Santa Fe Trail
SANTA FE TRAIL
SANTA FE TRAIL. The Santa Fe Trail was an important commerce route between 1821 and 1880 that extended from Missouri to Santa Fe, New Mexico. The trail extended south from Santa Fe for an additional thousand miles through El Paso to the Mexican towns of Chihuahua
and Durango, following the natural roads wagon masters found along the entire distance.
Prior to the opening of the trail, the city of Santa Fe was supplied with goods brought by mule at great expense from the Mexican seaport of Veracruz. Pierre and Paul Mallet of Canada crossed the Plains to Santa Fe in 1739, followed by more Frenchmen passing from the Missouri River or from Arkansas Post to the Rio Grande. The American army lieutenant Zebulon M. Pike arrived in 1807.
American attempts at Santa Fe trade met with summary action by Spanish authorities, who arrested twelve men from Saint Louis in 1812 and imprisoned them for nine years, and arrested Auguste Pierre Chouteau's Saint Louis fur brigade in 1815 for trapping on the Upper Arkansas. After Mexico overthrew Spanish rule, news spread that traders were welcome in Santa Fe. First to arrive was William Becknell of Missouri, who reached Santa Fe on 16 November 1821, and sold his Indian trade goods at from ten to twenty times higher than Saint Louis prices. Becknell started from the steamboat landing of Franklin, Missouri, followed the prairie divide between the tributaries of the Kansas and Arkansas rivers to the Great Bend of the Arkansas, and then followed the Arkansas almost to the mountains before turning south to New Mexico. His route became known as the Santa Fe Trail. The Missouri River terminus later became Westport, now Kansas City. At the western end the trail turned south to Santa Fe from the Arkansas by different routes touching the Colorado–New Mexico border and another near Kansas.
Merchants traveled in caravans, moving wagons in parallel columns so that they might be quickly formed into a circular corral, with livestock inside, in the event of an Indian attack. Josiah Gregg reported that up to 1843 Indians killed but eleven men on the trail. Losses were greatest from 1864 to 1869, the bloodiest year being 1868, when seventeen stagecoach passengers were captured and burned at Cimarron Crossing.
Santa Fe trade brought to the United States much-needed silver, gave America the Missouri mule, and paved the way for American claims to New Mexico in the Mexican-American War. Estimates of the heavy volume of westward-bound traffic on the trail vary. Gregg reported in Commerce of the Prairies that 350 persons transported $450,000 worth of goods at Saint Louis prices in 1843. Lt. Col. William Gilpin's register shows 3,000 wagons, 12,000 persons, and 50,000 animals between 1849–1859, a large part of the number bound for California. The register at Council Grove, Kansas, in 1860 showed 3,514 persons, 61 carriages and stagecoaches, 5,819 mules, and 22,738 oxen. Federal mail service by stagecoach was instituted in 1849. Completion of the last section of the
Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad in 1880 ended the importance of the wagon road.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Boyle, Susan Calafate. Los Capitalistas: Hispano Merchants and the Santa Fe Trade. Albaquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1997.
Chalafant, William Y. Dangerous Passage: The Santa Fe Trail and the Mexican War. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994.
Dary, David. The Santa Fe Trail: Its History, Legends, and Lore. New York: Knopf, 2000.
Gregg, Josiah. Commerce of the Prairies. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1962.
Simmons, Marc. The Old Trail to Santa Fe: Collected Essays. Albequerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996.
BlissIsely/h. s.
See alsoSouthwest .
Santa Fe Trail
SANTA FE TRAIL
The Santa Fe Trail was a major overland route for westward expansion during the 1800s. Like the Oregon Trail to the Pacific Northwest, it originated in Independence, Missouri. The Santa Fe Trail, whose terminus was Santa Fe in north-central New Mexico, proceeded westward along the prairie to Great Bend, Kansas. From there the route split into three branches. The western trail, also called the Taos Trail, followed the Arkansas River west to the Sangre de Cristo Range of the Rocky Mountains. Travelers then went due south through La Veta Pass (in south-central Colorado) into New Mexico. The middle trail also followed the Arkansas River westward into present day Colorado, traversing the grasslands in the southeastern corner of the state and following Raton Pass (south of present day Trinidad, Colorado) into New Mexico. The shortest route (and, due to Indian attacks, the most dangerous) cut southwest through Kansas, into the Cimarron Valley, and crossed the northwest corner of Oklahoma into New Mexico. From Santa Fe, another route, the Old Spanish Trail, extended westward to Los Angeles. After Mexico gained independence from Spain (1821), Santa Fe became the center of the country's trade with the United States. The Santa Fe Trail was about 1,200 miles (1,930 kilometers) long and took between 40 and 60 days to travel.
The Santa Fe Trail was first traversed in 1821 by Virginia-born trader William Becknell (1796?–1865), who in 1822 used wagons on the route. During the next two decades, less than one hundred wagons each year used the trail; by the late 1860s, the average number climbed to more than five thousand per year. The Santa Fe Trail remained a major commercial route until the 1880s, when the transcontinental railroad was completed.
See also: California, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon Trail, Santa Fe
Santa Fe Trail
Santa Fe Trail ★★½ 1940
Historically inaccurate but entertaining tale about the preCivil War fight for “bloody Kansas.” The actionadventure depicts future Civil War Generals J.E.B. Stuart (Flynn) and George Armstrong Custer (Reagan!) as they begin their military career (although Custer was really just a youth at this time). Good action scenes. Also available colorized. 110m/B VHS, DVD . Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Ronald Reagan, Van Heflin, Raymond Massey, Alan Hale; D: Michael Curtiz; W: Robert Buckner; C: Sol Polito; M: Max Steiner.