventually rescued and returned to Spain.  There, he spent the rest of his life writing books and bitching about how the Spanish crown totally owned him a shit ton of money for his discoveries.   He died of the gout in 1506 at the age of 54.  By 1522, 90 percent of the native population of the Caribbean were dead, most from disease, but a significant portion from wanton murder and slavery.  Yeah, this guy totally deserves his own holiday.     

Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Christopher_Columbus.PNG