Signers

 

​William Bent was the son of a prominent St. Louis judge. At 15, he joined his brother Charles as a fur trader and trapper along the Arkansas River. By 1829, they were selling goods along the Santa Fe Trail, and in 1833 William constructed a trading post known as Bent's Fort on the Arkansas River. From there, his trading network extended across the southwest. In 1846, during the US War with Mexico, Bent worked as a guide along the Santa Fe Trail for Phil Kearney's troops. In 1850, he blew up Bent's Fort after the government attempted to buy it at "an insultingly low price," and seven years later built a new outpost which became Colorado's first permanent American colony. In 1859, he worked as an Indian agent, and in 1864, he was restrained by Colonel John Chivington, preventing him from warning his Cheyenne family of the impending Sand Creek Massacre.