[Footnote: _Do_. Girault to Clark July 9, 1784.] The
horse trade was risky, as in driving them up to Kentucky many were
drowned, or played out, or were stolen by the Indians; but as picked
horses and mares cost but twenty dollars a head in Louisiana and were
sold at a hundred dollars a head in the United States, the losses had to
be very large to eat up the profits.
Creole Traders.
The French Creoles, who carried on much of the river trade and who lived
some under the American and some under the Spanish flag, of course
suffered as much as either Americans or Spaniards. Often these Creoles
loaded their canoes with a view to trading with the Indians, rather than
at New Orleans. Whether this was so or not, those officially in the
service of the two powers soon grew as zealous in oppressing one another
as in oppressing men of different nationalities. Thus in 1787 a
Vincennes Creole, having loaded his pirogue with goods to the value of
two thousand dollars, sent it down to trade with the Indians near the
Chickasaw Bluffs. Here it was seized by the Creole commandant of the
Spanish post at the Arkansas. The goods were confiscated and the men
imprisoned.
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