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Raven Quiver, the Trader

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James Willard Schultz

Raven Quiver, the Trader

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"Joseph Kipp was the most noted Indian trader of the Northwest." -J.W. Schultz, Bird Woman (Sacajawea)"Joe Kipp’s life of itself would make a volume. His was a strange history, which could have occurred in no other country." -Emerson Hough, Traveling the Old Trails, 1919"Joseph Kipp, or Raven Quiver, as the Blackfeet fondly called him, inherited all the good and brave qualities of his father and mother, Captain James Kipp and his Mandan wife." -Schultz, Lone Bull's MistakeJ. W. Schultz (1859–1947) was an author, explorer, and historian known for his historical writings of the Blackfoot Indians in the late 1800s, when he lived among them as a fur trader. In 1907, Schultz published My Life as an Indian, the first of many future writings about the Blackfeet that he would produce over the next thirty years. In 1903 this Plains veteran published the true story of "Raven Quiver, the Trader"; it is “real stuff,” vivid and exciting, with the value that comes from firsthand knowledge.In all his fine Western stories the author nowhere has produced a more intriguing narrative than this. In It he tells the true story of Joe Kipp, the half-Mandan legendary fur trader, known to the Blackfoot as “Raven Quiver.” Born in 1849 Missouri, he came west to the Rocky Mountains in 1868 where he became a prospector, Army guide and scout, and Indian trader. This is where Schultz' narrative takes up the exciting life of "Raven Quiver."In the July 18, 1903, issue of Forest & Stream, Schultz published a 20-page article on his close friend "Raven Quiver." [Forest & Stream, Vol. 61, p.42, July 18, 1903]. It is this story that has been republished here for the convenience of the interested reader.In his bestselling book "Bird Woman (Sacajawea)," Schultz also mentions Raven Quiver: "Back in the 1870's … I went to Fort Benton, Montana. It was my good fortune to fall in at once with the late Joseph Kipp, the most noted Indian trader of the Northwest, and his mother, a full-blood Mandan, and widow of Captain James Kipp, American Fur Company Factor in the Mandan village in 1821, and later. I lived with my new-found friends for many years, and a nomadic life it was. Wherever the buffalo were most plentiful, there we were; some winters living and trading in the lodges of the Blackfeet, and other winters in hastily built but comfortable log trading-posts which we put up here and there. "Wherever we roamed, from Canada south to the Yellowstone, and from the Rockies far eastward upon the plains, we felt that, in common with our Blackfeet people! No part of it had as yet been ploughed, nor fenced, and Fort Benton, at the head of navigation on the Missouri, was the only settlement upon it. During the busy season, from October until spring, I helped in our trade with the Blackfeet tribes for their buffalo robes and furs. At other times I hunted with my Indian friends, and even, on several occasions, went to war with them against other tribes."In his famous book "Lone Bull's Mistake", Schultz describes Raven Quiver in a footnote as follows:"Joseph Kipp, or Raven Quiver, as the Blackfeet fondly called him, inherited all the good and brave qualities of his father and mother," who were "Captain James Kipp and his Mandan wife. Captain Kipp was a trusted factor of the American Fur Company. It was in the summer of 1833 that he built the Company's Fort Mackenzie, at the mouth of the Marias, where Lodge Pole Chief first met him. Of his wife I will simply state here that she was one of the best, the most high-minded, kindly women I ever knew, and a second mother to me."Raven Quiver's mother was said to be the last living full-blooded Mandan, a "light-coloured" tribe of Native Americans destroyed by smallpox.In 1871, Raven Quiver would be involved in the infamous "Standoff at Whiskey Gap" with his fellow whisky traders John “Liver-Eating” Johnson and Charles “Charlie” Thomas (known to the Blackfoot as Poka-nikapi).
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