March 14, 2025 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Kit Carson is one of the most complex characters in American history. The good and the bad that come with the great conquest of the American West are summed up in this one man’s unaccountable life. Our regular contributor Roger McGrath tells the story.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
Kit Carson is one of the most complex characters in
American history.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
The good and the bad.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
That came with the great Conquest of the American West
were summed up in this one man's unimaginable life. Here
to tell the story of Kit Carson is frequent contributor
Roger McGrath, a former UCLA history professor, author of Gunfighters, Highwaymen,
and Vigilantes, and a former US Marine.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Take it Away, Roger.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
The mountain Men were responsible for blazing nearly every trail
to the Pacific coast, for discovering the natural wonders of
the trans Mississippi West, and for providing the muscle that
fueled the fur trade. Yet few gain national recognition. An
outstanding exception is Kick Carson, who becomes the most famous
(01:10):
mountain Man of them all. Kit Carson is portrayed heroically
in books and articles, and as a character in movies.
Is also the subject of a television series. He is
one of those figures who made us proud to be
an American and whetted the youthful appetite for grand Adventures.
(01:35):
Carson is present at the creation. It seems he has
witnessed the dawn of the trans Mississippi American West in
all its vividness and brutality. Place names throughout the West
re called Kit Carson. There's Carson Pass and the Carson
(01:56):
River in the series. In Nevada, there's Carson Valley. In
Carson City, the capital of Nevada. There's the military post
Fort Carson in the town Kit Carson. In Colorado, one
of Colorado's highest mountains is kit Carson Peak in Sangreda
(02:17):
Crystal Range, and in tars New Mexico, there's kit Carson Park.
Christopher Houston Carson is born in a log cabin on
Christmas Eve eighteen to nine in Madison County, Kentucky, the
same year, in the same state in which Abraham Lincoln
(02:37):
is born. The eleventh in a line of fifteen siblings,
is nicknamed Kit while still an infant, and the name
Styx when he is too. His scotch Irish family picks
up and migrates westward to a farm near boons Lick, Missouri.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
Home of the Daniel Boone clan.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Here's Memphis native Hempton Sides, author of the national best
seller Blood and Thunder, the epic story of Kit Carson
and the conquest of the American West.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
His family was good friends with the Boone family. They intermarried.
These were backwoodsmen. They were rough and ready folks who
were in search of opportunity.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
For their own safety. The Carsons and other pioneers at
Boone's Lick dwell in a state of perpetual vigilance. They
live in sturdy cabins built near forts and well armed
centuries patrol constantly. All cabins are designed with rifle loopholes
or fire imports in case of an Indian attack. Everyone
(03:50):
knew a family whose child or mother had been carried
off by Indians. Kit's sister Murray recalls, we would care
very bits of red cloth with us to drop if
we are captured by Indians, so our people could trace us.
Despite all this, the young Kitt Carson plays with Indian
(04:13):
children whose parents come to Boone's Lick to trade goods.
From an early age, Kit learns that Indians are not monolithic,
that tribes could differ substantially and violently from one another,
and that each group must be dealt with separately on
its own terms. Kit is not quite nine when his
(04:35):
father is killed while felling a tree, and the large
Carson family is left in desperate straits. Kit drops out
of school to work full time on the family farm
and hunts in his spare time to help put meat
on the table. At fourteen years old, Kit is apprenticed
(04:57):
at a saddlery. The teenager hates me at work and
the confinement in the saddle shop, but it proves to
be a blessing in disguise. Many of the shop's customers
are trappers, traders, teamsters, or scouts on the Santa Fe Trail.
They're stirring tales of the way West and what lay
(05:18):
over the far horizon sets the boy's imagination a fire.
Here's the executive director of the Western History Association, Paul Hutton.
Speaker 6 (05:34):
The West offers boundless opportunity, the freedom from all the
restraints of family, all the restraints of a shopkeeper's life,
and of course the promise of adventure, of danger, of excitement.
And so he runs away. He does a hot fin
(05:56):
and lights out for the territories.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
In August eighteen twenty six, Kit turns a boy's adventure
into a man's livelihood when he crosses the Missouri border
and heads west with a merchant caravan on the newly
opened Santa Fe Trail. After nine hundred miles on the trail,
Carson settles in Taos, New Mexico, where he develops fluency
(06:22):
in Spanish, French, and a half dozen Indian tongues. And
he also masters the universal sign language used by Western tribes.
And yet for all his facility with language, Kit Carson
is illiterate. Taos is the capital of the Southwestern fur trade,
(06:44):
teaming with trappers Americans, Frenchmen, Canadians, all of them scruffian,
sunburned after months spent trapping in the Rockies.
Speaker 5 (06:57):
Carson wanted to be a part of this fraternity of men,
and these greasy, grizzled, hairy, often drunk, international cast of
characters who knew the rivers of the West and had
been to all these amazing places. He wanted to be
one of these guys as quickly as they'd have him.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
And you've been listening to Roger McGrath tell the story
of Kit Carson. When we come back, the story of
Kit Carson continues here on our American Stories. Plee Habib here,
the host of our American stories. Every day on this show.
We're bringing inspiring stories from across this great country, stories
(07:39):
from our big cities and small towns. But we truly
can't do the show without you. Our stories are free
to listen to, but they're not free to make. If
you love what you hear, go to Alamerican Stories dot
com and click the donate button. Give a little, give
a lot. Go to Alamerican Stories dot com and give.
(08:09):
And we continue with our American Stories and with Roger
McGrath telling the story of Kit Carson.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Picking up the story is.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Also hamped In Sides, who wrote the national bestseller Blood
and Thunder and also the executive director of the Western
History Association, Paul Hutton.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
In eighteen twenty nine and not yet twenty years old.
Carson joins a fur trapping brigade of forty mountain men
who venture into Arizona, most of which is still untouched
by fur trappers.
Speaker 5 (08:48):
There probably was not a more dangerous profession in America
at that time than being a mountain man. There was
the danger of grizzly bears, hypothermia, starve. These men went
into trackless wilderness for months at a time, all in
pursuit of beaver pelts.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
But the greatest reason why so few mountain men have
ventured into Arizona territory are the Apache. The Apache delight
in torturing and killing their enemies, especially the nearby Pima
and Papago Indians. In this world, the trapper's best chance
(09:32):
at survival is for himself to adapt completely and entirely
to the wilderness and to know intimately the Indians in
their habits and their warfare. If the mountain men could
do that, they survived.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
If not, they.
Speaker 6 (09:54):
The West is where races intersect, cultures intersect, sometimes violently, more.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
Often not.
Speaker 6 (10:05):
Kit Carson moves easily in that world. He's not opposed
to confronting people straight on and engaging in combat, taking
a scalp if need be to make a point, But
that doesn't mean he couldn't sit down and break bread
the very next week. He understood what was expected of
(10:29):
him by native people Sai he came in contact with
in terms of peaceful relationships and trade relationships, but also
in terms of conflict, and he understood that retribution must
follow crime, and follow it immediately and harshly. If one
was to survive in this environment. There.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Every summer, make fur companies organize or was known as
the mountain Man Rendezvous, and this was held high in
the Beaver country. It could be in Utah or Idah
or Wyoming. As always happens at these gatherings, various bands
(11:12):
of Indians come to trade, gamble and drink with the
mountain men, and is not uncommon for trappers to take
squaws for their wives during the month long festival. One
of the most popular women attending the rendezvous of eighteen
thirty five is a young Arapaho beauty named Singing Grass.
(11:36):
She catches Carson's eye, but another man is equally smitten.
He's a very large, swaggering, blustering French Canadian trapper known
as the Bully of the Mountains. He's also an expert shot.
Singing Grass chooses Carson and rejects the Frenchman. Over the
(11:58):
next several days, Frenchman goes on a bender begins to
menace anyone who crosses his path. After being ignored by
other mountain men, he strolls over to Carson's camp and
announces how he particularly enjoys thrashing Americans. Carson springs to
(12:18):
his feet and exclaims.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
I'll rip your damn guts.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
The Frenchman says nothing, but mounts his horse and rides
out in front of camp during Carson.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
To fight him.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Carson quickly jumps on a horse and gallops up to
the Frenchman. They stop so close to each other that
their horses heads touch. Both men draw guns and fire
precisely at.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
The same moment.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
The Frenchman's bullet creases Carson's head, taking scalp and hair
with it. Carson's bullet goes through the Frenchman's right hand
and blows away his thumb, causing him rop his gun.
Carson draws a second pistol and prepares to deliver the
coup de gras, gingerly holding his maimed appendage. The Frenchman
(13:12):
bags for his life. Satisfied that he has humiliated him,
Carson turns and rides away. Says, Carson.
Speaker 7 (13:22):
We won't have any more problems with a bullet freshman, anymore,
will we?
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Singing Grass and Carson Mary after Carson offers her father
a bride price of five blankets, three mules, and a gun.
Carson is twenty five years old.
Speaker 5 (13:47):
Like many of the trappers, Carson settled down with the
American Indian woman. He found that this marriage was certainly
a marriage of convenience in the sense that he had
someone on the trail with him who helped do all
the thousand and one tasks that had to be done,
but it was the first love of his life. He
was devoted to her.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
After giving birth to their second daughter in eighteen forty,
Singing Grass dies of complications, and then shortly later, in
an accident, the baby dies, adding to Kit's pain America's
experience in intense growing pains. The ear of the mountain
Man is coming to an end. Decades of trapping has
(14:32):
destroyed the beaver population, and the once fashionable beaver hat
is now being replaced with one made of silk.
Speaker 5 (14:42):
Every summer throughout the eighteen forties, there were fewer and
fewer beaver pelts, and this was a consequence of just
how amazingly good these guys were and what they did.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Here's Kit Carson from his autobiography.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
We trapped down the river but found no beaver. The
country was barren.
Speaker 7 (15:04):
Became necessary to try her hand at something else.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
The beaver market collapses and Carson finds himself out of work,
withered and shoulder in the burdens a parenthood alone. He
is twenty nine, with his pockets empty and his future uncertain.
Kit brings his daughter at a line east and leaves
her with family in Missouri to make sure she receives
(15:32):
the education he never had and to protect her from
the struggle that lies ahead. But as he boards a
whistling steamboat in Saint Louis for a trip up the Missouri,
his prospects change when he strikes up a conversation with
the passenger.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
John C.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Fremont is an American military lieutenant and an explorer who's
about to bark on an expedition to survey the American West,
and he has yet to hire a guide. Although Fremont
has his doubts, he hires Carson on the spot. Fremont
and Carson blaze novland route to the Pacific. By May
(16:19):
of eighteen forty six, the soon to be called Oregon
Trail is completed. Here's Sherry Monaghan, president of the Western
Writers of America.
Speaker 8 (16:32):
They were the first people to figure out where they
could ford rivers, what was the safest route where you
didn't have to climb mountains, And they were the ones
that led all with pioneers out to populate and tame
the wild lust.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Dumb the Pathfinder. Fremont's name reaches Lewis and Clark's status,
and Carson's heroics become American legend.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
And listening to Roger McGrath tell one heck of a story.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
About Kit Carson, it's interesting that the culture and race
intersect it often, but not always as violently as depicted
in movies. Often not as is the case with Carson
marrying an Indian woman singing grass and losing her early
and one of his daughters integrated marriage early on and
(17:23):
all throughout Mountain Men culture. And then comes the drop
and the end of the popularity of beaverheats, and Kit
Carson is in trouble financially, and then he bumps into
John C. Fremont randomly and starts up a conversation, and
the legend is made.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
The two blaze an overland route to.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
The Pacific, which will become known as the Oregon Trail,
and thus elevating Carson and Fremont to Lewis and Clark
like status. The story of Kit Carson continues here on
our American story.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Kyson Kick Kyson.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Mount Mann and Buckskin pan hepkeep this country free, and
we continue with our American stories, and the story of
Kit Carson telling it is Roger McGrath and leading us
off was executive director of the Western History Association.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Paul Hutton.
Speaker 5 (18:23):
One of the things that Carson did during one of
the expeditions with Fremont was they encountered some Hispanic wayfarers
who had had their horses stolen from them.
Speaker 6 (18:34):
The New Mexicans have been attacked by Indians, and the
kind of mindset of the frontiersman was that you didn't
allow this kind of behavior to go on, that you
had to make statement.
Speaker 5 (18:46):
Rather spontaneously, Carson decides to pursue these Indian horse thieves.
Speaker 6 (18:51):
The Indians were a large group, but nevertheless Carson and
his companion snuck up on the band, killed several of them,
brought back to horses and several Indian scalps to Fremont's camp.
Speaker 5 (19:03):
This really impressed Fremont, Carson risking his life for a
complete stranger.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
In August eighteen forty four, Freemont has his expedition reports
bound and published. On nearly every page, he lavished his
praise upon his fearless scout.
Speaker 6 (19:25):
Carson became a great romantic figure as an explorer, as
a guide, as a frontiersman, as an Indian fighter. In
these books that were supposed to be reports, there were
actually grand adventure tales. These books were bestsellers in their
day and were used as handbooks by hundreds of thousands
of people going west.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Here's American West.
Speaker 9 (19:47):
Historian Sally Detton, Immigrants would be in their wagons holding that,
and it would say, this is where you're going to
find fresh water, this is where there's going to be grasped,
where you can.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
Graze your cattle.
Speaker 9 (20:02):
It was really the first map of its kind in America.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
But following the unlikely pattern of his life, Carson's mission
to map the western territories is about to take on
even greater significance. An unexpected dispatch arrives from the White House.
President of Polk is determined to push America's western border
(20:28):
all the way to the Pacific. Carson and Fremont's exploratory
expedition has just become a military mission.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
President Polk had a vision of what America should look like.
He wanted all of it, and he vowed that he
would get it all either by purchasing or by war
within one term.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
This is the execution of Thomas Jefferson's vision for continent
wide expansion, and the term manifest destiny is coined forty
two years after Jefferson acquired the Louisiana territory from Napoleon
in eighteen three. On April twenty fifth, eighteen forty six,
(21:19):
Mexican cavalry attacks a group of US soldiers. Eighteen days
later comes to Claire's war in Mexico. It's the beginning
of the Mexican War. Navy warships close in on the
California coast and Army troops advanced from the east. Fremont
(21:40):
and Carson arrive in California, and there in northern California,
they support the bear Flygers in the Bear Flygers capture
of Sonoma. As a reward for his valuable service, Carson
rides to Washington the d with a thick packet of
(22:02):
sealed letters to deliver the good news to President Polk.
But on his way, a greater duty redirects his path.
Here's American frontier historian Derwood ball.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
Kit.
Speaker 10 (22:18):
Carson ran into Stephen Watts Carney, leading first United States
dragoons overland from Santa Fe to help finish the conquest
of California.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Kearney ordered me to join him as his guide. I'd
done so made me believe he had the right to
order me.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
Get nell Leeds, General Stephen Carney and three hundred of
his cavalry troopers to California. And one of those cavalry
troopers happens to be the son of the famous Saka Juwilla.
Carney also has a direct connection to the Lewis and
Clark expedition. He is married to the daughter of William Clark. Now,
(23:00):
before they get to California, they discovered from some Mexicans
they captured near the Arizona California border that there's a
revolt going on in California against American rule. In December
of eighteen forty six, Carnie orders an attack at Mule
(23:21):
Hill in San Pasquale, some thirty five miles north of
San Diego, but his weary men in exhausted mules that
they're riding are outnumbered by well trained Mexican lancers on
fine horses. Americans are trapped on Mule Hill with no
(23:43):
cover and dwindland supplies. Here's historian David Eisenbacher.
Speaker 5 (23:51):
It's a desperate situation.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
They run out of food, the only thing.
Speaker 5 (23:54):
They have to eat or the mules, and the only
reinforcements are about thirty miles away in San Diego.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
Despite all this, in the finest tradition of the US Cavalry,
Carney orders a charge and Carson is in the thick
of it from beginning to end. By the end of
the second day, Carney has lost eighteen men and a
dozen others, including Carney himself, had been wounded. Carney's last
(24:22):
hope is to send a messenger on foot through enemy
lines to get help from marines and sailors in San Diego.
Without hesitation, Kick Carson follows orders once again. When darkness falls, Carson,
an Indian Scott, and a Lieutenant Edward Beale begin their journey.
(24:49):
Just before dawn, the three split up to avoid detection.
Here's kik Carson from his autobiography.
Speaker 7 (24:58):
Had to crawl about two miles and having had the
misfortune to lose our shoes, we had to travel barefooted
and a country covered with prickly parent rocks.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
And then they split up and take three different routes
about thirty miles each to San Diego. Within hours, Commodore
Stockton sends a force to two hundred marines and sailors
to San Pasqual and the Mexican army, seeing them come,
gallops away. It stays behind, unable to walk for a
(25:36):
week because of the condition of his feet. A year later,
the US concludes the Mexican War and through the Mexican Session,
acquires another five hundred thousand square miles of territory, adding
some twenty twenty five percent more territory to the United States.
(26:00):
And now the United States truly does stretch from sea
to Shining Sea, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Manifest
destiny is now a reality.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
And you've been listening to Roger McGrath tell the story
of Kit Carson, and my goodness, he comes off well
in Fremont's reports. And it would turn into an immigrants guide,
a travel guide map with details.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Like water sources and trails.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
And this of course collided with President Polk's vision, Poketa
vision for America. What it would look like, this idea
of manifest destiny. For decades after Jefferson acquired so much
territory in the Louisiana purchase, and there was Kit Carson
again in the Mexican American War.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
And when that war got won and Carson played his
part heroically, Polk's vision had become a reality.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Five hundred thousand square miles, twenty five percent more territory
added to the country, and finally America stretched from the
Atlantic to the Pacific, from sea to Shining Sea. Manifest destiny,
thanks to Kit Carson and so many others, had become
a reality. When we come back more of the story
(27:21):
of Kit Carson, you're on our American stories.
Speaker 5 (27:32):
A mountain man's a long man and.
Speaker 11 (27:36):
Leaves a lot behind. It are to and different, but
you often times will find that story doesn't always go away.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Head in mind, and we continue with our American stories
and the story of Kit Carson being told by Roger McGrath,
and we pick up a with the executive director of
the Western History Association, Paul Hutton.
Speaker 6 (28:06):
Carson went to the West for the freedom and openness,
to escape from the constraints of society back home back
in the States. But then, of course he brought it
all with him. The dream of a continental nation has
been met, and America stretches from c to sea. The
(28:28):
West is transformed, and he sees it all, but he's
also one of the major instruments that brings about that change.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Carson is once again dispatched Washington, d c. He rides
to Saint Louis and then catches a train to deliver
Fremont's Field reports to President Polk in May of eighteen
forty seven, some three months after his departure.
Speaker 4 (28:55):
Off the trail.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
It is a shy, unassuming man, content to keep to himself,
but in Washington his celebrity is overwhelming, thanks to his
real life heroics and some seventy Kit Carson dime novels
that are consumed by Americans from coast to coast.
Speaker 6 (29:14):
Everyone wants to meet Kit Carson, and that's because Kit
Carson is the very living, breathing symbol of the American
frontier and of our expansion westward. And of course everyone
wants to hear from his lips what the opportunities are
for American in the West.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
The Runaway Apprentice has come a long ways. Carson's married
three times and father's ten children. His first two wives
are Indian squaws, but his third wife is a beautiful, slender,
fourteen year old Mexican girl named Osifa.
Speaker 9 (29:52):
She is eighteen.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
Years his junior, Carson converts to Catholicism and the two
are married in eighteen forty three in the Tiles Parish church.
Carson thinks he might spend his remaining years as a
peaceful family man.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
No such luck.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
A wave of migration continues to surge west. Clashes between
settlers and Indians escalate into what becomes known as the
Indian Wars. Duty calls Kit Carson once again. A Missouri
trader named James White is headed west on the Santa
Fe Trail with his wife Anne and infant daughter. When
(30:35):
their party is attacked by Apache Indians. James is killed
and the infant and the wife Anne are taken captive.
Carson is illiterate, but if there's a story to be
read on the ground, there's no better man to do it.
Speaker 6 (30:55):
The formative experience for Kit Carson was when he worked
as a mountain man.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
His ability to track animholes.
Speaker 6 (31:01):
Then became a very important asset in his ability to
track human beings have them.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
Finally, late on the twelfth Day, Carson sees booms of
smoke curling skyward in the distance. When Carson discovers the
Apache camp, he finds Anne White dead, lying on her
back with a steel tipped arrowhead, dabbed with rattlesnake blood
struck through her heart. She has been horribly abused, covered
(31:32):
her with bruises and lacerations, and she's also been gang
raped day after day by her apache captors. Carson finds
something else. Here's a quote from his autobiography.
Speaker 7 (31:48):
We found a book in camp in which I was
represented as a great hero.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
Slang Indians by one hundred.
Speaker 7 (31:59):
This is White must have reddit, knowing that I lived nearby,
must to pray for my appearance order that she might
be saved.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
And White's infant is never found, and the incident haunts
Carson until the day he dies. But the Whites are
just to drop in the ocean among the tidal wave
of travelers rolling westward, a wave that can be traced
back to the discovery of gold in California, news of
(32:32):
which Carson carried on one of his courier missions back
east in eighteen forty nine. A loan, some one hundred
thousand Americans have set out for California, and the numbers
will only increase. Carson was so effective in fighting the
Indians in and making peace with them that by eighteen
(32:54):
fifty three, is appointed Indian agent to the Utes, and
New Mexican officials brand the most difficult to manage in
the territory.
Speaker 5 (33:07):
The Units were a very special tribe to kid Carson.
He absolutely loved them. He rode with them, he hunted
with them, He knew them quite well.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
When the several war are ups in eighteen sixty one,
Carson resigns as an Indian agent and joins the Union
as a colonel of the New Mexico Volunteers. He commands
two battalions at the Battle of Valverde in eighteen sixty two,
which slows the Confederates from an advance at the Rio
(33:38):
Grande Valley. Now, the Apachian Navo take advantage of the
civil war and renew their raids in New Mexico. Over
the previous year alone, more than thirty thousand sheep have
been stolen and some three hundred people killed by the Indians.
(33:58):
Carson leads expeditions against both tribes.
Speaker 5 (34:03):
Carson lived in New Mexico his entire adult life, and
public enemy number one was the Navajo. Everybody in New Mexico,
every Hispanic person, had some friend or family member who
had been killed by the Navajo or had been stolen
by the Navajo, and I think he thought a reservation
on the Pecos was as good as any that had
(34:24):
been put forward as to how to end this cycle
of violence.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
The campaign against the Navo ends with the removal of
nine thousand tribe members to a reservation in New Mexico.
The Navo called the removal the Long Walk, and about
two hundred of them die on the journey. The fifty
two year old Carson rides in the vanguard along with
(34:49):
some of his favorite Ute warriors or longtime bitter enemies
of the Navo. Carson doesn't like clearing out the Navo,
but the alternative is to ignore their raids in the
midst of the Civil War. Here's Pulitzer Prize winning Indian
novelists in Scott Mamma Day.
Speaker 4 (35:14):
He knew the Indians. He had known them from an
early time as a mountain man. He probably knew Indians
better than any other white man of his time. He
knew what they would stand and how they could be
brought to terms with the army. And you know he
didn't hesitate to act on the basis of his knowledge.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
Before the Civil War ends. Carson is promoted to brigadier general.
Following the war, Carson returns to his family, but Dude,
he keeps calling. In eighteen sixty eight, with chest pain
so bad he could hardly breathe, Carson brings a delegation
of Ute chiefs to Washington to negotiate a treaty establishing
(36:00):
a permanent reservation on the very ground the tribe claims
has its own.
Speaker 5 (36:07):
Here. He is this Indian fighter known for his various campaigns,
and yet he was also a peacemaker and a diplomat.
I think the trick to understanding Carson is to go
back to that idea that for him there was no
such thing as the American Indian. He sided with certain
(36:30):
groups and other groups were his enemy throughout his life.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
Shortly after Carson returns home, his wife Washifa gives birth
to their eighth child, but complication set in and within
two weeks his wife dies and he's holding her in
his arms. Then, just one month later, on the afternoon
of May eighteen sixty eight, Carson's he ordered Henry's Ruptures,
(37:03):
calls out suddenly from his palette of Buffalo rooms on
the floor a doc.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
Oh news kit.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
Carson passes from life into legend.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Angler. And a special thanks to
Roger McGrath, a frequent contributor here on this show, and
we're grateful for his expertise and his compelling voice on
all things American, West ends so much more and what
a complicated life Kit Carson led. He joined the Union
(37:41):
Army in the Civil War and in the end played
a part as not just a fighter in the Range
wars that occurred, in the Indian Wars that occurred, but
as a peacemaker wherever he could, a friend of the
Utes and an enemy of the Navajos, and the Utes
in Navajos were enemies themselves. The idea that there were
(38:02):
all Indian peacemakers and all white fighters, and just a
reductionist view of American life.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
The story of Kit Carson here on our American Stories
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
Kit Carson is one of the most complex characters in
American history.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
The good and the bad.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
That came with the great Conquest of the American West
were summed up in this one man's unimaginable life. Here
to tell the story of Kit Carson is frequent contributor
Roger McGrath, a former UCLA history professor, author of Gunfighters, Highwaymen,
and Vigilantes, and a former US Marine.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Take it Away, Roger.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
The mountain Men were responsible for blazing nearly every trail
to the Pacific coast, for discovering the natural wonders of
the trans Mississippi West, and for providing the muscle that
fueled the fur trade. Yet few gain national recognition. An
outstanding exception is Kick Carson, who becomes the most famous
(01:10):
mountain Man of them all. Kit Carson is portrayed heroically
in books and articles, and as a character in movies.
Is also the subject of a television series. He is
one of those figures who made us proud to be
an American and whetted the youthful appetite for grand Adventures.
(01:35):
Carson is present at the creation. It seems he has
witnessed the dawn of the trans Mississippi American West in
all its vividness and brutality. Place names throughout the West
re called Kit Carson. There's Carson Pass and the Carson
(01:56):
River in the series. In Nevada, there's Carson Valley. In
Carson City, the capital of Nevada. There's the military post
Fort Carson in the town Kit Carson. In Colorado, one
of Colorado's highest mountains is kit Carson Peak in Sangreda
(02:17):
Crystal Range, and in tars New Mexico, there's kit Carson Park.
Christopher Houston Carson is born in a log cabin on
Christmas Eve eighteen to nine in Madison County, Kentucky, the
same year, in the same state in which Abraham Lincoln
(02:37):
is born. The eleventh in a line of fifteen siblings,
is nicknamed Kit while still an infant, and the name
Styx when he is too. His scotch Irish family picks
up and migrates westward to a farm near boons Lick, Missouri.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
Home of the Daniel Boone clan.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Here's Memphis native Hempton Sides, author of the national best
seller Blood and Thunder, the epic story of Kit Carson
and the conquest of the American West.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
His family was good friends with the Boone family. They intermarried.
These were backwoodsmen. They were rough and ready folks who
were in search of opportunity.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
For their own safety. The Carsons and other pioneers at
Boone's Lick dwell in a state of perpetual vigilance. They
live in sturdy cabins built near forts and well armed
centuries patrol constantly. All cabins are designed with rifle loopholes
or fire imports in case of an Indian attack. Everyone
(03:50):
knew a family whose child or mother had been carried
off by Indians. Kit's sister Murray recalls, we would care
very bits of red cloth with us to drop if
we are captured by Indians, so our people could trace us.
Despite all this, the young Kitt Carson plays with Indian
(04:13):
children whose parents come to Boone's Lick to trade goods.
From an early age, Kit learns that Indians are not monolithic,
that tribes could differ substantially and violently from one another,
and that each group must be dealt with separately on
its own terms. Kit is not quite nine when his
(04:35):
father is killed while felling a tree, and the large
Carson family is left in desperate straits. Kit drops out
of school to work full time on the family farm
and hunts in his spare time to help put meat
on the table. At fourteen years old, Kit is apprenticed
(04:57):
at a saddlery. The teenager hates me at work and
the confinement in the saddle shop, but it proves to
be a blessing in disguise. Many of the shop's customers
are trappers, traders, teamsters, or scouts on the Santa Fe Trail.
They're stirring tales of the way West and what lay
(05:18):
over the far horizon sets the boy's imagination a fire.
Here's the executive director of the Western History Association, Paul Hutton.
Speaker 6 (05:34):
The West offers boundless opportunity, the freedom from all the
restraints of family, all the restraints of a shopkeeper's life,
and of course the promise of adventure, of danger, of excitement.
And so he runs away. He does a hot fin
(05:56):
and lights out for the territories.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
In August eighteen twenty six, Kit turns a boy's adventure
into a man's livelihood when he crosses the Missouri border
and heads west with a merchant caravan on the newly
opened Santa Fe Trail. After nine hundred miles on the trail,
Carson settles in Taos, New Mexico, where he develops fluency
(06:22):
in Spanish, French, and a half dozen Indian tongues. And
he also masters the universal sign language used by Western tribes.
And yet for all his facility with language, Kit Carson
is illiterate. Taos is the capital of the Southwestern fur trade,
(06:44):
teaming with trappers Americans, Frenchmen, Canadians, all of them scruffian,
sunburned after months spent trapping in the Rockies.
Speaker 5 (06:57):
Carson wanted to be a part of this fraternity of men,
and these greasy, grizzled, hairy, often drunk, international cast of
characters who knew the rivers of the West and had
been to all these amazing places. He wanted to be
one of these guys as quickly as they'd have him.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
And you've been listening to Roger McGrath tell the story
of Kit Carson. When we come back, the story of
Kit Carson continues here on our American Stories. Plee Habib here,
the host of our American stories. Every day on this show.
We're bringing inspiring stories from across this great country, stories
(07:39):
from our big cities and small towns. But we truly
can't do the show without you. Our stories are free
to listen to, but they're not free to make. If
you love what you hear, go to Alamerican Stories dot
com and click the donate button. Give a little, give
a lot. Go to Alamerican Stories dot com and give.
(08:09):
And we continue with our American Stories and with Roger
McGrath telling the story of Kit Carson.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Picking up the story is.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Also hamped In Sides, who wrote the national bestseller Blood
and Thunder and also the executive director of the Western
History Association, Paul Hutton.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
In eighteen twenty nine and not yet twenty years old.
Carson joins a fur trapping brigade of forty mountain men
who venture into Arizona, most of which is still untouched
by fur trappers.
Speaker 5 (08:48):
There probably was not a more dangerous profession in America
at that time than being a mountain man. There was
the danger of grizzly bears, hypothermia, starve. These men went
into trackless wilderness for months at a time, all in
pursuit of beaver pelts.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
But the greatest reason why so few mountain men have
ventured into Arizona territory are the Apache. The Apache delight
in torturing and killing their enemies, especially the nearby Pima
and Papago Indians. In this world, the trapper's best chance
(09:32):
at survival is for himself to adapt completely and entirely
to the wilderness and to know intimately the Indians in
their habits and their warfare. If the mountain men could
do that, they survived.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
If not, they.
Speaker 6 (09:54):
The West is where races intersect, cultures intersect, sometimes violently, more.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
Often not.
Speaker 6 (10:05):
Kit Carson moves easily in that world. He's not opposed
to confronting people straight on and engaging in combat, taking
a scalp if need be to make a point, But
that doesn't mean he couldn't sit down and break bread
the very next week. He understood what was expected of
(10:29):
him by native people Sai he came in contact with
in terms of peaceful relationships and trade relationships, but also
in terms of conflict, and he understood that retribution must
follow crime, and follow it immediately and harshly. If one
was to survive in this environment. There.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Every summer, make fur companies organize or was known as
the mountain Man Rendezvous, and this was held high in
the Beaver country. It could be in Utah or Idah
or Wyoming. As always happens at these gatherings, various bands
(11:12):
of Indians come to trade, gamble and drink with the
mountain men, and is not uncommon for trappers to take
squaws for their wives during the month long festival. One
of the most popular women attending the rendezvous of eighteen
thirty five is a young Arapaho beauty named Singing Grass.
(11:36):
She catches Carson's eye, but another man is equally smitten.
He's a very large, swaggering, blustering French Canadian trapper known
as the Bully of the Mountains. He's also an expert shot.
Singing Grass chooses Carson and rejects the Frenchman. Over the
(11:58):
next several days, Frenchman goes on a bender begins to
menace anyone who crosses his path. After being ignored by
other mountain men, he strolls over to Carson's camp and
announces how he particularly enjoys thrashing Americans. Carson springs to
(12:18):
his feet and exclaims.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
I'll rip your damn guts.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
The Frenchman says nothing, but mounts his horse and rides
out in front of camp during Carson.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
To fight him.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Carson quickly jumps on a horse and gallops up to
the Frenchman. They stop so close to each other that
their horses heads touch. Both men draw guns and fire
precisely at.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
The same moment.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
The Frenchman's bullet creases Carson's head, taking scalp and hair
with it. Carson's bullet goes through the Frenchman's right hand
and blows away his thumb, causing him rop his gun.
Carson draws a second pistol and prepares to deliver the
coup de gras, gingerly holding his maimed appendage. The Frenchman
(13:12):
bags for his life. Satisfied that he has humiliated him,
Carson turns and rides away. Says, Carson.
Speaker 7 (13:22):
We won't have any more problems with a bullet freshman, anymore,
will we?
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Singing Grass and Carson Mary after Carson offers her father
a bride price of five blankets, three mules, and a gun.
Carson is twenty five years old.
Speaker 5 (13:47):
Like many of the trappers, Carson settled down with the
American Indian woman. He found that this marriage was certainly
a marriage of convenience in the sense that he had
someone on the trail with him who helped do all
the thousand and one tasks that had to be done,
but it was the first love of his life. He
was devoted to her.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
After giving birth to their second daughter in eighteen forty,
Singing Grass dies of complications, and then shortly later, in
an accident, the baby dies, adding to Kit's pain America's
experience in intense growing pains. The ear of the mountain
Man is coming to an end. Decades of trapping has
(14:32):
destroyed the beaver population, and the once fashionable beaver hat
is now being replaced with one made of silk.
Speaker 5 (14:42):
Every summer throughout the eighteen forties, there were fewer and
fewer beaver pelts, and this was a consequence of just
how amazingly good these guys were and what they did.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Here's Kit Carson from his autobiography.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
We trapped down the river but found no beaver. The
country was barren.
Speaker 7 (15:04):
Became necessary to try her hand at something else.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
The beaver market collapses and Carson finds himself out of work,
withered and shoulder in the burdens a parenthood alone. He
is twenty nine, with his pockets empty and his future uncertain.
Kit brings his daughter at a line east and leaves
her with family in Missouri to make sure she receives
(15:32):
the education he never had and to protect her from
the struggle that lies ahead. But as he boards a
whistling steamboat in Saint Louis for a trip up the Missouri,
his prospects change when he strikes up a conversation with
the passenger.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
John C.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Fremont is an American military lieutenant and an explorer who's
about to bark on an expedition to survey the American West,
and he has yet to hire a guide. Although Fremont
has his doubts, he hires Carson on the spot. Fremont
and Carson blaze novland route to the Pacific. By May
(16:19):
of eighteen forty six, the soon to be called Oregon
Trail is completed. Here's Sherry Monaghan, president of the Western
Writers of America.
Speaker 8 (16:32):
They were the first people to figure out where they
could ford rivers, what was the safest route where you
didn't have to climb mountains, And they were the ones
that led all with pioneers out to populate and tame
the wild lust.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Dumb the Pathfinder. Fremont's name reaches Lewis and Clark's status,
and Carson's heroics become American legend.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
And listening to Roger McGrath tell one heck of a story.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
About Kit Carson, it's interesting that the culture and race
intersect it often, but not always as violently as depicted
in movies. Often not as is the case with Carson
marrying an Indian woman singing grass and losing her early
and one of his daughters integrated marriage early on and
(17:23):
all throughout Mountain Men culture. And then comes the drop
and the end of the popularity of beaverheats, and Kit
Carson is in trouble financially, and then he bumps into
John C. Fremont randomly and starts up a conversation, and
the legend is made.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
The two blaze an overland route to.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
The Pacific, which will become known as the Oregon Trail,
and thus elevating Carson and Fremont to Lewis and Clark
like status. The story of Kit Carson continues here on
our American story.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Kyson Kick Kyson.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Mount Mann and Buckskin pan hepkeep this country free, and
we continue with our American stories, and the story of
Kit Carson telling it is Roger McGrath and leading us
off was executive director of the Western History Association.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Paul Hutton.
Speaker 5 (18:23):
One of the things that Carson did during one of
the expeditions with Fremont was they encountered some Hispanic wayfarers
who had had their horses stolen from them.
Speaker 6 (18:34):
The New Mexicans have been attacked by Indians, and the
kind of mindset of the frontiersman was that you didn't
allow this kind of behavior to go on, that you
had to make statement.
Speaker 5 (18:46):
Rather spontaneously, Carson decides to pursue these Indian horse thieves.
Speaker 6 (18:51):
The Indians were a large group, but nevertheless Carson and
his companion snuck up on the band, killed several of them,
brought back to horses and several Indian scalps to Fremont's camp.
Speaker 5 (19:03):
This really impressed Fremont, Carson risking his life for a
complete stranger.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
In August eighteen forty four, Freemont has his expedition reports
bound and published. On nearly every page, he lavished his
praise upon his fearless scout.
Speaker 6 (19:25):
Carson became a great romantic figure as an explorer, as
a guide, as a frontiersman, as an Indian fighter. In
these books that were supposed to be reports, there were
actually grand adventure tales. These books were bestsellers in their
day and were used as handbooks by hundreds of thousands
of people going west.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Here's American West.
Speaker 9 (19:47):
Historian Sally Detton, Immigrants would be in their wagons holding that,
and it would say, this is where you're going to
find fresh water, this is where there's going to be grasped,
where you can.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
Graze your cattle.
Speaker 9 (20:02):
It was really the first map of its kind in America.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
But following the unlikely pattern of his life, Carson's mission
to map the western territories is about to take on
even greater significance. An unexpected dispatch arrives from the White House.
President of Polk is determined to push America's western border
(20:28):
all the way to the Pacific. Carson and Fremont's exploratory
expedition has just become a military mission.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
President Polk had a vision of what America should look like.
He wanted all of it, and he vowed that he
would get it all either by purchasing or by war
within one term.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
This is the execution of Thomas Jefferson's vision for continent
wide expansion, and the term manifest destiny is coined forty
two years after Jefferson acquired the Louisiana territory from Napoleon
in eighteen three. On April twenty fifth, eighteen forty six,
(21:19):
Mexican cavalry attacks a group of US soldiers. Eighteen days
later comes to Claire's war in Mexico. It's the beginning
of the Mexican War. Navy warships close in on the
California coast and Army troops advanced from the east. Fremont
(21:40):
and Carson arrive in California, and there in northern California,
they support the bear Flygers in the Bear Flygers capture
of Sonoma. As a reward for his valuable service, Carson
rides to Washington the d with a thick packet of
(22:02):
sealed letters to deliver the good news to President Polk.
But on his way, a greater duty redirects his path.
Here's American frontier historian Derwood ball.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
Kit.
Speaker 10 (22:18):
Carson ran into Stephen Watts Carney, leading first United States
dragoons overland from Santa Fe to help finish the conquest
of California.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Kearney ordered me to join him as his guide. I'd
done so made me believe he had the right to
order me.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
Get nell Leeds, General Stephen Carney and three hundred of
his cavalry troopers to California. And one of those cavalry
troopers happens to be the son of the famous Saka Juwilla.
Carney also has a direct connection to the Lewis and
Clark expedition. He is married to the daughter of William Clark. Now,
(23:00):
before they get to California, they discovered from some Mexicans
they captured near the Arizona California border that there's a
revolt going on in California against American rule. In December
of eighteen forty six, Carnie orders an attack at Mule
(23:21):
Hill in San Pasquale, some thirty five miles north of
San Diego, but his weary men in exhausted mules that
they're riding are outnumbered by well trained Mexican lancers on
fine horses. Americans are trapped on Mule Hill with no
(23:43):
cover and dwindland supplies. Here's historian David Eisenbacher.
Speaker 5 (23:51):
It's a desperate situation.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
They run out of food, the only thing.
Speaker 5 (23:54):
They have to eat or the mules, and the only
reinforcements are about thirty miles away in San Diego.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
Despite all this, in the finest tradition of the US Cavalry,
Carney orders a charge and Carson is in the thick
of it from beginning to end. By the end of
the second day, Carney has lost eighteen men and a
dozen others, including Carney himself, had been wounded. Carney's last
(24:22):
hope is to send a messenger on foot through enemy
lines to get help from marines and sailors in San Diego.
Without hesitation, Kick Carson follows orders once again. When darkness falls, Carson,
an Indian Scott, and a Lieutenant Edward Beale begin their journey.
(24:49):
Just before dawn, the three split up to avoid detection.
Here's kik Carson from his autobiography.
Speaker 7 (24:58):
Had to crawl about two miles and having had the
misfortune to lose our shoes, we had to travel barefooted
and a country covered with prickly parent rocks.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
And then they split up and take three different routes
about thirty miles each to San Diego. Within hours, Commodore
Stockton sends a force to two hundred marines and sailors
to San Pasqual and the Mexican army, seeing them come,
gallops away. It stays behind, unable to walk for a
(25:36):
week because of the condition of his feet. A year later,
the US concludes the Mexican War and through the Mexican Session,
acquires another five hundred thousand square miles of territory, adding
some twenty twenty five percent more territory to the United States.
(26:00):
And now the United States truly does stretch from sea
to Shining Sea, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Manifest
destiny is now a reality.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
And you've been listening to Roger McGrath tell the story
of Kit Carson, and my goodness, he comes off well
in Fremont's reports. And it would turn into an immigrants guide,
a travel guide map with details.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Like water sources and trails.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
And this of course collided with President Polk's vision, Poketa
vision for America. What it would look like, this idea
of manifest destiny. For decades after Jefferson acquired so much
territory in the Louisiana purchase, and there was Kit Carson
again in the Mexican American War.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
And when that war got won and Carson played his
part heroically, Polk's vision had become a reality.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Five hundred thousand square miles, twenty five percent more territory
added to the country, and finally America stretched from the
Atlantic to the Pacific, from sea to Shining Sea. Manifest destiny,
thanks to Kit Carson and so many others, had become
a reality. When we come back more of the story
(27:21):
of Kit Carson, you're on our American stories.
Speaker 5 (27:32):
A mountain man's a long man and.
Speaker 11 (27:36):
Leaves a lot behind. It are to and different, but
you often times will find that story doesn't always go away.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Head in mind, and we continue with our American stories
and the story of Kit Carson being told by Roger McGrath,
and we pick up a with the executive director of
the Western History Association, Paul Hutton.
Speaker 6 (28:06):
Carson went to the West for the freedom and openness,
to escape from the constraints of society back home back
in the States. But then, of course he brought it
all with him. The dream of a continental nation has
been met, and America stretches from c to sea. The
(28:28):
West is transformed, and he sees it all, but he's
also one of the major instruments that brings about that change.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Carson is once again dispatched Washington, d c. He rides
to Saint Louis and then catches a train to deliver
Fremont's Field reports to President Polk in May of eighteen
forty seven, some three months after his departure.
Speaker 4 (28:55):
Off the trail.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
It is a shy, unassuming man, content to keep to himself,
but in Washington his celebrity is overwhelming, thanks to his
real life heroics and some seventy Kit Carson dime novels
that are consumed by Americans from coast to coast.
Speaker 6 (29:14):
Everyone wants to meet Kit Carson, and that's because Kit
Carson is the very living, breathing symbol of the American
frontier and of our expansion westward. And of course everyone
wants to hear from his lips what the opportunities are
for American in the West.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
The Runaway Apprentice has come a long ways. Carson's married
three times and father's ten children. His first two wives
are Indian squaws, but his third wife is a beautiful, slender,
fourteen year old Mexican girl named Osifa.
Speaker 9 (29:52):
She is eighteen.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
Years his junior, Carson converts to Catholicism and the two
are married in eighteen forty three in the Tiles Parish church.
Carson thinks he might spend his remaining years as a
peaceful family man.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
No such luck.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
A wave of migration continues to surge west. Clashes between
settlers and Indians escalate into what becomes known as the
Indian Wars. Duty calls Kit Carson once again. A Missouri
trader named James White is headed west on the Santa
Fe Trail with his wife Anne and infant daughter. When
(30:35):
their party is attacked by Apache Indians. James is killed
and the infant and the wife Anne are taken captive.
Carson is illiterate, but if there's a story to be
read on the ground, there's no better man to do it.
Speaker 6 (30:55):
The formative experience for Kit Carson was when he worked
as a mountain man.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
His ability to track animholes.
Speaker 6 (31:01):
Then became a very important asset in his ability to
track human beings have them.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
Finally, late on the twelfth Day, Carson sees booms of
smoke curling skyward in the distance. When Carson discovers the
Apache camp, he finds Anne White dead, lying on her
back with a steel tipped arrowhead, dabbed with rattlesnake blood
struck through her heart. She has been horribly abused, covered
(31:32):
her with bruises and lacerations, and she's also been gang
raped day after day by her apache captors. Carson finds
something else. Here's a quote from his autobiography.
Speaker 7 (31:48):
We found a book in camp in which I was
represented as a great hero.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
Slang Indians by one hundred.
Speaker 7 (31:59):
This is White must have reddit, knowing that I lived nearby,
must to pray for my appearance order that she might
be saved.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
And White's infant is never found, and the incident haunts
Carson until the day he dies. But the Whites are
just to drop in the ocean among the tidal wave
of travelers rolling westward, a wave that can be traced
back to the discovery of gold in California, news of
(32:32):
which Carson carried on one of his courier missions back
east in eighteen forty nine. A loan, some one hundred
thousand Americans have set out for California, and the numbers
will only increase. Carson was so effective in fighting the
Indians in and making peace with them that by eighteen
(32:54):
fifty three, is appointed Indian agent to the Utes, and
New Mexican officials brand the most difficult to manage in
the territory.
Speaker 5 (33:07):
The Units were a very special tribe to kid Carson.
He absolutely loved them. He rode with them, he hunted
with them, He knew them quite well.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
When the several war are ups in eighteen sixty one,
Carson resigns as an Indian agent and joins the Union
as a colonel of the New Mexico Volunteers. He commands
two battalions at the Battle of Valverde in eighteen sixty two,
which slows the Confederates from an advance at the Rio
(33:38):
Grande Valley. Now, the Apachian Navo take advantage of the
civil war and renew their raids in New Mexico. Over
the previous year alone, more than thirty thousand sheep have
been stolen and some three hundred people killed by the Indians.
(33:58):
Carson leads expeditions against both tribes.
Speaker 5 (34:03):
Carson lived in New Mexico his entire adult life, and
public enemy number one was the Navajo. Everybody in New Mexico,
every Hispanic person, had some friend or family member who
had been killed by the Navajo or had been stolen
by the Navajo, and I think he thought a reservation
on the Pecos was as good as any that had
(34:24):
been put forward as to how to end this cycle
of violence.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
The campaign against the Navo ends with the removal of
nine thousand tribe members to a reservation in New Mexico.
The Navo called the removal the Long Walk, and about
two hundred of them die on the journey. The fifty
two year old Carson rides in the vanguard along with
(34:49):
some of his favorite Ute warriors or longtime bitter enemies
of the Navo. Carson doesn't like clearing out the Navo,
but the alternative is to ignore their raids in the
midst of the Civil War. Here's Pulitzer Prize winning Indian
novelists in Scott Mamma Day.
Speaker 4 (35:14):
He knew the Indians. He had known them from an
early time as a mountain man. He probably knew Indians
better than any other white man of his time. He
knew what they would stand and how they could be
brought to terms with the army. And you know he
didn't hesitate to act on the basis of his knowledge.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
Before the Civil War ends. Carson is promoted to brigadier general.
Following the war, Carson returns to his family, but Dude,
he keeps calling. In eighteen sixty eight, with chest pain
so bad he could hardly breathe, Carson brings a delegation
of Ute chiefs to Washington to negotiate a treaty establishing
(36:00):
a permanent reservation on the very ground the tribe claims
has its own.
Speaker 5 (36:07):
Here. He is this Indian fighter known for his various campaigns,
and yet he was also a peacemaker and a diplomat.
I think the trick to understanding Carson is to go
back to that idea that for him there was no
such thing as the American Indian. He sided with certain
(36:30):
groups and other groups were his enemy throughout his life.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
Shortly after Carson returns home, his wife Washifa gives birth
to their eighth child, but complication set in and within
two weeks his wife dies and he's holding her in
his arms. Then, just one month later, on the afternoon
of May eighteen sixty eight, Carson's he ordered Henry's Ruptures,
(37:03):
calls out suddenly from his palette of Buffalo rooms on
the floor a doc.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
Oh news kit.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
Carson passes from life into legend.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Angler. And a special thanks to
Roger McGrath, a frequent contributor here on this show, and
we're grateful for his expertise and his compelling voice on
all things American, West ends so much more and what
a complicated life Kit Carson led. He joined the Union
(37:41):
Army in the Civil War and in the end played
a part as not just a fighter in the Range
wars that occurred, in the Indian Wars that occurred, but
as a peacemaker wherever he could, a friend of the
Utes and an enemy of the Navajos, and the Utes
in Navajos were enemies themselves. The idea that there were
(38:02):
all Indian peacemakers and all white fighters, and just a
reductionist view of American life.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
The story of Kit Carson here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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