AROUND 1825, the Missouri Intelligencer carried this ad: "Notice is hereby given to all persons that Christopher Carson, a boy of sixteen, small for his age, but thick-set; light hair, ran away from the subscriber living in Franklin, Howard County, Missouri, to whom he has been bound to learn the Saddler's trade. ... One cent reward will be given to any person who will bring back the said boy."
No one ushered Carson back to the apprenticeship, and he went on to become one of the best-known heroes of the American West. Born Dec. 24, 1809, in Madison County, Ken., Carson died May 23, 1868, at Ft. Lyon, Colo. Most of his adult life, though, was lived in and around Taos, N.M. His years spanned the opening of the American West, to which he he had a substantial role. Essentially, he had three careers: trapper-mountain man; guide for John Charles Fremont, who literally put the West on the map; and Indian agent and troubleshooter.
Of Scottish-Irish ancestry, his people, like many others of the time, sought to better themselves by moving ever westward. A typical boast explaining this was that they "wore out another farm." Related to the pioneer Daniel Boone family, Carson's mother remarried after her husband, Lindsey, was killed in 1813 in a freak accident when a burning tree limb fell on him. There were six boys and four girls in all; Kit was number six in the clan and the shortest among his tall brothers. At maturity, he probably was only 5'6", weighing about 140 pounds.
His deeds were so gigantic, however, that nearly everyone who met him could not believe this was the fabled man they had read about. Lt. William Tecumseh Sherman (later, a Civil War general) showed incredulity upon meeting Carson in California, commenting, "I can't express my surprise at beholding a small, stoop-shouldered man with reddish hair, freckled face, and soft blue eyes, and nothing to indicate extraordinary courage or daring. He spoke a little and answered questions in monosyllables." Yet, Carson was to become the best known of all the mountain men, partly through Fremont's reports of the former's exploits and bravery. His fame spread thanks to dime novel authors who made him into a mythic figure.
As a teenager, Carson was caught up in the romance of the American West. The Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804-06 initially opened up this uncharted treasure. Its riches in land, timber, animal furs, and sheer beauty encouraged others to head West--and the era of the American fur trade began in earnest. Even before this, the Hudson's Bay Company, a British enterprise, made its money and reputation in the fur trade plied in Canada and, later, in the disputed Oregon Country. Its motto was an appropriate one, namely, "Pro pella cutem"--"To risk a skin for a skin." It well expressed the code of all mountain men trappers of the time.
In 1825, a yearly rendezvous was established in the montane West. Instead of trappers going back East to sell their furs and renew supplies, these yearly gatherings in the wilderness enabled mountain men to stay in the field, their necessities being brought to them at predesignated sites. There, the trappers sold their furs amidst bacchanalian celebrations.
Some of Carson's brothers were trappers and no doubt conveyed visions of the opportunities, as well as the open and flee life that beckoned men westward. Without being aware of it, the mountain men established a distinctive American mythos. Egypt had its pharaohs, Greece its pantheon of gods, and England its heraldic kings. All helped to forge a national identity. The mountain men served that role for the fledgling U.S. Later, others--such as the Yankee traders and cowboys--carried on that identifying mark in their own respective epochs.
There was an esprit filling the air of this new country and Carson breathed heavily of it. By the 1850s, it was known as Manifest Destiny. Essentially, it was a belief that Americans were the new "Chosen People" who were called by Providence itself to become a nation coast to coast.
As a youngster, Carson detested the drudgery and long hours of farm life; his mother thought he might settle down if he had a saddler's apprenticeship. Such was not to be the case, however, as, like many other young men, Carson became a runaway, beckoned and seduced by wide-open spaces. Caravans were traveling westward more and more frequently, and Carson joined one as a herder. It took him to Santa Fe, the old Spanish provincial capital, established in 1607.
From Santa Fe, Carson served as a team driver for a dollar a day and traveled to El Paso, returning to Santa Fe and thence to Taos, which was about 70 miles north of the capital city and a meeting point for Southwest trappers. Like Santa Fe, it was under the governance of Spain, and American trappers needed permits to ply their trade there. However, this agreement was honored more in the breech than in the observance, as trappers headed north a few diplomatic miles only to return south to trap in the beaver-laden foreign land. However they risked having their furs confiscated if caught without authorization. Often, an entire trapping expedition's yield, worth perhaps as much as $20,000, was seized and the year netted nothing. Another source of irritation was the western land that Spain owned and for which the U.S. lusted.
Taos exerted a lifetime influence on Carson as he became fluent in Spanish there, as well as learning the ropes of the trapping trade. (Besides Spanish, Carson knew Arapaho and the basics of French, Navajo, Comanche, Apache, Crow, Shoshone, Paiute, and Blackfeet. Yet, he was illiterate!)
In 1821, Mexico won its independence from Spain; that same year, the Santa Fe Trail--a trade route from Missouri's Independence, Franklin, or Westport, to Santa Fe--opened. A merchant named Samuel Becknell was instrumental in establishing this route. Then a Mexican possession, Santa Fe welcomed American traders, for the city was short of basic necessities due to Spain's blockade of Mexican ports. The Mexicans exchanged silver and mules, among other things, for American goods. Independence, Mo., was more convenient than Chihuahua via Mexico's El Camino Real. Besides, the latter had Santa Fe as its terminus and, by the time traders from Mexico reached that city, there was not much left of their goods.
In 1828, Carson was working as a Spanish interpreter for a Col. Dennis Trammell and accompanied him to Chihuahua, Mexico. From there, he took a job as a teamster for nearby copper mines before returning to Taos. A year later, Young, his previous employer, was ready to go trapping and invited the young Carson to join the outfit. Mountain man that he was, however, Young first wanted to avenge a defeat suffered by some of his trappers in an encounter with Indians on the Gila River. Young gathered a group of 40 men, including Carson, and headed toward the place of embarrassment and defeat. Through subterfuge, the Indians were fooled into thinking Young's camp was small, and so attacked it, only to find themselves caught in an ambush--trappers shooting at them from everywhere. Supposedly, 15 Apaches were killed and Carson was a part of it. In subsequent years, he became renowned as an Indian fighter.
Gaining his satisfaction, Young split his forces into two groups, one to continue trapping in the area with the other moving on to the Sacramento Valley in search of beaver. Carson was chosen to go to California. It was a learning experience. They followed the old Spanish Trail, which ran from present-day Grand Junction, Colo., across Utah's Wasatch Mountains, to Phoenix, Ariz. The trail then crossed the Mohave Desert and headed for Los Angeles. On this venture, Carson won his credentials as a genuine mountain man--with all its glory and shame.
The life of the mountain man was exceeding arduous. The only way most survived was to learn from the Indian and then to "out-Indian the Indian." Carson first saw the hardships of this way of life when one of his party accidentally shot himself in the ann. The wound festered and gangrene set in to the point where the trapper would lose his arm or his life--or both.
The injured man chose the former and Carson witnessed the amputation. Carson relates the incident in his autobiography and tells of a razor being used to cut the flesh to the bone, then a saw to cut through the bone. A red-hot wagon bolt was employed for cauterizing the blood vessels. Grease from a wagon wheel then was applied to soothe the inflamed area. The trapper lived and, in a few months, was fully recovered.
On occasion, Carson, like other trappers, learned to survive on whatever food was available, even though this meant eating mule and horse meat, roots, grasshoppers, candles, and their own leather garments.
On the way to Sacramento, Young's party met with a padre from the San Raphael Mission, who complained that some 40 Indians had run away. (The Spanish missions, established along the California coast, tried to Christianize the pagan red man but, in so doing, made many of them indentured servants.) Carson was amazed at the largesse of the missions, with their abundant crops of food, grain, herds of cattle, bountiful barrels of wine, and the easy life for those who ruled at the expense of their laborers. The priests were sending out 15 "good Indians" to bring back those who fled, and asked for the trappers' help. It was given, and the runaways were found in another Indian camp. They were returned, but not without bloodshed. The village was burned down to teach them a lesson--not to harbor runaways. (Apparently, Carson saw no incongruity with him being a runaway himself.)
The authorities in California, now owned by Mexico, were much aggrieved by the Americano gringos seeming to roam through their lands with impunity, but often were reluctant to arrest them because of the wild streak of the mountain men and their apparent disregard for life. Their ability as sharpshooters no doubt was another deterrent. Carson was one of the best, so skilled that he could graze a wild home's neck with a bullet to render it unconscious for a moment in order to capture it.
Carson was a bright and eager learner with a healthy dose of derring-do, but at the same time nearly always exercised the greatest caution when necessary. Those who did not never lasted long in the mountains. In the wilderness, he always slept with a rifle next to him and a pair of half-cocked pistols. Sleeping "with one eye open" was an acquired survival habit.
The sober trapper
Although a trapper himself, he deplored other trappers in their drinking orgies, comparing them to drunken sailors. For the most part, Carson did not drink, carouse, brag, or use "cuss words." Yet, he established a lifetime camaraderie with those who did. Somehow, he felt equally at home with the highly educated Fremont (but few others of that background) and his rough-hewn confreres. Carson faced peril after peril over the years, but somehow managed to survive and eventually prosper.
On more than one occasion he--with others--was surrounded by hostile Indians, but Carson warned them in sign language, or often their own tongue, that he and his men would kill the chiefs if the Indians advanced. It was no bluff and the Indians knew it, for they were familiar with the amorality of the virtually anarchical mountain man.
Like Mike Fink, the riverboat man, many of the mountain men, especially at their rendezvous, would boast about their prowess. Carson was the exception here, but once took umbrage at the 1835 Green River Rendezvous when a big Frenchman, whose name sounded like Shunar, was feeling his liquor. The affair was well described by a missionary named Samuel Parker: "[Shunar] mounted his horse with a loaded rifle, and challenged any Frenchman, Spaniard, or Dutchman to fight him in single combat. Kit Carson, an American, told him if he wished to die, he would accept the challenge. Shunar defied him. Carson mounted his horse and, with a loaded pistol, rushed into close contact, and both almost at the same instant fired. C's ball entered S's hand, came out at the wrist and passed through the arm at the elbow. Shunar's ball passed over the head of Carson, and while [Carson] went for another pistol, Shunar begged that his life might be spared."
The story, told around campfires time and time again, has various versions, one even claiming that Carson killed the bully. Another gave a different motive for the affair and claimed that both combatants were in love with the same Cheyenne girl.
Carson married an Arapaho woman named, Waa-nibe (Singing Grass) and became, as did many other mountain men, a "squaw man."
She bore him two children in their three-year marriage before her death in 1841. The first was named Adaline. When she was about two years old, she was baptized at the 1840 rendezvous by the famed Jesuit, Fr. Pierre de Smet. Perhaps it was the influence of De Smet that made Carson change his faith from Presbyterian to Catholic, being baptized in 1842.
Adaline eventually was reared by Carson's favorite sister, Mary Ann (Rubey) Carson. Others of his family helped and, later, Adaline was placed in a female seminary. Carson's second child, also a daughter, died in Taos when she fell into a pot of boiling soap. Such tragedies were common in the West. Horses and mules kicked children; drownings were not unusual, nor were gunshot wounds. Moreover, wagons often ran over--or tipped over on top of--people.
Carson married another Indian woman, this time a Cheyenne called "Making Out Road." After 14 months, she divorced him Indian style, throwing his possessions, together with Adaline, out of her tepee.
During his trapping days out West, Carson worked with the best of the breed, including Jim Bridger, sometimes called the Blanket Chief; Thomas Fitzpatrick, also known as Old Broken Hand (as a premature rifle explosion injured him); Lucien Maxwell; Joseph Walker; Alexis Godey; Lucien Fontenelle; and others. Carson also knew the traders intimately, among them the Bent brothers, Ceran St. Vrain, and the Robidoux clan.
Quite literally, Carson had traveled most of the American West. This included the Southwest, California, Pacific Northwest, Yellowstone country, Great Basin, and numerous places in between. He had been at the Three Rivers of the Missouri, which were the headwaters discovered by Lewis and Clark. Carson made trading trips to Ft. Laramie and Ft. Hall that further enlarged his knowledge of the country. (Originally, Ft. Laramie was a trading post only later to become an Army installation.)
Ft. Hall, near today's Pocatello, Idaho, was the more dangerous location as it was on the edge of Blackfeet country. These were among the fiercest of Indians and mountain men challenged them for trapping sites only when the mountain men themselves were in large numbers. Carson once had been wounded by them and they gave Lewis and Clark more trouble than any other tribe.
Later, when Carson went to trade there, he was expecting danger, but encountered what amounted to only remnants of the tribe. The explanation lay in their decimation from smallpox. This "Red Death," as it was popularly known, traveled up the Missouri River on the steamboat St. Peter in 1837. Cases of infection among the sailors were discovered at Ft. Pierre, but the captain nevertheless continued to Ft. Union by the confluence of the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers, in Assinaboin territory. A smallpox victim left the ship there and shortly the disease was contracted by Assinaboin and then subsequently by a party of Blackfeet who went there to trade.
From 1837-40, more than 17,000 Indians from various tribes died from the disease. Four Bears, a Mandan chief victim earlier painted by George Catlin, pronounced: "I do not fear death my friends. You know it, but to die with my face rotten, that even the wolves will shrink with horror at seeing me, and say to themselves, that is Four Bears, the friend of the Whites.... Rise all together and do not leave one of them alive."
In 1841-42, Kit served eight months as a buffalo hunter for Bent's Fort. His pay was $100 a month. He then returned to Missouri after a 16-year hiatus. He tells us that, until his trip back, he did not know what a regular meal tasted like. Buffalo meat had been his steady fare when it could be had. Beaver tail was a delicacy. Often, there was "Taos Lightning" to wash these down.
It was serendipitous then when, in 1842, Carson met Lt. John C. Fremont on a Missouri steamboat. Such "big canoes" as the Indians called them, already made the upper reaches of the Missouri as early as 1832. John Jacob Astor's steamboat, a double-decked side-wheeler, made that trip with Catlin aboard that year.
Fremont was looking for a guide to help him on a western map-making expedition. Carson proffered that he could be of assistance as he knew the country out West. After doing some checking on Carson's credentials, Fremont hired him and, what began as a business arrangement, wound up a lifetime friendship. The loyalty Carson showed to Fremont was absolute, even when the mountain man thought the explorer was dead wrong. Paradoxically, the two were a study in contrast: Fremont was a product of the deep South, highly educated and well-known in the upper strata of society. Carson was an illiterate, later only barely able to sign his name.
Up to this point, Fremont only knew friendly Indians, so Carson's encounters with "unfriendlies" would prove invaluable. He could recount such experiences as when nearly 200 Indians seeking scalps, surrounded Carson and his small party. He and his men quickly cut the throats of some of their mules and forted up behind them. Every time the Indians charged, their horses reared up in rebellion at the smell of blood, eventually forcing them to retreat. These and other later encounters by Carson, as well as Frgmont's experiences yet to come, changed the explorer's attitudes about Indians.
Like Fremont, Carson was persistent in his endeavors, especially in recovering horses stolen by Indians. One hundred miles or more was nothing to travel to get them back. As the saying had it, "A man without a horse ain't nothing a 'tall." In the field, they would bring a $200 price. Such recovery missions almost were routine. Nor was it unusual to bring back a scalp or two, or perhaps a kidnapped Indian boy. The latter were used as virtual slaves by whites, training them to capture other Indian or Mexican horses. In fact, Carson sold an Indian lad to John Sutter, the Californian entrepreneur. Carson certainly was no angel in the field. At a fight near Klamath on the Oregon-California border, he bashed in the skull of an already dead Indian, probably in a show of contempt. In later life, however, he seemed to appreciate the Indians' predicament of whites taking their land and killing their buffalo.
The Fremont-Carson meeting was of especial benefit to Carson since the fur trade pretty well had run its course. The era of rendezvous lasted only from 1825-40. Beaver were getting trapped out. The Hudson's Bay Company was ordered to do this deliberately, so as to discourage Americans from coming to the Oregon Country. Besides, the demand for beaver lessened as the silk hat, rather than those made of fur, took over the fashion world in the U.S. and Europe. Accordingly, the price of pelts dropped so drastically that it scarcely was worth the effort to find and trap Castor canadensis, commonly known as beaver.
Switching occupations
Mountain men now were looking for work, and increasingly served as guides for the Army, emigrant parties, and, later, for those hoping to strike it rich in the gold fields. Demand for the soft gold of the beaver pelts was replaced by the buffalo hide, used for heavy coats and leather belting for machines which had begun to populate the workplace.
This first of five expeditions Fremont was to make was uneventful enough and therefore encouraging. They traveled as far as the Wind River Mountains in Wyoming and turned back, their mission accomplished.
In 1843, Carson married a beautiful well-bred 14-year-old adolescent named, Josefa Jaramilo, whose sister, Ignacia, 15 years older, married William Bent. This made Carson a relative to another famous family, the first being the Boones. Josefa bore him six children, then died April 23, 1868, 10 days after giving birth to a seventh, a baby girl, Josephine or Josefa. Carson proved to be a loving father and the marriage had been a good one.
Also in 1843, Carson accompanied a Bent wagon train heading east to the States. On the way, at a ford where wagons crossed the Arkansas River to enter Mexican Territory, they met up with a Mexican supply train headed west for Santa Fe. The supplies the wagons were transporting belonged to the governor of New Mexico at Taos, Manuel Armijo.
Word had it that, not far ahead, about 150 Texans were lying in wait to ambush the Wain. There was bad blood between the Texans and Mexicans even before Texas declared itself a republic in 1846. The animosity especially was severe between Texans and Gov. Armijo, whom Texans felt had treated them badly. The wagons carried his goods and the Texans knew it. U.S. troops, commanded by Cpt. Phillip St. George Cooke, gave the Mexicans safe escort while on U.S. soil--the north side of the Arkansas River. At the ford, however, where they moved to the south side, the troops, no longer having jurisdiction, left the train on its own. The caravan clearly needed more protection than it had and Carson was asked to ride ahead to Taos to entreat the governor to send soldiers for help. Offered $300, Carson and his friend, Dick Owens, accepted and rode on to Bent's Fort, from where Carson rode alone on to Taos, with a fast horse borrowed from William Bent. He took a circuitous route because Indians seldom would pass up the opportunity to waylay a lone rider.
The governor, worried about his goods, already had sent an advance of soldiers to escort the train when it entered Mexican Territory. However, the bloodthirsty Texans intercepted the governor's party, killed 18, wounded many others, and took most of the rest prisoners. Carson remained in Taos for several days, waiting to carry dispatches from the governor to Bent's Fort.
Meanwhile, the governor implored Captain St. George Cooke to help, and the captain obliged and went after the Texans, despite his having to cross the U.S. border into Mexican Territory. Forty Texans were taken prisoner and brought into the U.S. The foray was a clear violation of international law, but after considerable legal hullabaloo, Cooke was exonerated.
Shortly after this incident, Carson heard that Fremont was on a second expedition and only three days out of Bent's Fort. Carson rode to his camp to renew their friendship. There, Fremont asked if Carson again could serve as a guide and hunter. His first task was to return to Bent's Fort and bring back more horses and supplies. This expedition explored parts of the Great Salt Lake, and went as far as Ft. Vancouver, opposite the present town of Portland on the Columbia River. On various occasions, supplies ran short and Carson was sent ahead to get them from various depots. Carson also served Fremont on the latter's third expedition, a memorable one in many ways, one of which was the occasion of the famous explorer saving the scout's life by charging an Indian about to shoot an unarmed Carson.
On this third expedition, Carson followed Fremont's orders too slavishly during the Bear Flag Revolt. Instructed that Fremont wanted no prisoners, Carson and a few others shot some innocent noncombatants getting out of a boat. During the revolt, Fremont needed Carson to carry some dispatches to the nation's capital, nearly 3,000 miles away. Accompanying him on this arduous mission were some 15 other men. On the way, they met Gen. Stephen Watts Kearney sent to secure California and who countermanded Fremont's orders, pressing Carson into his own service as a guide. Carson was ready to ignore the order and secretly move on, but his friend Thomas Fitzpatrick urged him to obey and indicated that he would take over the courier job.
Kearney's men met up with some Mexican Lancers near San Diego and, in the ensuing fight, were getting the worst of it. Carson and two others were dispatched to San Diego for American help. Each of the three took a different path to ensure reaching the destination. They had to sneak through enemy lines, oftentimes a mere 20 feet away from Mexican sentries. All were successful in getting through, although they lost their shoes along the way and were sore-footed for days. This was just another example of a kind of everyday heroism shown in the field.
In February 1847, near the termination of the Bear Flag Rebellion, Carson and Navy Lt. Edward Beale were ordered to take dispatches to Washington, returning to Los Angeles in October of that year. On the way east, Carson learned of the Taos Rebellion that took place a month earlier. It was an uprising against the newly installed Americano government instigated by Mexicans and Indians. The frequently arrogant Gov. Charles Bent, appointed by Gen. Stephen W. Kearney, among others, had been massacred. Carson's wife Josefa had escaped by disguising herself with servant's clothing.
Stopping at St. Louis along the way, Carson was lionized by the press, a preview of what was to come when he arrived in Washington. He stayed in Frtmont's father-in-law's house, arranged for better schooling for Adaline, then went on to Washington.
Carson gave the dispatches to Pres. James K. Polk personally. The President took an immediate liking to the frontiersman (despite Carson's association with Fremont, with whom Polk had misgivings). In fact, the President presented Carson with a Second Lieutenancy in the Army. Ironically, Congress never approved it, but this mean-spiritedness of the legislative body evoked no bitterness from Carson. (One recalls that the captaincy promised William Clark of expedition fame also never materialized.)
Wined and dined in the nation's capital, Carson was introduced to high society, but clearly was uncomfortable with it, as he was with Pres. Polk. He felt embarrassed by questions about his former "squaw" wife. He was glad to leave Washington to carry another set of dispatches back to California.
Early in January 1849, Carson met Fremont again, this time under unhappy circumstances. The occasion was the latter's disastrous fourth expedition, more prompted by hubris than common sense. It proved an occasion for the explorer's virtue of persistence metamorphosizing into the vice of stubboniness. Fremont desperately needed men to help rescue the members of his party who still were stranded and starving in the snowy Sangre de Christo Mountains of Colorado. Carson's friend, Alexis Godey, went back with new recruits and did a yeoman's job in bringing out the men who were still alive.
Carson felt that his days as a mountain man, trapper, and scout were over, and opted for what he thought would eventuate in the more sedentary life. In 1849, intending to ranch--he briefly had tried farming in 1845--he bought property with Lucien Maxwell at Raynado, about 50 miles east of Taos. Maxwell had huge land holdings of his own. Carson, though, could not retire so easily, and time and time again was called upon to serve as guide for some Army group or civilian wagon train.
In October that same year, a party of travelers, which included the James White family, met marauding Apaches who kidnapped Mrs. White and her daughter. Carson was called upon by the Army to help troops track them down and, if possible, rescue the two captives. All of his years of savvy were needed as the Indians attempted every ruse to throw their pursuers off track. Frequently, they would break into small parties, later to regroup, hoping to leave their trackers in a quandary as to which one to follow. However, Carson discovered them and actually observed the woman in their camp. He advised an immediate charge, but the commander or another guide (it is not clear which), wishing to avoid bloodshed on both sides, wanted to negotiate. The time delay resulted in the Indians fleeing, leaving Mrs. White dead, her body still warm. The child never was found. It was in this Indian camp that one of the dime novels about Carson was discovered.
In 1850, the Army asked Carson to apprehend a man named Fox, apparently a deserter dragoon. Carson at first refused, but then learned from an informer that Fox was planning to rob and kill two wealthy men he was traveling with. Carson went immediately and was given 10 dragoons to assist him, acquiring another 25 along the way. Fox was apprehended and brought back to Taos, but was freed there for lack of evidence. Nevertheless, some time later, Carson received two silver mounted pistols, compliments of those he saved from being robbed and probably killed.
In 1852, as a kind of tribute to nostalgia, Carson took his friend Maxwell and some other trappers for a last fling at his old occupation of trapping. He tells in his autobiography that it was a great success. What Carson wanted to do now was to make some money. He and Tim Goodale drove some stock to Ft. Laramie to sell to emigrants. Happy with his profit, Carson returned to Rayado. In 1853, a Carson-led crew drove a herd of more than 6,000 sheep to California, which was fast being populated because of the earlier gold rush by the forty-niners. Originally paying fifty cents a head, he sold each for $5.50, realizing a sizable profit. Not long after Carson began his drive, Maxwell took a smaller herd of sheep to Sacramento, then by prearrangement, met Carson in San Francisco. Maxwell wanted Carson to accompany him by boat to Los Angeles, a mere two-day journey, but his experience with seasickness made him choose instead a 15-day trip by mule.
Kit becomes Indian Agent
Maxwell and Carson rendezvoused at Los Angeles and together traveled back to Taos. On the way, Carson tells how he met a Mormon delegate to Congress, who informed Carson that he had been appointed Indian Agent. Few were better qualified, and Carson took his job seriously, alternately pleading the Indians' cause to whomever would listen and tracking down miscreants who raided the settlers or fought the soldiers. The salary for this appointment was approximately $3,500, and the post carried an expense account of slightly more than that for gifts to the Indians. Being illiterate brought certain difficulties and additional expenses for Carson, such as hiring people to write and read letters for him. Occasionally, he signed documents of which he never would have approved, had he been able to read them first.
In 1854-56, besides his job as agent, Carson served as guide to the military on several occasions. Among those he assisted in this capacity were Cooke and Maj. James Carleton; Carson later would become a member of Carleton's command. In 1856, Carson dictated his memoirs, although he still had 12 exciting years in front of him.
Carson survived an assassination attempt by a troublemaker renegade Ute named Chief Blanco. The Indian previously was involved in a massacre of whites and now, visiting the Agency, pulled a gun on Carson. He was saved when the gun was deflected by another Ute. Shortly after this incident, Carson seriously was injured in a fall from his horse. He never fully recovered and suffered chronic chest pains thereafter. Contrary to much past speculation, though, it was unlikely that this was the cause of Carson's death from a ruptured aortic aneurysm.
With the advent of the Civil War in 1861, Kit gave up his position as Indian agent to become a Lt. Col. Carson and, shortly after, a full colonel in the New Mexico Volunteers. On Feb. 21, 1862, he and his troops participated in the Battle of Valverde, in which Texans defeated outnumbered Union forces. Carson was cited for his actions there in this first Civil War battle in New Mexico.
During the Civil War, the Indians took advantage of the declining number of troops on the frontier (many having been sent East) and increased their raiding. A former friend, Maj. Carleton, now a general in charge of New Mexico, called on Carson to help stop the depredations caused by the Mescalero Apaches and then the Navajo. Carleton was preparing a new fort (Ft. Sumner) at Basque Redondo, about 125 miles east of Albuquerque where he intended to send the Apaches. Carson enjoyed quick success in the Apache campaign and made the tribe's leaders go to Santa Fe to have Carleton deal with them. The Navajo campaign took considerably more time and effort, however, as they were the largest tribe in the nation and were scattered throughout the Southwest. They were seasoned warriors and marauders with a particular hatred for Mexicans and Americans.
Carson began his campaign against them in June, 1863, moving his troops from Albuquerque to Ft. Wingate. Seven hundred soldiers and some Mexican and Ute guides made up his command. The job now was to track down the scattered Navajo. Carleton's orders to Carson were quite clear: They were to kill all the Navajo men who refused to surrender and take their wives and children captives. Unconditional surrender was their only alternative to escape slaughter. Carson had some sympathies for the Indians, but was in no position to do anything about it.
For months, the campaign was disappointing as Carson was forced to use the slow technique of killing their cattle and destroying food supplies. Carson was directing a kind of Shermanian scorched Earth policy, and it was viewed as a cruel one, especially by Easterners. Westerners, meanwhile, claimed that sympathy for the Indians was in direct proportion to one's distance from them. The policy, though, began producing results, as many Navajo came in to surrender, thereby obtaining food for their families.
There remained the Navajo redoubt of Canyon de Chelley in northeast Arizona. Here, beneath cliff dwellings of earlier times, the Dine, meaning "The People," as Navajo called themselves, raised peach trees, having irrigation help from a small stream there. Sheep grazed peacefully among the horses and some cattle. The Navajo considered it almost impregnable. Indeed, its 1,000-foot sheer canyon walls made it nearly so. In spite of the obstacles to entry, Carson's men managed to get in. Although they burned the peach trees and killed the stock, relatively few Indians were there. Some remained holdouts in canyon recesses for a while, until they saw the hopelessness of their cause and surrendered. Then began the Navajo's own Trail of Tears--the former having been that of the Cherokees from the Southeast to Indian Territory, now Oklahoma. Navajo history has designated this as "The Long Walk."
The dragged-out procession of Navajo men, women, and children made its way to Basque Redondo near Ft. Sumner in present-day New Mexico, with many falling by the wayside while others escaped to their previous hiding places. Approximately 9,000 eventually wound up at Basque Redondo. However, authorities realized that the virtual imprisonment was hopeless, as the Apache and Navaho quarreled constantly. Particularly disconcerting to officials, the Apache residing there all disappeared on Nov. 3, 1865, and none came back. In addition, all attempts at teaching farming to the Indians proved a disaster. First, cutworms destroyed their crops and then a drought brought their work to naught. In 1867, they were released to go back to their lands. Probably only about 7,000 remained alive to make the return journey. To this very day, the mere mention of the name Kit Carson to any Navajo is like waving a red flag in front of a bull.
Carson served as acting superintendent of the Basque Redondo reservation, but only for a few months, as he was called by Carleton to fight the Plains Indians. Many of them had gathered around a place called Adobe Walls on the north side of the Canadian River in the Texas panhandle. The main culprits were Kiowa Indians, who befriended Apaches, and Comanches, the latter often called the best light cavalry in the nation.
In March 1865, Carson was awarded the brevet rank of Brig. Gen. of Volunteers. He also served as a consultant on Indian treaties, where to locate new forts, etc. In the former capacity, he went to Washington where his photograph was taken by Matthew Brady, the renowned Civil War photographer--a sure sign of Carson's fame. Carson was appointed commander of Ft. Garland, not far from the well-known Sand Dunes National Monument in southern Colorado. The fort remains as a tourist attraction today.
The final days
In February 1868, the government invited a Ute delegation to Washington to discuss a treaty and Carson was asked to assist. Though not feeling well, he knew that he had a moral obligation to make the trip to help his Indian friends. This also was the year he won appointment as Superintendent of Indian Affairs, Territory of Colorado.
Increasingly, Carson was failing in health with a bad heart and suffering occasional seizures. In addition, he developed a persistent hacking cough. Examined in Washington, the prognosis was not good. In fact, he barely made it back to his home near Ft. Lyon, the site of the former Bent's New Fort. Now, what could go bad, did. His loving wife, Josefa gave birth to a baby girl, but the daughter became motherless 10 days later. Carson quickly sought help to care for his family, got it, and went off to Ft. Lyon for medical attention. There, Carson must have known that the end was near. Ignoring his prescribed diet and the fact that he was not supposed to smoke, he insisted on having a meal of buffalo steak with coffee and a clay pipe smoke afterwards. It was his last meal and last smoke. At 4:25 p.m., May 23, he murmured, "Adios Compadre" and "Goodbye Doctor," then expired, his aneurism having burst. Carson left an estate of about $9,000.
His body was placed in a rough wooden coffin, lined with the wedding dress donated by the wife of a Ft. Lyons officer. Buried first at Boggsville, near Ft. Lyons, his body and that of Josefa were re-interred at Taos in a small gravesite surrounded by a wrought iron fence. It is not far from his Taos home, now a museum.
Although a man who, for years, could write no more than his own name, who was exceedingly modest, small of stature, and of a gentle and almost effeminate voice (showing none of the bravado leadership of, say, Fremont or George Custer), Kit Carson nevertheless won enduring fame. Carson Pass in California; the capital of Nevada, Carson City; Kit Carson, Colo., and Ft. Carson in the same state all pay him homage.
Gerald F. Kreyche, American Thought Editor of USA Today, is professor emeritus of philosophy, DePaul University, Chicago.