Transcript

THG Podcast - Counterfactuals: Ashley's 100

From The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 1 h 7 min · 13,518 words · 179 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "THG Podcast - Counterfactuals: Ashley's 100", an episode of The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered published January 20, 2026 (1 h 7 min, about 13,518 words). It mentions 12 people, works and ideas, including Nick & Ari Ashley, Kit Carson, Jedediah Smith, Jim Bridger, Thomas Fitzpatrick.

What this episode is about

The discussion centers on "Ashley’s 100," a pivotal group of fur trappers and explorers from the 1800s whose ventures into the Rocky Mountains significantly influenced America's westward expansion. The analysis explores counterfactual scenarios regarding how history might have unfolded differently had this group not undertaken their journey, highlighting the broader implications of their actions on the nation's development.

Key takeaways

  • What if Ashley's 100 never ventured West? America's expansion could have been delayed decades.
  • The Aricura attack sparked a shift from trading alcohol for furs to trapping, revolutionizing the industry.
  • Imagine if Ashley had succeeded without military interference—could the fur trade have evolved peacefully?
  • The rendezvous system: an entrepreneurial leap that opened vast lands and linked the Old West to new markets.
  • In history's 'what if' game, the fur trade's evolution often gets overshadowed by war and conquest.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 10:00: Nick & Ari Ashley, Thomas Fitzpatrick, Kit Carson, Jim Bridger
  2. – 20:00: Nick & Ari Ashley, Hugh Glass, Hudson Bay Company, Kit Carson
  3. – 30:00: Nick & Ari Ashley, Hudson Bay Company
  4. – 40:00: Nick & Ari Ashley, Kit Carson
  5. – 50:00: Nick & Ari Ashley, Treaty of Fort Laramie
  6. – 1:00:00: Sasquatch, Nick & Ari Ashley, Brad Wagen, Hugh Glass
  7. – 1:07:03: Nick & Ari Ashley, Jim Bridger

Notable quotes from "THG Podcast - Counterfactuals: Ashley's 100"

  • History guy himself. To liven up our discussions on what might have happened, we have invited Brad Wagen, history afficionado and a longtime friend of the history guy, to join…
    about Brad Wagen · at
  • Ads in St. Louis area newspapers addressed two enterprising young men saying that they wanted to raise a company of 100 men to ascend the Missouri River to its source and there be employed for a period of one, two or 3 years.
    about Nick & Ari Ashley · at
  • Acquired their pelts from Indians who actually did most of the trapping. And fur companies like the Hudson Bay Company would build posts along major rivers. And those posts…
    about Hudson Bay Company · at
  • Jim Bridger would become the first white man to see the Great Salt Lake and would establish a trading post along the Green River that would eventually become a critical resupply point for wagon trains.
    about Jim Bridger · at
  • Of Ashley's 100. He would eventually lead five expeditions in the mountain west. In the first expedition, he depended upon the map that was created by Jedodias Smith. And as…
    about Jedediah Smith · at
  • Names. I mean some of them probably people have heard of Jim Bridger I suppose but or Kit Carson who was kind of one of the later of the 100 but in general when you think of…
    about Kit Carson · at
  • Absolutely. the Hugh Glass movie that was just that was relatively recently, right? That was winning an Academy Awards and it's it's really not clear exactly the whole.
    about Hugh Glass · at
  • Indian culture reach out to the Sasquatch in their time of need. And thus the noble Sasquatch literally is nobility to a unified we have a true state unified American nation that is say you know.
    about Sasquatch · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Nick & Ari Ashley — Person · Primary historical subject · 39 mentions · first at
    Central figure behind “Ashley’s 100” and the rendezvous system; the episode’s counterfactual hinges on what changes if his venture fails or never happens.
  • Kit Carson — Person · Referenced historical guide (Fremont expeditions) · 4 mentions · first at
    Presented as an Ashley’s 100 alumnus whose guiding enabled Fremont’s mapping/documentation—key to U.S. westward expansion.
  • Jedediah Smith — Person · Referenced historical explorer / mountain man · 1 mention · first at
    Cited as a key member of Ashley’s 100; his explorations and maps are described as foundational for later expeditions (including Fremont’s).
  • Jim Bridger — Person · Referenced historical explorer / guide · 4 mentions · first at
    Used as an example of how Ashley’s 100 shaped later settlement routes and infrastructure (Fort Bridger; guiding later expeditions).
  • Thomas Fitzpatrick — Person · Referenced historical scout/guide · 3 mentions · first at
    Highlighted for shepherding early immigrant wagon trains and later serving as Fremont’s chief guide—linking mountain men to mass migration routes.
    Guide, he used one of Ashley's enterprising young men, a man named Kit Carson. On his second and longest expedition, the chief guide was Thomas Fitzpatrick, and Kit Carson…
  • Hugh Glass — Person · Referenced historical figure (legendary mountain man) · 5 mentions · first at
    Serves as a cultural touchstone (The Revenant) illustrating how Ashley’s 100 became legend and shaped popular memory of the frontier.
  • Brad Wagen — Person · Guest / discussion participant · 2 mentions · first at
    Introduced as a longtime friend of Lance and joins the counterfactual discussion; contributes speculative lines (borders, migration, railroads, culture).
  • David Edward Jackson — Person · Referenced historical trapper/explorer (toponym origin) · 2 mentions · first at
    Cited as the namesake of Jackson Hole, used to illustrate how Ashley’s 100 left enduring geographic and cultural marks.
    David Edward Jackson was the first white man known to winter in the valley in front of the Teton Mountains. And that is why that world famous valley now known as Jackson Hole bears his name.

Companies & orgs

  • Hudson Bay Company — Company · 4 mentions · first at
  • University of Wyoming — Company · 1 mention · first at
    We should mention, too, by the way, both Josh and I went to the University of Wyoming. Every time the football team scores a touchdown, dudes in mountainman outfits fire their flint locks off at.

Concepts & topics

Full transcript with timestamps

Welcome to the History Guy podcast. Counterfactuals. What is a counterfactual? In the context of studying history, it is a kind of analysis where we examine what might have happened had historical events gone differently. As a thought experiment, the goal is to learn and understand history as it is by talking about what it could have been. as a twist on the historical stories that we tell on the History Guy YouTube channel. This is a series of podcasts that dwell on that eternal question. What if? I'm Josh, a writer for the YouTube channel and son of the History Guy. If you're a fan of the channel, you already know Lance, the history guy himself. To liven up our discussions on what might have happened, we have invited Brad Wagen, history afficionado and a longtime friend of the history guy, to join us. Remember that if you'd like to support us, you can find us on Patreon, YouTube, and locals.com.

Join us as we discuss what deserves to be remembered and what might have been. On this special 100th episode of the History Guy podcast, we head back to the 1800s and the beginning of America's expansion into the Rocky Mountains by taking a look at Ashley's 100, a group of trappers, mountainmen, and explorers who ventured into the West, helping to define an era and open up the land for settlement. How might things be different if they didn't? Without further ado, let me introduce the history guy. 194 years ago today, on June 2nd of 1823, a group of fur trappers in the Yellowstone area of Wyoming were attacked by Aricura Indians. 15 of the group were killed. The attack would lead to a pointless and ineffective military campaign and would inspire a scene from the 2015 movie The Revenant. But it was more important than that because that attack caused a small group of American fur traders to change how they did

business. And that change would transform the nation. The story includes many personalities of the Old West, but it begins with one in particular. William Henry Ashley had already moved to the land that would eventually become the state of Missouri before it was even purchased for the United States from France as part of the Louisiana territory in 1803. To earn the War of 1812, he served in the Missouri militia and had risen to the rank of Brigadier General. He went by the title general for the rest of his life. When Missouri became a state in 1820, he was elected its first lieutenant governor. William Henry Ashley was the quintessential frontier businessman. And in 1822, he set his sights on the lucrative fur trade in the great American West that had just been opened up by Lewis and Clark.

In 1822, Ashley and a partner would run ads in St. Louis area newspapers addressed two enterprising young men saying that they wanted to raise a company of 100 men to ascend the Missouri River to its source and there be employed for a period of one, two or 3 years. There was no shortage of men who wanted to volunteer to become part of Ashley's 100 and the subsequent expeditions that would all be part of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. And the names of the participants read like a who's who of the early American West. Jedadias Smith, Jim Bridger, Hugh Glass, William Sedlet, Kit Carson, David Edward Jackson, Thomas Fitzpatrick. Ashley had a new idea for the North American fur trade that was largely based on an 1822 law that had been passed by Congress prohibiting the sale of alcohol to Native Americans.

Previously, the fur trade had mostly acquired their pelts from Indians who actually did most of the trapping. And fur companies like the Hudson Bay Company would build posts along major rivers. And those posts would be a center where they would trade with Indians for pelts and then take the pelts down river to market. But the item of barter was alcohol and that was now prohibited. And so when Ashley advertised for enterprising young men in 1822, he was suggesting a completely different deal. The men themselves would do the trapping and the company would provide to them all the tools and equipment that they needed to do so. In exchange, half of the pelts that they acquired would go to the company. The other half of the pelts would be sold to the company at the prevailing rate, and that would be the men's wages. It seemed a good deal, but it was resented by the Native Americans who resented the Anglo

attempts to undercut their fur trade. And that was a large part of what drove the Arica attack in 1823. Now, after the attack, many company men, a bunch of US soldiers, and about 600 Sue Indians who were enemies of the Arica went chasing the aricura all over the Wyoming territory, but they never managed to bring them to battle. And Ashley realized that the Aricura would come back just as soon as the soldiers left and that the greater Yellowstone Basin would not be a safe place to try to acquire furs. And so that attack would force him to change strategy one more time. Knowing that he didn't want to be tied to the Yellowstone River in Aricura country, the next year Ashley led his men out there on horseback.

Instead of, as the fur trade had always been, being tied to the rivers, now they could go out in small groups and go acquire their pelts and do their trapping, and then they would come together once a year where they would trade the pelts and get their pay and acquire equipment before going out again in what was called the rendevous system. And it transformed the industry. The mobility of horseback opened up huge new swaths of unexplored land that were rich with game and pelts. But more than that, these enterprising young men out there in the wilds on horseback would make discoveries throughout the mountain west that would open the West to settlement.

Jim Bridger would become the first white man to see the Great Salt Lake and would establish a trading post along the Green River that would eventually become a critical resupply point for wagon trains along the Oregon, California, and Mormon Trail and is still there today as the small town of Fort Bridger, Wyoming. Later in 1859, he would be the chief guide for the Reynolds expedition, which would explore and map nearly 250,000 square miles of the mountain west. Jedadia Smith led the first group of white men who would explore the Black Hills of South Dakota and then went west becoming the first US citizens to cross the Sierra Nevada mountains and travel up the coast of California to the Oregon territory.

Thomas Fitzpatrick was the scout that shephered the first two immigrant wagon trains along the Oregon Trail to California and Oregon. William Sublet founded a trading post in Wyoming that would eventually become a center of trade and diplomacy and a centerpiece of the Indian Wars. Eventually, it was renamed Fort Laram and it still exists today as a national historical site. David Edward Jackson was the first white man known to winter in the valley in front of the Teton Mountains. And that is why that world famous valley now known as Jackson Hole bears his name.

Army officer John C. Fremont was a central figure in America's westward expansion. It was his documentation and maps that really allowed the westward expansion, but he was really a creature of Ashley's 100. He would eventually lead five expeditions in the mountain west. In the first expedition, he depended upon the map that was created by Jedodias Smith. And as his chief guide, he used one of Ashley's enterprising young men, a man named Kit Carson. On his second and longest expedition, the chief guide was Thomas Fitzpatrick, and Kit Carson would join him again for his third expedition, the last before the Civil War.

William Henry Ashley sold his share of the Rocky Mountain fur company to Jedodias Smith in 1826. He returned to Missouri where he served three terms in the United States Congress before unsuccessfully running for governor of Missouri. To be sure, fur trading was a dangerous and not always profitable business, and there were certainly controversies. Many of Ashley's 100 were implicated in the mistreatment of Native Americans. The industry itself was short-lived as overtrapping, dwindling animal populations, competition among the different companies, and a change in fashion in the 1830s from fur hats to silk hats eventually brought an end to the mountain man existence.

But in their time, Ashley's 100 knew the Mountain West better than any Anglo-Americans alive, and their knowledge of the terrain and the native populations was shared with government and private sources. Their names are strewn across maps from Missouri to California. Their names are on mountain ranges forests rivers mountain passes, counties, and cities are named after them because they led the nation west and they deserve to be remembered. Now for the fun part, where I, the history guy himself, and a longtime friend of the history guy, Brad Wagman, discuss what might have happened if it had all gone differently.

So, I think this is a a really really interesting topic because in some ways at first I felt like I didn't know what we were going to talk about, but I think that these a fairly small number of men actually had a fairly large impact on history. And maybe that will give us some time to talk about things like the the great man theory. uh in this case, you know, these aren't people who I think you would usually consider to be great men in the uh the classic sense, but they did play an extremely important role in both defining the west and exploring it

and exploring the west and settling the west, I think, is actually probably the biggest thing that they were responsible for. So, yeah, these are not necessarily names. I mean some of them probably people have heard of Jim Bridger I suppose uh but uh or Kit Carson who was kind of one of the later of the 100 but uh in general when you think of you know the great man theory uh you know that's we're talking about you know Hitler FDR some Churchill but uh but you know in the end this might be one of the places where it pulls the most through because you know how many people could do what these guys did how many people were willing to do what these guys did uh and so to an extent there I mean I don't think there's probably a long line behind these these guys who would have would have had the guts to go do the same thing. Uh but I mean we are tire I mean Ashley was hundred and and actually was quite a bit more than that because

they kept you know shuffling through. Uh and then you also had all the other fur trapping agencies and too. So I mean there were there were at least some you know probably low thousands of men who went out and did this. uh and you know that would be a pretty low population density for the area that they were out there exploring and making contact with the native people and well which is important because someone will mention that that you know these are it's not that these were abandoned lands or empty lands I mean they were there were people in these lands so these were people that were making contacts with that uh but I mean certainly extraordinary people I mean certainly something I mean it would be difficult to find people today that would be willing or able to take on the sort of risk that these guys did

and it certainly was unmapped. Yeah. Well, so I mean river valleys, river valleys might have been mapped, but yeah, in terms of, you know, the true, you know, understanding of the geography of the west, I mean, you know, there was only so much that they could do with Louiswis and Clark, right? So the discovery corg discovery.

So yeah, I mean, they were just they're just wandering off in the woods to bump into whoever you bump into and then trade, you know, beaver for.

Yeah, I'm fascinated by the context and uh the context at the time and something we don't understand today. And the closest thing that I can think of is is that uh we have a fascination with the last frontier which really is space.

Um and that spurs our imagination. Uh look at the wonderful amount of sci-fi uh movies, books, uh comics. Um and as we all know, it's not alien. I'm not saying it was aliens, but it's aliens. And at the time, the fact that the exploits of Ashley's 100 and uh uh explorers like them um are sources of personal fame in ways that you know they're celebrities.

Well, personal fame because like were named after these guys, you know, passes were named after these guys and then thousands of people went through. But, you know, compared when we see those ones the movies about space, you know, exploration, it's it's, you know, they're they're scientists, they're astronauts, and they're high-tech. I mean, it's it's different than someone who has to go out and, you know, you're only going to wear what you kill. You only eat what you kill. You know, that's a so it's I mean, it's it's it's even it's even a lot of ways gutsier than like the first guy on Mars or something like that because this is, you know, this is you're not in radio contact with anybody,

you know, and yeah, you're living literally off of the land. Mhm. Yeah. And yeah, in many cases uh the nearest uh individual that you know and can call a friend may literally be, you know, 100

100 miles. Yeah. You see them see him once a year at the rendevous. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. But the fact that uh the penny dreadfuls and dime novels this speaks to something that you know we in the we in the modern era I I guess that the closest thing you can say is yeah maybe the fascination that we have with speed uh with space um and yeah it inspires imagination. It's it's it's the stories.

Yeah. So well and of course these stories became legendary. Absolutely. I mean, the Hugh Glass movie that was just that was relatively recently, right? That that was winning an Academy Awards and and uh it's it's really not clear exactly the whole story, the real true story of Hugh Glass and the Bear, but I mean that's that you know that we're still talking about that, you know, that name this far out. Yeah, these are these are truly legendary people. Uh

that story might be totally made up, but uh yeah, it's how much of the story is true is unclear because there's so many different versions of the story, but it appears that Hugh Glass did have some sort of wrestle with the bear and managed to crawl the heck out of there by himself. I mean, and that's how many people could do that today. I will say that the number of grizzly bear attacks that made it into Mountain Man stories uh does indicate that apparently angry grizzly bears were a thing

during this period because there seem to be at least three different uh stories involving different uh different explorers and they're different stories. It does not seem as if it's the same story rehashed with a different uh legendary mountain man character.

Well, I mean part of the story is that they were killing bears for their fur. I mean, part of the part of the reason that you don't there's some things we don't find very much anymore is because these guys, you know, the the the fur was so valuable. So, yeah, they were I imagine they were they were hunting out grizzlies. But yeah, uh yeah, don't mess with a with a grizzly, especially when you got a muzzle loader.

Yeah, that's you got time. There's no time for the second shot. We should mention, too, by the way, both Josh and I went to the University of Wyoming. Every time the football team scores a touchdown, dudes in mountainman outfits fire their flint locks off at the end in the in the end zone.

They've got a cannon. Yeah. And then the national the national guard fouls it. So you got the guys in the flint locks or whatever firing their musketss and then the national guard shoots off their cannon. Yeah. In War Memorial Stadium.

If if the football team were better, it would be Yeah, it might be. Yeah. They know they don't have to bring a whole lot of powder. We'll get in trouble for that.

That's true. I but you know it's it's an alma mater so I you know I was there and you can I think I'm allowed to make fun of him. That's the

that's our man. You are and you are as brave as a mountain man to attend a football game in Laramie, Wyoming in the winter. Yeah. You got to really really love football to watch a not very good football team pay play in in constant blizzard conditions.

Uh yes. The only answer I have to that is that the University of Colorado they have a buffalo.

They do. Yeah. That's good old Ralphie. Well, back to uh back to the the people who made that those possible.

Yeah, we have wandered off already, haven't we? By exploring all those areas. Certainly, you know, Laramie up there as well those a lot of the forts and areas that was all land that they were exploring and we've all lived in in this area. Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota. This is we know their names. I know their names very well because these are folks who those are the stories, the history stories that we have around here. This is where they were. This is where the stuff is named after them.

Absolutely. Yeah. The the treaty of Fort Laramie was negotiated by one of Ashley's 100.

All of this is Yeah. So I mean this and they spent a lot of time up in the Yellowstone area and stuff like that. I think the Rick war that I think they fought maybe the creek war. They fought a war there in

Well, they they were focused in We should get that out of the way which is part Well, I mean it's all over Wyoming and Idaho and stuff, but I've been through all that area.

They were that was kind of the territory that they were promised though. would they would snitch into other people's territory and you know that that's interesting too because they were at the same time fighting wars with like the Hudson Bay Company and the and the uh with Central Missouri Company. Yeah. So they were fighting over territory for the for the trades too. So so that I mean the question here is if if it weren't for Ashley's 100 different might America be I guess is part of the story. I mean in terms of counterfactuals it's interesting uh because these guys played a lot of really important roles on opening the West. So I mean there's there's the broad question. Would the West have opened at all if we didn't have either Ashley's or people like Ashley's 100 or how would it have evolved differently if they hadn't been there? Uh and I think that I think there's some some really interesting

discussion there and particularly uh they found the mountain passes that made the the trail to California and Oregon. uh every probably everybody that listens to this well that's not fair mo at least the you know the younger end of the ones that listen to us will have played the Oregon Trail and died of dysentery at some point on the way to Oregon

but I mean without the Oregon Trail I mean the United States is a very different place and if it was much harder to get to California in 1849 the world's a very different place and these are the guys that really made that a a possible a doable trip so you can you can start with the west coast of America certainly would not have populated as quickly as it did if these people weren't because they didn't just, you know, find the passes and open the passes. Most of them were like the early people that led the early wagon trains that built these trails.

Yeah. They were the only ones who knew how to get through it. This was dangerous enough if you were a lone mountain man who was probably particularly skilled and prepared to go through there. But if you're talking, you know, families that were traveling along the Oregon Trail slowly using their ax in those wagons with everything they own, I mean, that that was essentially impossible without someone to show you the way.

I mean, in a simple sense, historically, these guys were really really important.

Yeah. And it's difficult to see if there were other people who would have done the same. So I mean we could start on a counterfactual to say that at least the western United States would have uh populated much more slowly. Uh there might not have been nearly as great an impact of the California gold rush. Uh and if we had populated in Oregon and Washington more slowly, it's possible that the treaty with the British would have been much different up there because that was always disputed territory.

Uh and it might be that what is Washington state today would actually be part of Canada. Well, that our part of our argument when we when we were arguing that was that we had effective occupation. We already have people there and if we don't or we have significantly fewer people and there's more, you know, Hudson Bay Company uh power in that region. I mean that does that alters how that that treaty goes and how those negotiations go.

Does and of that was also occupied by the Russians and the Spanish. I mean that was everybody was fighting over that. So if we didn't have the Oregon Trail, we might not have been a part of that discussion. And so that leads if the you know if the simil argue and I guess we should you know from the start mention yeah the Ashley's 100 generally had good relations with the natives because they had to because they were trading furs but they did engage in conflict with the natives they did assist the army in fights against the natives. If you want to talk about the you know the uh the genocide the western genocide these these guys were part of that but on the other hand they also facilitated friendly relations with the natives in ways that if they hadn't been there you know maybe it would have been more hostile but when you ask the question of say would the western United States have say become a an Indian

nation or something like would we not have populated the west uh then it leaves the question that if the US hadn't populated the west would it have simply have been you know been populated by another European power uh you know the British Spanish or the or the uh potentially the French actually because Louisiana had belonged to the French

at a certain point, you know, the Mexicans as opposed to the Spanish uh which were were one of the powers out there. To be fair, the Spanish were learning at this point that they just they couldn't project their power across the Atlantic anymore. Uh although that didn't stop them from trying. This is not all that far off from uh the Nuka crisis uh which was which is right up there in Spanish Spanish Canada as as they claimed. But the whole the whole thing there was that we learned that the Spanish could not project their power there either. That was just one piece of the the long decline.

How much how much could the British or the Russians though too but the West Coast I mean it was perceived as valuable. They were already fighting over it. It seems to me unlikely I mean that that if the US had not moved west as quickly that the the only other real possible scenario is that it would have been eventually settled by another European power just another direction. Yeah.

I think the likely candidate for the west coast changeover if you will or an alternate west coast would be Mexico. Uh because at that point Mexico they're still struggling through things. But in 1849, imagine if Mexico receives uh the windfall. That is a uh the monetary

Yeah. the 49er. Yeah. Yeah. If they hold on to it, that's that's fair. And then they have cuz I I mean one of the part of the reason the United States gets is because we were we were more able to project power there than than Britain or Russia, which compared to Britain and Russia and Spain was way closer to Washington DC. That's way closer to our centers of power. Um, but Mexico doesn't have that same weakness, right? They they have they're also fairly close, still frontiers, but they they could potentially, you know, they could walk there, which none of the other people could say they could.

They had real settlement there. I mean, at least southern at least the southern part of the West Coast. Whether Mexico would have been projecting power up into Washington and Oregon is a different question, too. And that easily could have been because the Hudson Bay Company and etc. I mean, that that there was a lot of British activity up in in in Canada that could have come down. Well, and they they saw it, you know, the British saw it as as a possible jumping point for to Asia as far as trading went. So, as as a connection point to China and that's and that's part of why I mean, you know, in these negotiations, there were lots of versions of what that border might have looked like and many of them included more territory for England. And that's, you know, that's in the the kind of best case scenario that was the the real the real scenario which was that we had a lot of people in what is now Washington and Oregon. And so it

is easy to see that if you don't have that that British controls at least into, you know, Puet Sound and these important these important places they could use for trade. And I I don't think it would have um I think it would have remained fairly fairly sparssely populated. uh maybe compared to the United States coming in, but

wanted that the native the indigenous people were in no way unified. I mean, they were and actually in a lot of ways they weren't, you know, they weren't even similar culturally and you know, throughout the whole area of the region.

And so it's kind of it's hard to imagine that without Ashley's 100 that you end up with some sort of free state or buffer state or Native American state. I think by the time of Ashley that that's probably a done deal that this is going to end up being European dominated,

right? If you do, you're talking some probably some pretty extremely uh bad land. I mean, you're talking lands that there that just no one else if truly no one else wanted it. And I mean, the truth is that we always found a reason to want it. And that's that's probably true the other way, you know, if it was the British too

when they fought with the arca, which is kind of interesting because they uh it wasn't Ashley that it was another fur trading company that ticked off the arka and they just didn't, you know, they saw them all as one. So Ashley's people kind of got caught in the middle of that. But could I mean could the aricura have won the war? Could the creek have won the Creek War? Could they, you know, could these various conflicts that the Ashley's 100 ended up being involved in, you know, might the natives have won those wars and might that have made made a difference? And I think in the long run the the way that worked is if they had defeated you know whatever military expedition came at the time we would have just sent a bit bigger military expedition you know behind it. I think in the long run uh uh we were probably going to overcome you know the population difference was just too big.

Yeah. Well, one of the things I thought about is if you don't have Ashley's 100 um and we have this real we have a real there's a narrative to how these mountain men went out out there and how we conquered the west and that it had a lot to do with these these I mean these brave these individual men who were very good at what they did who who were survivors and if you don't have that and instead for instance it's it's almost all done by the army um maybe the story of the west looks different

and I mean there was of course plenty army and plenty of army stories in the west.

Uh but if you if you don't even have, you know, the idea of these these mountain men and stuff like that, maybe that really kind of alters how how we think about that entire period of history.

And we certainly might recognize the economic value of the West much more slowly.

Yeah. But but when we say the army was out there, you know, Fremont's expeditions always had Ashley's men with them and the guides the guides were almost always someone from Ashley. So yeah, I I don't know. Oh, I mean it's interesting to say the West was inexraable, but it doesn't mean it couldn't have have unfolded differently. And if it had folded differently, would it have been, you know, better or worse or, you know, functionally the same for the native peoples? Would it and and what would it mean about the states that we have today and the population centers that we have today? I mean, it's it could be substantially different. Well, you wonder if you if they have, say, you know, extra time, because I think that's at minimum what we're talking about is that the Native Americans have, you know, another decade or several decades with with just less uh less incursion.

It still seems like that's not going to be enough to beat, you know, the American I mean, it's not like the the American military was going to be growing weaker in that time kind of regardless of what the situation was. Eventually, there was going to be pressure to move west.

Yeah. Uh the Yeah. The the whole concept of manifest destiny I think at this point in time uh is something you simply cannot escape and it was truly tied in to the culture of the United States at that point. We went west. There was political opposition maybe to that. But I mean the thing is that you know the immigration and people searching for land was going to keep pressing west. And so even when we talk about you know what would have come from America or England or or Mexico or whatever I mean the the end the the huge mass population that was looking for land and driving the expansion was coming from America and there just there weren't you know there weren't people coming from England to go to that side of Canada yet. But I mean you know how how do we populate if we don't find these easy trails out to the west coast? I mean, if we if we just are literally crawling 50 miles a year through the heartland be without, you

know, easy paths to the west, how much different and, you know, do we have the transcontinental railroad in 20 years, you know, if if if we if we went that way?

Well, and they they talked about the the go west as kind of a release relief valve of people who were, you know, otherwise not going to be able to get by in the in the east. And you wonder what I mean it's it's much more difficult to uh to kind of imagine but you wonder what happens if you don't have that. I mean if you don't have the thousands of people who are traveling along the Oregon Trail and or going you know seeking their fortune in California. I mean that's there those people got to go somewhere.

I see. And I think a lot of the settlement in the Midwest or well I guess we call the Rocky Mountain region was people that were originally on the Oregon Trail and ended up staying you know someplace where they along the way. Yeah.

Yeah. I think that uh if the Iricura do actually win the war, I do think that, you know, first of all, the Iricura incident really kind of shut down the idea that hey, we're just going to have trading post all up and down these rivers.

And instead, it's we're going to decentralize and uh basically hire fur contractors as opposed to trading directly with the natives. And that's really what drives a lot of the exploration and a lot of the discovery and ultimately these men being put into positions where they're guiding the army or government officials

at various times. There is also a lot of what counts as the conquering of the plains Indians occurs uh during and after the civil war.

Yeah. Yeah. after this when America really is very well prepared militarily for a large you know for a large campaign basically uh into the planes

and at that point they've got you know they certainly have they have enough surplus military hardware around that they can do so

including the the men wanted they wanted somewhere to go people wanted to still the army shrunk but they had more than enough people

who were willing to serve somewhere and neo veterans with with experience in I mean I think I think like in the Iraq war they uh Ashley had maybe 30 guys with him uh and then there there were some I mean army we're talking that's a fairly small conflict compared to the whole planes war conflict uh

because these are I mean there were never huge numbers of of Ashley's people out there

yeah but if the had won and held back you know Ashley's 100 basically turned out to be one of the footnotes in history because they were all killed

yeah I mean Ashley was with them and they were besieged and I mean what if they just killed all Ashley's right And then then you don't

that could have that could have totally ended and absolutely changed you know the people whose names we know I mean if they were all killed and or Ashley was killed so he never recruits them. I mean maybe some of them you know try to work with a different company but of course uh Ashley's big thing was because of this war he decides to stay away from just the rivers and they start you know moving overland and on horse and and the rendevous system which was a was a big deal. And so if you don't have those um it it alters how how we move across the west because you know even Ashley's system falls apart completely uh because of over hunting of beavers and changing of fashion and ultimately you know that there's there's only so much time where that's going to be a valuable investment point

if it gets delayed and the other guys you know keep doing it in the old way I mean maybe you don't have the drive for those mountain men and that clearly every pretty much everything we did to move west relied at least somewhat on them,

you know, if the if the big competition was what was the name Aster, right? He had it, but also

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, would these one of these other companies have filled the same space? Uh, or because you're right. I mean, Ashley did it differently than they did. And that's one of the reasons why these guys became, you know, not just fur traders, but extraordinary scouts. It was John Jacob Aster. Yeah. That was the other guy. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I was trying to remember what his company was called. Um, oh, the American Fur Company. But I mean, gosh, Ashley himself, and he was really an interesting guy. Uh, could could the Ashley could this have occurred without Ashley? You would think so, because at some point Ashley decides he wants to run for governor instead, and he just kind of sells it off to his employees. Uh, and he started off with a partner, too. So, I I don't know that that he individually was was necessary, but he was certainly one of these

It's kind of funny they call himself. He was, I guess, brigadier general in the militia in a war they never fought or something and went by general for the rest of his life. I need I need one of those wars. So, a war where you never fight, but you're going to be called general till you till till the day you die. But he he had cuz he for he founded a trading post like in Salt Lake. I mean, he he himself was one of these guys that went out there. What relationship would the army have had with the natives if we did have the fur traders out there, you know, building these relationships?

And the but of course, you know, in the in the wars and stuff like that, I mean, some of that is uh we had an advantage because of, you know, and so if the army doesn't have that advantage of although maybe, you know, maybe they find that advantage in another way. We always were hiring Native American guides, too.

Although they were perhaps less trustworthy than uh some of Well, again, these tribes were so fragmented that I mean, there's always someone who's you if you're fighting someone, someone's got an enemy that

ultimately ultimately I mean, I think that's the one of the reasons why there's just there's not much chance of that. Cuz if you talk about like a you want to talk about a Native American nation that like formed in there, there's just when you really look at the the logistics of that, I mean, they were never going to join with each other. And gosh, there Native Americans had tried. That was the whole that was what Tecumpsa was trying to do, you know, and he couldn't get that done. He he got closest of almost anybody. Um, and that still didn't that still wasn't enough.

And it's it's hard to it's hard to imagine that they would be able to settle all their differences and then, you know, be able to face face it with a with a a united front. And if they can't do that, I mean that the the Europeans had been taking advantage of that since we first started coming to the I mean that was they did that in Peru and they did that in Mexico when the Spanish arrived.

Yeah. Well, to be fair, get Yeah. To be fair, the let's you and him have a fight method of diplomacy um is as old probably as mankind itself.

That's true. Yeah. That I mean the Native Americans have been using that against the the various European powers as well. Um, one of the things I was thinking that I thought was kind of interesting, if we are slower to get to Oregon in around 18, you know, in the 18 1845ish, uh, James Poke is president when we were arguing for the, uh, treaty uh, with with England in Oregon. One of the reasons he did not push for the the 5440 was because he was already getting into a war with Mexico and he didn't think we could fight the war with England at the same time. And so part of me wonders if we don't have people there and he doesn't want to fight with England. I mean maybe that means he's happy to sign a treaty that gives up Oregon. On the other hand, if uh you see a place where he wants both Mexico and Oregon and he sees that he the he's not going to be able to get Oregon in a treaty later because we don't have the

people there that the only way to get Oregon he feels is is a war. I mean maybe he chooses to fight in Oregon instead of Texas. instead of Texas. H

I don't know which one of those is is more likely, but it'd be interesting to see if we if we fight the English, you know, if we fight the British in Oregon and get our border up to 5440 instead of the 49°, which is what it is today. Uh do we give up some piece of Mexico in the in the future, which means we have a completely different southwest and

the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo gave up a huge amount of land if we don't if we don't fight and win that war. Yeah. eventually would we have taken that anyway? I think there's a good chance to say we would have taken it anyway. But

if we fight that war after 1865, um do we take more of Mexico or all of Mexico? Yeah.

Because part of the reason we don't take more than we did, which was already an enormous amount, was specifically because we uh uh free free politicians and the free states did not want uh to add more slave states. And any state that was in Mexico was was going to be a potential slave state. And so that's that's why we didn't take Sonora and it's essentially why we didn't take all of northern Mexico.

But if you don't have that stopping people, I mean, do we just in 1865 the war the civil war is over. We've got a huge army and and Mexico is in the midst of a civil war.

Yeah. Um I mean certainly the US had the capacity to conquer all of Mexico at that time. We didn't have the will. Then we wanted more war after the you know we kind of tacitly supported wararez. I mean that's a fair point that because if we if we don't take to Mexico in the 1840s, Mexico gets their gold in the in 1849 suddenly that's very valuable land to us and Mexico even if that gold helps them some. It's hard to imagine that it gets rid of all their instability.

Um we'd still probably be in a good position and then you know we've got an awfully large motivation. Well, and if if we haven't defeated Santana at the Alamo, you know, at Saninto and Sana's still still the emperor,

he he would have known what to do with that gold. That was his best thing, you know was

But he probably wouldn't have used it to make Mexico a more stable state. He he might but I mean he might have been emperor four more times if we hadn't fought the war with Mexico because we hadn't said so if we don't send population to Oregon uh then then that suggests we might not have fought the war with Mexico. That's an interesting that's an interesting concept.

It certainly could could I mean change it could change borders but it could really change uh how and when things happened. And I I mean if we're we'd be talking about a very different

uh history of the the expansion west. Yes. I mean, certainly anything without Ashley's 100 is going to be a different history of of the of the West. It's going to be a different way that we settled the West. It might not be the way that it kind of was settled, which which was people thousands and thousands of people going on trails through the West. Uh, and then and then kind of backfilling after that. I mean, the frontier went like this for for a while. Uh, this is a podcast. I guess people can't see my hands moving, but there's things where we it populated on the west coast, it populated in the east, and then we sort of we we filled in the middle. uh and we might have grown in a different way certainly without uh without the exploration without the uh mapmaking without the finding the passes and the water that was necessary to be able to do that kind of trip across uh as well as the relationships with the

Native Americans and all that stuff that facilitated that in the west. So you're right. Yeah. I mean anything without Ashley's 100 you have to think that the west I mean whether it comes out different than the whether the states comes out different than it looks today or you know we have different borders it would it would have filled in differently without without Ashley's man which is which is extraordinary. I was going to say I think that one of the possible outcomes is that a US military begins to push westward uh as well as potentially eastward from the west coast. And it is manned not by uh it is manned by political appointees without without the guides who actually have some knowledge of the area. And so do you get more and more bloody outcomes?

Yeah. where I think there's definitely politically incompetent. Go ahead. I think there's definitely a possibility that the conflicts with the native population would have been worse without the Ashley people uh without, you know, the ability to understand languages and having relationships and etc. Uh I mean, I don't think you can guarantee that, but I think it's it's quite possible that it would the outcomes would have been poorer for for the Native American population without the the relationships that have been built with the with the mountain men and the 100. Yeah,

looking at the experience that Kit Carson had with the Navajo, you know, what if there isn't a general who actually understands some of these things and who can act as the peacemaker and instead a US Army unit gets wiped out. So the US decides to send instead of a few thousand decides to send a few tens of thousands.

Yeah. And with the cries of, you know, revenge upon the, you know, revenge on the Navajo, revenge on the Apache, revenge on the Comanche. Yeah, they might just straight wipe those wipe those peoples out completely. Of course, that's a very different uh we, you know, we wipe them out in greater numbers that that really alters what the what the west looks like because of course those people have continued to have a large impact on on those states uh the what are today states and on the cultures of those states. you know, New Mexico and Arizona have a have quite a bit of influence from from Navajo and from uh all the Hopi and all these various these tribes that have lived there for of course much longer than the Europeans have. But it's hard to it's it's a hard thing to argue about on that front because there really isn't a side of that that is like not tragic uh historically.

Yeah. But if we're talking from a purely, you know, from a purely historical perspective, it's certainly possible that Yeah. we do a lot more damage. It's a lot harder to see uh a version of history where you change Ashley's 100 and it's much better for them.

Yeah, I think it is harder to see. I'm I'm trying to imagine, you know, where how it would have worked out better. Uh I except that if if Ashley's 100 doesn't go west, if we don't have people giving an economic value to the west, making it possible to go to the west, maybe westward expansion stops at Kansas. Uh and the mountains are just not worth it. Well, and even if we decide to claim it, I mean, maybe if we don't see the, you know, just because the borders are on the map, maybe it's, you know, the Native Americans have much more freedom there, maybe we honor more of the treaty of Fort Laramie kind of kind of thing.

Uh, not nec not that treaty specifically necessarily, but you know, they where they've got more autonomy because we don't see it as valuable land because

what if we actually made the legal commitment that we made at the Treaty of Fort. So, so maybe maybe there is a huge Indian territory that's all of western South Dakota and most of what most of Wyoming uh from the Fort Laramie treaty that actually remains and that could be an autonomous nation today. That could be something that's either semi-autonomous or more autonomous.

But that's I mean that's that does kind of feel like the best the best case. It's hard to imagine a fully autonomous nation if only because because of the manifest destiny. It seems like we're going to want to claim that land

even how it always works out. Even when you promise the land and then you know you got more settlers come and the settlers get there and then that causes tension and there's a fight and the army always takes a settler side and then you just keep moving. I mean there were lots of times that we signed treaties

uh long before Ashley's 100 that we signed treaties and then we decided we want to go west anyway. I mean this is interesting too because they were responsible Ashley's 100 were responsible for quicker paths to California too

without I mean we would have recognized the value of of 1849 the gold discovery. So without Ashley's 100 and without those passes, might we have taken say uh Panama because there was a point where we were literally talking about well we had filibusters too going down there taking Nicaragua or Panama uh in order to have a a a path you know a steamship path that we could get to California. So if we didn't have faster paths on the on the continent uh because we already had a lot of pressure we already I mean essentially you know we you know we doing a lot down in Panama and stuff like that but do we take a chunk of Central America uh you know that goes coast to coast in order to better facilitate going to California because we don't have the route that we don't have the overland route.

Yeah. Oh and that's that's a fair point because the it was in many ways easier to travel by sea. The only problem was getting to California meant, you know, crossing either crossing uh Central America in some way, which was not land we controlled and was generally uh not not as safe as you might like, or you know, you have to go all the way around South America and that's

that was that was very dangerous. That's why we Yeah. Right. Even in even in the into the 18

we were primarily responsible for a railroad across Panama at the time because that was mostly moving Americans for 1849. Would we have been more aggressive in terms of actually politically taking control? And you know, might might Panama or Nicaragua be a US state today if Ashley's people hadn't found passes.

Forget who it was. There's there's one of them that's actually particularly associated with the pass that got to California for the 49er route, but

but certainly I mean it that's going to be a path of least resistance and ultimately the that we still had people traveling that route through Panama. So, if you know, if the path of least resistance is is not moving people through overland, which still just took forever because it was it's just so hard to move over that without any roads, without especially if you wanted to carry anything with you. Um, then maybe we do. I mean, maybe we're just like, okay, we're going to take a chunk of this. Uh, I don't really see any reason why any of anything that was going on in Central America was going to be able to stop us

if we really wanted to. Yeah. Yeah. There was there was nothing politically enough that was secure enough down there that we couldn't have taken it if we really felt like it.

Yeah. Might not have been all that friendly or uh peaceful. Might have been some violence, but I mean I think we could have held it. That was true of the whole West was that there was it was not always friendly and peaceful, but

yeah, we essentially forced a treaty upon, you know, upon Panama there. So, so I mean that's an interesting idea because I mean there were there were filibusters, there were these, you know, dudes that just get up arm parties and go down there and and I think it's possible uh that without Ashley's 100 that we might have been more active in Central America or even in Mexico uh because we would have seen a different value in that land if we, you know, didn't think we could get across the great, you know, center of the nation, the great American desert, I guess we call it.

Even if we just didn't think we could get across it fast enough, right? I mean, that's the even if we're like, "Oh, you can, but we're going to have to build up, you know, find people who can find the passes and figure that out." If that's going to take you years, uh, it might be a lot easier. We know how to get across Mexico or Nicaragua or Panama, you know, we know how to do that already. And certainly, it's difficult to see despite the the arguments between like slavery and free states, which was whether we were going to expand. And it it ultimately came down a lot to the free states didn't want to expand as much because it seemed like that would benefit slave states more. I think that this would have outweighed that.

Yeah. Another possibility is that if there is a significant plains Indian political influence in the area over which the transcontinental railroad ran,

then does the entire transcontinental railroad period of politics not occur possibly until a later date

or does it or does it occur earlier because we don't have the passes and so we you know because we don't have an overland route because you know we could have been building the transcontinental railroad in the you in the 1830s we just couldn't agree on roots and you know just but so we get a different imperative yeah

if it's the you know we have to have one because it's the only way you know maybe we choose I mean you know maybe then we choose a more southern route uh and maybe not the southern route as they argued it but something that was much more southern because I mean almost everything uh that was political in that period somehow boiled down to arguments between free states and slave states uh and that's true of the railroads but if you you If you're like, we have to get to California, it's going to be a lot easier to do it further south where we don't have to deal with the plains Indians. Of course, not that there weren't plenty of Native Americans there to fight with you, too. I mean, if you're trying to build it through Arizona or the southern route, as you know, as it was kind of imagined, you know, there was the Apache and the Comanche and all them down there, too.

It's not like they would have made that. Yeah. Yeah. One of the actually that uh who was it? Debbed Smith was killed by Comanche, wasn't he? One of the big names of the Ashley's 100 actually was far enough south that he was he was killed by Comanche. So they were it wasn't just like in the Wyoming area. They were they were way out west. Yeah.

There was not I mean there was no land in there that wasn't that you know that there weren't there wasn't someone living there. The the Comanche and the Apache of course have a have a reputation for um

well the Battle of Adobe Walls takes place after the American Civil War. So there's certainly uh instability in the area that's

uh not necessarily conducive uh to having a transcontinental an unguarded transcontinental railroad. If we follow another one of the alternate history lines um where the United States uh decides it's going to conquer Mexico. However, uh perhaps that southern route does start looking quite a bit more

Yeah. It becomes the central route at that point, right? Uh quite quite a bit more attractive. you know, Mexico that that's that's kind of in the middle.

Yeah. And Yeah. And at that point, um, if we are more active in, uh, Arizona, New Mexico, do we find the gold and silver reserves in the American Southwest? Uh, probably not quite.

If we essentially find a route just around the the plains and the mountains, we're going around the Rocky Mountains essentially. That means that I mean one of the ways we settled I mean gosh settled nearly all of that territory. I mean we settled Kansas was because of the railroad and that we you know where we built these settlements along the railroad. So if we don't build a railroad through there I mean for for Wyoming I mean you that's Cheyenne. Cheyenne exists because there's a railroad going through there. That's it's the whole reason that there's that there's a city there. And that's true many

many places. And so if you don't if you don't build that then you don't you the cities don't grow. uh and this might just this might be for an area that is already uh some of the some of the least populated in the United States. You know, how much do you have to nudge that before it becomes I mean

almost wilderness in the modern era? This might also have led to the perception in Europe that maybe America isn't the frontier area that we want to go to. uh maybe we should go to some other place like say Australia

or or Africa or Yeah. So do uh you know suddenly is there this population of poor downtrodden masses uh who end up not at Ellis Island but rather decide that perhaps uh the frontier in South Africa would be would would be a less insecure place with greater chance for uh for fortune

that the ways that that could alter the character and uh population and culture of the United States that's hard to that's hard to even imagine. But yeah, I mean one of the big drivers and one of the reasons why people were coming over from Europe was because we had this idea that it was this fairly safe land and it was the land was easy to come by and if if you know if we don't have that same

Yeah. What if these what if these waves of people that are leaving Europe at the time are going elsewhere rather than here

because we don't have I mean that's a you know that's an interesting question it could say and that could that could be I mean it might have been Canada too but it also could have been South America or Africa just as easily. Uh, and that would that would dramatically, you know, you you talking about culture too though, I mean, a big chunk of the American vision of our culture, that frontier culture comes from the idea of these self-reliant mountain men. This idea of the rugged individual, uh, the gun culture, which the rest of the world thinks that we're very bizarre because we all believe we should. I mean, you know, obviously

that's not spe, you know, unique to Ashley's 100 or the or the the mountain men, but I mean, it's a big it's a big chunk of it. Uh, and I mean we still remember our frontier period more than I think you know most of Europe does. And you know, so you know the idea you had to be you had to be armed still if you have a farm you have to be armed out there. But uh I mean that's that's just part of farming and ranching you're going to have to shoot a coyote now and again. But uh so I wonder without Ashley's 100 could it be that America has a more sort of European attitude that the things that sort of set America apart with our our individualism uh and our I guess some would argue jinguism. I don't know if that's necessarily fair. Uh and especially our our attachment to you know to guns

is I which which is hard to say because that was also attached to the revolution and the idea of the minute men and all that sort of thing. But I mean how much of the culture of what makes America especially the way the rest of the world sees us that makes America different is because of these these mountain men that if we hadn't had them that we might be a different kind of people. Well, and certainly it alters, you know, the idea of the Old West with cowboys and everything, ranchers and all that stuff that that relies on these mountain men as as kind of the precursors to that.

And I a lot of the American gun culture comes from that that kind of stuff that all I think relies on on these mountain men originally coming coming through. There's a reason why kids play, you know, cowboys and Indians kind of thing all the time.

That's that's still is cowboys and Indians still a thing? I don't know. Well, I guess I don't know. I played it when I was a kid. I wonder cowboys and Indians and cops and robbers. I wonder if those are those were

flashback to one of our previous episodes when we were discussing Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy Roosevelt's ideology is steeped

Yeah. in Western culture. Oh gosh. Yeah. And those images, the rugged individualist, he I think more than anybody else was able to tap into that

um and turn it into rhetoric. And I don't mean rhetoric in the bad way. I mean rhetoric in the classical sense uh of creating an entire ethos around it.

How do you get Teddy Roosevelt without West as we know it, right? Without him coming out to South Dakota to to ranch and actually

that's the wrong Dakota. But you know, I mean that was that was formative. How do you get more remote than South Dakota? You just go a little bit north. The great

the great Dakota War of 2025 started Brad lives Brad lives in South Dakota. So we do have to note that the that North Dakota is still the wild untamed wild west. It is still occupied by

by savages. Eventually they'll get they'll get internet up there and then they'll they'll know that we're making fun of them. Perhaps the uh the biggest question and the one we haven't approached yet is if we don't populate populate that section of the country uh perhaps what happens is the the great Sasquatch empire begins.

Absolutely. I was I was going to mention that this is this is as squatchy a place as you will ever get. So maybe

the independent state is is Saskuia and it's that's and so all of all of Montana and Wyoming and the Dakotas, you know, there's no North South Dakota rivalry because that's all that's all Sasquatch.

I was disappointed because I could not find a specific actual event where Ashley's 100 ran into Sasquatch because there's so many of those stories in the West. Uh you know, including one that involves Teddy Roosevelt. You know, of course, we're we're never really positive if Hugh Glass was truly fighting a bear, you know, and they ate a battle. Maybe

he stuck it. This is true. Maybe he was maybe he was wrestling with a Sasquatch and and uh that's I mean that's

that's the true story. It's a very plausible story and I think we need to see that movie. I think that

maybe that's how Hugh Glass survived. That's right. Maybe it was a bear, but it was the Sasquatch who saved him. And of course he couldn't he had to make up the story that he crawled all the whole way because because of he needed to protect his friends.

Actually I mean of all the episodes we've done this is the one that's more that's most you know crassly squatchchy right. I mean this is

that's the that's that's really really true. There's there's nothing else if we don't have the if we don't have the because you know that's the hot spot is up in Idaho and Oregon and Washington State. If we don't have the Oregon Trail, then, you know, maybe there's a much larger Sasquatch population today and, you know, maybe even a politically active Sasquatch population.

Here is what I think are likely Sasquatchio looks like um due to the fact that uh the civilized peoples and their loud, noisy, fiery, smoky firearms uh do not show up. that a far more friendly, more naturelving and natural uh Plains Indian or Northern Plains Indian culture reach out to the Sasquatch in their time of need. And uh and thus the noble Sasquatch literally is nobility to a unified

uh we have we have a true state unified American nation that is say you know western Montana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon that is ruled over by Sasquatches. It's fair to say given where Sasquatch are actually literally supposed to be today, uh even though they'll do finding Bigfoot anywhere in the nation, uh that these passes through the Sierras certainly impacted greatly what would be considered the prime Sasquatch habitat and therefore you could certainly argue and presumably the natives that were here had already figured out their peace with Sesquatchia. Uh so it is it is safe to say that without Ashley's 100 that might have been quite a boon to the uh to the to the Sasquatch population and their you know uh territory. I I'm not sure exactly how you would say that if they would actually be defending territory. Maybe just habitat I guess.

Uh uh it depends on exactly what what a Sasquatch is, which unfortunately we're not 100% certain. Is that do they have territory? Do they have a habitat?

I but I mean Ashes 100 could not have been good for Sasquatches uh in that the way that it brought population to to the areas that were squatchy.

Even if we're talking about that they are some kind of a shy great ape kind of thing. Well, especially so I mean especially if if this is if this is simply a wild animal with a habitat. Uh then I mean this is Ashley's 100 had a lot to do with you know the population of that habitat which might have become then very unfriendly to a you know to a wide ranging mountain ape.

Yeah. Now I will uh throw in uh veering this back towards a potential serious thought that suddenly occurred to me after our fanciful detour into Saskatchia. Um there is a very real possibility that the Civil War looks a lot different. Uh the US American Civil War, uh it looks uh it looks like perhaps it comes a lot earlier. Perhaps it comes just a little later. Perhaps Indian tribes play a much larger role and because the Confederacy really tried to reach out to the various uh various Indian tribes uh in the southern the southern part of the United States and did have at least some success

getting those tribes. If those tribes are more are more militarily if they have a they have a greater military capability because they're more numerous then or they're in an area that was formerly conquered by the United States uh as the United States of Mexico annex in you know the 1840s does the Confederacy have a much better chance to win because

a large portion of Mexico is actually part of the Confederacy if they if they could make a because one of the reasons, you know, the the west, the far far west was was a fairly minor section was that there just wasn't wasn't any troops over there. But if you have more of Mexico, uh maybe you do uh if if the South was able to mount some serious efforts out there, I mean, the North would have had to respond, right? And it would have been it would have been difficult if if the South has, you know, the essentially these Mexican states as a base. Uh it would have been harder for the North. I mean, the North would have been the one that would find it difficult to get military out there, but it would have been a serious issue if there was really serious cons, you know, Confederate forces that could, you know, take over Arizona territory or

there's lots of ways that it could impact because, uh, you know, the flag of Nevada says battleborne. You know, it's not that wasn't a battle fought in Nevada. It was Nevada Silver interest that made Nevada a state during the Civil War. So if you if if you haven't filled in the west in the way that Ashley's 100 might have facilitated, then the Union doesn't have the silver from Nevada,

uh then that could have been a significant difference in the war. But the the conflict, I mean, the the biggest issue with Lincoln wasn't that he was an abolitionist. He wasn't. He opposed extension of slavery to the western territories, right? So if you don't have that, if we haven't if we aren't talking about making new territories in in Arizona and New Mexico and California, and then you don't have the issue of western expansion, uh then you don't have the primary issue that caused the secession. Or or maybe you put that off, you know, past, you know, past the Lincoln presidency, you know, into the 1860s, 1870s. Maybe there's a point, I mean, because there's a certainly an argument here that slavery was going to die a natural death. uh that a civil war was not necessary to get rid of the institution. And so if if the civil war is delayed 10 years or 20 years, maybe we never fight the civil

war. Uh and if we don't have the question of westward expansion and whether that's uh whether that's free or slave, maybe we do avoid the civil war. Uh so you know, maybe if we end up fighting the civil war, it's different if we don't have the territories that we have, the silver in in in Colorado and Nevada and things like that. And that probably would have hurt the Union. Uh but maybe we manage to avoid the civil war altogether if we haven't, you know, if we don't have the fight over whether the West is free or slave. if a if a large portion of California gold ends up in Confederate coffers during that time and they're able to purchase some additional naval assets um and perhaps they're able to make that Union blockade less effective, then does the Confederacy hold on long enough to where the Union forces and the Union states uh simply become so tired of the ongoing war that we do end up with a

Confederate States and a uh Union States of America or United states. Keeping the South separated was so such an important part of how the Union fought the South uh that we when we were talking about the that you know there was Union forces in in Texas uh to try to stop them from getting getting supplies through Mexico essentially. Uh and so if if that's ineffective you that that could certainly I mean I don't know that they would have had to have extended their fighting cap capability all that long. There were certainly points where, you know, the idea of the the North negotiating a peace because we're just sick of fighting it and it it doesn't seem like we can win anyway. It doesn't seem like they can win. That seems like a realistic

we are talking about. I mean, we talked about before what if Spain gets those resources. You know, that a significant part of US growth is Southern California and it's not just the gold rush because it follows with the oil. I mean, that was that was our our primary source of oil for a long time. So if it turned out that Ashley's 100 does not give us good paths through the Sierra Neadas, if that turns out that Southern California winds up either in the hands of the Confederacy or the hands of Mexico or I guess the hands of the British or the Russians seemed a little less likely. I mean just the not having that gold and not having that oil surely that could have shifted the Civil War. Surely that could have shifted I mean this idea of America's wealth and our great resource wealth and material wealth. Maybe we don't industrialize nearly as much if we don't have the California oil and maybe

uh you know maybe we are a very very different nation uh and maybe a nation that doesn't have nearly as much you know material you know people are fond of saying America's the richest country in the world that's not necessarily true but I mean to an extent that is true our whole lifestyle could be different because that gold was that the gold was critical development midcentury and the oil was critical to development end of century into the 20th century so I guess when we start speculating you know what What if the Confederates had taken Texas? Then that really is a qu or had taken California. The real question is if anybody had taken California, how different would the US be?

Everyone focuses on American oil. Well, all comes from Texas, right? No, it's still Yeah, it was it was a top producer for a very long time, but I think you're it's at least way up there in terms of oil production and was I mean early on uh I mean I guess the first well was in Pennsylvania, right? But early on, California was by far the biggest producer

and that was a huge part of American growth and and development. It is hard to imagine the the the was it the uh Moro, right? That was that was the Californians. Hard to imagine the Moro Indians ever being able to take the economic advantages that was coming out of that, you know, that

actually if the Spanish I mean they were kind of there ahead of us and were already building, you know, cities and stuff like that.

Yeah, it is it is cool when we talk about stuff. It is cool that you know I I think you know people know names like Napoleon but I I don't think people know things like you know William Subladia Smith you know or Jim Beckworth. Uh maybe Jim Bridger maybe not. Uh it's kind of interesting to be talking great man theory with names that yeah

might be unfamiliar. I mean how many people watch the revenant and didn't know his name is you Glass. I mean yeah. So these names are people that were important uh even though and actually end up on mountain peaks and and passes and rivers and lakes and all this sort of stuff. It's interesting when we talk about great men because I would say that the vast majority of even American population more or less world population doesn't know these names at all.

Yeah. And so it makes you wonder how many especially given you know how much of the world has been explored with time. I it's it it makes you wonder how many other people they were that had the guts to, you know, pick up, you know, pick up a horse and a gun and go just out in the middle of nowhere and try to make something out of it. Uh and actually that's the reason that there's even, you know, civilization there where there is today. And how many of those names do we not know? There were lots of extraordinary men who were maybe individually more important uh to the course of events than a Napoleon or a Hitler uh who who might have, you know, someone would have arisen to that occasion any which way. there maybe were great men uh that uh were even greater than the ones that we think of as great men and we don't even remember their names.

Thank you for listening to this episode of the History Guy podcast. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Counterfactual History and if you did, you can find lots more history if you follow the History Guy on YouTube. You can also find us at thehistoryguy.com, Facebook, Patreon, and locals. If you want to hear more counterfactuals, stay tuned. We release podcasts every 2 weeks.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "THG Podcast - Counterfactuals: Ashley's 100"?

Josh (Guest), Brad Wagen (Guest), Lance (Guest).

What is "THG Podcast - Counterfactuals: Ashley's 100" about?

The discussion centers on "Ashley’s 100," a pivotal group of fur trappers and explorers from the 1800s whose ventures into the Rocky Mountains significantly influenced America's westward expansion. The analysis explores counterfactual scenarios regarding how history might have unfolded differently had this group not undertaken their journey, highlighting the broader implications of their actions…

What is mentioned in this The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered episode?

12 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Nick & Ari Ashley, Kit Carson, Jedediah Smith, Jim Bridger, Thomas Fitzpatrick, Hugh Glass. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "THG Podcast - Counterfactuals: Ashley's 100"?

The episode runs 1 h 7 min; the transcript is about 13,518 words in 179 timestamped sections.

More from The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.