--- title: Oscars 2016: The True History of the Revenant description: How the real history behind the Oscars favorite changed the world canonical: https://time.com/4226712/the-revenant-fur-trade-history-2/ author: Arpita Aneja article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-02-25T17:20:40.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-05T08:41:18.275Z article:section: History og:title: Watch: The True History Behind 'The Revenant' og:description: And how it changed the world og:url: https://time.com/4226712/the-revenant-fur-trade-history-2/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2fcce0b6b0d73986/69887dddbc6cfc6d6d3dbc2d/df-05287r_rgb.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: THE REVENANT og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Watch: The True History Behind 'The Revenant' twitter:description: And how it changed the world twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2fcce0b6b0d73986/69887dddbc6cfc6d6d3dbc2d/df-05287r_rgb.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The True History Behind _The Revenant_ > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-sub-2026q3/newsletters?i=9837f8cd-f53b-4e80-9284-f620ea19bd72&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1) * TIME Subscriptions: [time.com/subscribe-agent](/c/time-sub-2026q3/subscribe?i=9837f8cd-f53b-4e80-9284-f620ea19bd72&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1) ## Video: The True Story Behind The Revenant [Watch (HLS stream): The True Story Behind The Revenant](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/qLekp8Nz.m3u8) (4:02)  _Published 2016-02-25. Author Eric Jay Dolin talks about what really happened in The Revenant_ by [Arpita Aneja](https://time.com/author/arpita-aneja/) and [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/) Feb 25, 2016 5:20 PM UTC by [Arpita Aneja](https://time.com/author/arpita-aneja/) and [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/) Feb 25, 2016 5:20 PM UTC _The Revenant_ is one of eight films that could walk away with the Best Picture prize at this weekend’s Oscars. Whatever happens, however, it’s the only one whose story can claim some credit for the development of the West Coast. The 1820s fur-trading expedition fictionalized in the Leonardo DiCaprio film (and the novel on which it’s based) was part of a major arc of 19th-century American history, explains Eric Jay Dolin, author of the book [_Fur, Fortune, and Empire_](http://www.ericjaydolin.com/#!fur--fortune--and-empire/fgsoi)_._ And, in drawing the eyes of the fledgling nation west, it helped shape the borders of the evolving country. _Read more:_ [_The True Story Behind_ ](http://time.com/4171001/revenant-1939-true-story/)[The Revenant](http://time.com/4171001/revenant-1939-true-story/)[_, as Told in 1939_](http://time.com/4171001/revenant-1939-true-story/) Here’s what happened: as soon as Europeans came to the shores of the New World, the fur trade—mostly for beaver pelts, which were highly desired in Europe—was big business. For the first settlers in areas like New Amsterdam, fur was a crucial part of the local economy. They were able to trade European goods with the local Native American population for the pelts, trade those pelts with Europeans for currency and buy European goods with that currency. Thus, says Dolin, “the beaver was critical to the survival of the early colonists.” By the beginning of the 19th century, however, the beaver population in the East had been crippled. Fur traders (most notoriously John Jacob Astor) hoped to capitalize on the newly finalized Louisiana Purchase by sending traders and trappers out west. As a bonus, opening up the trade to the west coast would mean easier access to the lucrative Chinese market for beaver and otter fur. (“In 1800, you could get almost $100 for a sea otter pelt in China,” Dolin says. “At that time, the average laborer in the US made $1 or $2 a day.”) “The Hugh Glass incident \[of _The Revenant_\] is the first thrust of the fur traders from St. Louis primarily pushing out west and making tentative forays up the Missouri,” Dolin says. “The ‘mountain men’ opened up the west to the gaze of the people in the east, who would later be the very people who would head out west to settle these new parts of the country.” They also captured the American imagination, depicted in paintings and periodicals as rugged individuals who carved out a near-heroic life in the wilderness. The “mountain men” of Glass’ era established relationships with Native Americans in the area, though those relations would often sour when mountain men switched from trading to trapping, and they broke new trails that would later by followed by the settlers that helped make America’s think of the Pacific Northwest as part of itself. Often, these early settlers would be led by guides who had originally come west for fur. Those settlers introduced other economies, like farming and mining, to the area. By the election of 1846, the Oregon border was a big enough issue to swing a [presidential election](http://www.ushistory.org/us/29b.asp). “Within the context of what happened out west, the era of the mountain men and the fur trade in general was very important to the history of the United States, with respect to its economic impact but more importantly with respect to the evolution and expansion of the United States,” Dolin says. “No matter what you think of trapping animals, the fur traders played a fascinating and important role in our spread across the country.” ## Transcript [ BLANK_AUDIO ] I've done it already. [ MUSIC ] At the time the Revenant took place in 1823, the fur trade had already been going on in America for hundreds of years. In fact you can trace the growth In evolution of the entire country through the fur trade. By the time that the 1820s rolled around, American fur trappers were heading up the Missouri, the Yellowstone River, making it all the way out to the Rocky Mountains. And this was the initiation or inauguration Of what we now call the era of mountain men, and Hugh Glass, the main character in The Revenant, was the vanguard of the mountain men who swept west in order to get beavers to bring back east and cell throughout the United States. So in that context, Hugh Glass and Andrew Henry and all the people that were out on this expedition were important because they were among the first to show that there were great profits to made out west. Mountain men were very interesting breed and they had many qualities that you could use to identify Define them. They had to be very independent, rugged individualists. Life? What life are you talking about? I ain't got no life. I just got living and the only way I got to do that is through these paths. They had to depend on themselves for their own survival. Another thing that hey had to have is a desire to be away from civilization for long periods of time. One of the things that happened in the era of the mountain men is that a lot of stories started percolating back east in the press about what life was like And a lot of reporters and other people out east became really interested in reading these stories and learning about the west and learning about the possibilities of settling the west. This is an era of time that was very important to the evolution and growth of the nation and the larger tableau manifest [ MUSIC ] Destiny. But you don't very often see in a movie this era depicted. Bare in mind, this is not a documentary, this is a movie. He did not have an Indian son. He was not married to an Indian women, so the whole dynamic of the son being killed by Fitzgerald did not Happen. That being said, Hugh Glass had every reason to be upset with Bridger and Fitzgerald for leaving him behind. He was buried right. The one thing that the movie did very, very well is they depicted this very gritty kind of environment that the mountain men operated You saw somebody going out to hunt, to bring back meat for the men. You saw them preparing the pelts for transport back east. You saw these keeled boats, which were amazing vessels that they built to go up the Missouri River and these other rivers that are out west. But what you also saw was the tension. That often arose between the Indians when they traded with whether it be the French trappers or the American trappers. [ SOUND ] [ UNKNOWN ] By the early 1820s, there were still huge slots of the west that were relatively untraveled. By Americans. And slowly, their knowledge, which was learned on the ground the hard way filtered back east and gave us a much better sense of what was out west, what the opportunities were, what the obstacles were. 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