Hugh Glass

Route of Glass's journey from the Grand River to Fort Kiowa

Hugh Glass (* around 1783, † around 1833) was an American trapper in the Wild West .

His life story has been passed down many times and is entwined with legends. Glass became famous for surviving a grizzly bear attack in the Rocky Mountains . The events of that time were reported and published in different versions while Glass was still alive, sometimes with purely speculative content. Posthumously, myth-making continued with new publications on Glass's life; reliable sources hardly exist.

Glass' biography has served as a source of inspiration for literature and film on various occasions. The American author Frederick Manfred dedicates himself to Glass in his novel "Lord Grizzly" (1954). The 1971 British western A Man in the Wild by Richard C. Sarafian , with Richard Harris in the lead role. In 2002 the American novel " Der Totgeglaubte - A true story " (original title "The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge" ) by Michael Punke appeared . The 2015 film The Revenant, by Alejandro González Iñárritu , is based on this, in which Glass is played by Leonardo DiCaprio .

Life

Little is known about Glass's early life. He was most likely born in Philadelphia around 1783 . Maybe he went to sea as a pirate at a young age before working as a scout and trapper in the “ Wild West ” beyond the “ Frontier ”. He had lived there for several years before joining an expedition in 1823 by the Rocky Mountain Fur Company founded by William Henry Ashley and Andrew Henry . Glass was to travel with a small group led by Andrew Henry along the Missouri River and Grand River to the Yellowstone River Valley .

Near the Grand River, in what is now Perkins County, South Dakota , Glass was attacked by a bear and seriously injured. As has been reported several times, his companions assumed that he would soon die and decided to move on, while two men were assigned to stay with him until his death and finally to bury him. Presumably they were both John Fitzgerald and Jim Bridger . What is certain is that Glass was left alone a few days later, although he was still alive. Several sources write that he had neither a weapon nor supplies with him. Despite the adverse circumstances, Glass managed to get to Fort Kiowa, the nearest inhabited place, and thus save himself. It was estimated that it took him six weeks to complete the 200-mile (320 km) route.

There are numerous narrative variants and speculative details about the bear attack and Glass' injuries, as well as the behavior of his companions and the circumstances of his struggle for survival, including alleged acts of revenge and mercy on the two trappers who left him behind.

Glass later returned to the upper Missouri River area. He worked as a hunter in Fort Union . Glass died in a battle with Arikaree Indians around 1833 .

Narrative variations and speculative details

In one source, the bear attack and subsequent events are represented as follows:

While exploring, Glass came across a grizzly bear with two cubs. The dam attacked Glass before he could fire his rifle. Nevertheless, he managed to kill the animal with a knife instead. His companions had meanwhile heard his cries for help and found Glass badly injured under the dead animal. They treated his injuries, but expected his death soon. However, as the group wanted to move on quickly to meet the schedule, John Fitzgerald and young Jim Bridger stayed behind with Glass. They dug a grave for Glass and waited for him to die. According to their own statements, after three days they noticed a group of Indians approaching their camp. In a panic, they threw the unconscious glass into the prepared grave, covered it with a bearskin and a little dirt, then took his weapons and equipment and fled from the Indians. Other reports tend to assume that both men didn't want to take any further risks and therefore just moved on.

Glass was not dead, however. After a while he woke up and was shocked to find that his comrades had left him with a broken leg and numerous other wounds without weapons in the middle of the Indian territory. His only outfit was the bearskin that Fitzgerald and Bridger had covered him with. It was more than 300 kilometers to Fort Kiowa , the next inhabited place. On September 9, 1823, he splinted his broken leg and crawled south toward the Cheyenne River, about 150 kilometers away . His infections worsened and he occasionally passed out. Glass later reported that he woke up once and saw a grizzly bear next to him, licking his maggot-infested wounds, but otherwise leaving him alone. During his two-month “journey” to the Cheyenne River, he lived only on wild berries and roots. Once he was able to drive two wolves off a dead bison so that he could eat some of the raw meat.

When he arrived at the river, he built an improvised raft from a fallen tree and drifted with it downriver to the Missouri River and from there to Fort Kiowa. On the way he met Indians who sewed a bearskin cover for his wounded back. Eventually he reached the fort, where he spent a few months until his full recovery.

Driven by revenge, he then went in search of Bridger and Fitzgerald in order to kill them both. He eventually found Bridger at a fur trader's warehouse on the Yellowstone River. However, he did not kill him because Bridger was very young at 19 years old. Later he also found Fitzgerald, who had meanwhile joined the army and therefore left him unmolested.

reception

Glass's story was widely transmitted by the trappers and fur traders of the West and eventually became part of American folklore . Various authors thematized his life in non-fiction books, novels and poems.

On the banks of the Shadehill Reservoir near the town of Lemmon , the John Neihardt Club erected the Hugh Glass Monument in 1923 on the spot where Glass began his journey 100 years earlier . Neihardt had already addressed Glass' story in 1915 in the poem The Song of Hugh Glass .

The Icelandic rock band Of Monsters and Men released the album My Head Is an Animal in 2011 , on which they processed the week-long journey of the trapper in the song Six Weeks .

The 1971 script for the British western A Man in the Wild was loosely based on Glass' story. The role of the main character was played by actor Richard Harris .

In 2002 Michael Punke published the novel "Der Totgeglaubte - Einerue Geschichte" (original title "The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge").

In 2015, based on this, a new film adaptation was published under the title The Revenant - The Returner , directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu . The leading role of Hugh Glass is played by Leonardo DiCaprio .

literature

• Jon T. Coleman: Here Lies Hugh Glass: A Mountain Man, a Bear, and the Rise of the American Nation (An American Portrait). Simon & Schuster, New York, NY [a. a.] 2012, ISBN 978-0-8090-5459-6
• Bruce Bradley: Hugh Glass. 1999
• Robert M. McClung: Hugh Glass, Mountain Man: Left for Dead. 1990
• John Myers Myers : Saga of Hugh Glass: Pirate, Pawnee and Mountain Man. 1976
• Barthold Strätling: Hugh Glass' strange revenge. In: Jumbo. Issue 69, 1967, Aussaat-Verlag, Wuppertal
• Frederick Manfred: Lord Grizzly. 1954; 2nd edition, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London 2011, ISBN 978-0-8032-3523-6

Individual evidence

1. ↑ [1] Rebecca Onion: Who Was Hugh Glass? Retrieved online January 9, 2016
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Legend of Hugh Glass ( Memento of the original from December 11, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at rosyinn.com, accessed May 4, 2014  
3. ↑ [2] , at hughglass.org, accessed online January 9, 2016
4. ↑ Legend of Hugh Glass ( Memento of the original from December 11, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at rosyinn.com, accessed January 9, 2015  
5. ↑ Hugh Glass: Legendary Trapper in America's Western Frontier at historynet.com, accessed May 4, 2014
6. ↑ John Neihardt Honors ( Memento of the original from June 15, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at neihardtcenter.org, accessed May 4, 2014  
7. ^ The WPA Guide to South Dakota: The Federal Writers' Project Guide to 1930s South Dakota. Minnesota Historical Society Press, St. Paul, Minnesota 2006, ISBN 0-87351-552-8 , ISBN 978-0-87351-552-8 , 184
8. ↑ Hugh Glass - Mountain Man  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at franksrealm.com, accessed May 4, 2014  
9. ↑ Leonardo DiCaprio, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu Commit To September Start For New Regency's 'The Revenant' at deadline.com, accessed May 4, 2014