posted 01-10-2016 11:25 PM                       

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Readers may wonder about the historical accuracy of the events in this novel. The fur trade era contains a murky mixture of history and legend, and some legend no doubt has invaded the history of Hugh Glass. The Revenant is a work of fiction. That said, I endeavored to stay true to history in the main events of the story.

What is certainly true is that Hugh Glass was attacked by a grizzly bear while scouting for the Rocky Mountain Fur Company in the fall of 1823; that he was horribly mauled; that he was abandoned by his compatriots, including two men left to tend for him; and that he survived to launch an epic quest for revenge. The most comprehensive historical work on Glass was done by John Myers Myers in his entertaining biography The Saga of Hugh Glass. Myers makes a strong case for even some of the most remarkable aspects of Glass’s life, including his imprisonment by the pirate Jean Lafitte and, later, by the Pawnee Indians.

There is some division among historians as to whether Jim Bridger was one of the two men left to care for Glass, though most historians believe that he was. (The historian Cecil Alter, in a 1925 biography of Bridger, makes a passionate contrary case.) There is considerable evidence that Glass confronted and then forgave Bridger at the fort on the Big Horn.

I took literary and historical liberties in a couple of places that I wish to note. There is persuasive evidence that Glass did finally catch up with Fitzgerald at Fort Atkinson, finding his betrayer in the uniform of the U.S. Army. However, accounts of the encounter are cursory. There is no evidence of a formal proceeding such as I portrayed. The character of Major Constable is wholly fictional, as is the incident in which Glass shoots Fitzgerald in the shoulder. There is also evidence that Hugh Glass had separated from the party of Antoine Langevin prior to the Arikara attack on the voyageurs. (Toussaint Charbonneau does appear to have been with Langevin, and to have survived the attack, although the circumstances are not clear.) The characters of Professeur, Dominique Cattoire, and La Vierge Cattoire are wholly fictional.

Fort Talbot and its inhabitants are invented. Otherwise, the geographic reference points are as accurate as I could make them. A spring 1824 attack against Glass and his companions by the Arikara Indians did take place, reportedly at the confluence of the North Platte River and the (later named) Laramie River. Eleven years later, Fort William—the predecessor of Fort Laramie—would be established at that site.

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