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Special Report
Western Renaissance Man: Kit Carson at 200
Christopher Houston Carson entered life in Madison County, Kentucky, on Christmas Eve, 1809.
This is a bicentennial article about a man who occupies a prominent place in American history, and whose life is tinged by myth. This man was born in a Kentucky log cabin in 1809. He rose from an early hard frontier life to national prominence. Abe Lincoln, you say? No, it's Kit Carson.
Carson may have given the later mythmaker William F. Cody ideas about a life in the West as the stuff of legend. Compared to Carson, Buffalo Bill had a thin résumé, though he did a better job of marketing himself. Cody may have heard of or read an anecdote that appeared in Carson's dictated (Carson was a lifelong illiterate) Autobiography (1859).
In 1849, Carson guided an army detachment to rescue a white captive named Ann White (they failed, she was killed) from Apaches. As they buried her, someone in Carson's party found a book amidst her personal effects, a Dime Novel titled "Kit Carson: Prince of the Gold Hunters." Passages were read to the scout that told of a gallant Carson coming to the rescue of a wagon train attacked by Indians. In his Autobiography Carson states, "I have much regretted the failure to save the life of so esteemed a lady." So in an odd way the unlettered Carson bought into his own mythology. He truly felt guilty that he had let down the doomed woman by failing to appear in time to save the day. Though it was the considered opinion of many who knew him, such as John C. Fremont, that a similar feat wouldn't have been beyond Carson's abilities because Carson was a man who was "prompt, self sacrificing , and true" and possessed "great courage."
Christopher Houston Carson entered life in Madison County, Kentucky, on Christmas Eve, 1809. He was one of nine children born to Lindsey and Rebecca Carson. Lindsey Carson was a Revolutionary War veteran and a widower who had six children from a first marriage, fifteen in all. Carson's father was 64 when the famous scout was born.
Following the frontier, the Carsons moved to Franklin, Missouri Territory, when Kit was two. They bought farmland from two sons of Daniel Boone, the famous trailblazer himself living nearby in retirement. Here young Kit grew up, taking to the woods to learn hunting and trapping. He was apprenticed to a saddlemaker, a job that he detested, and he ran away in 1826 at sixteen.
Kit hired on as a laborer in the "Santa Fe trade"; his initial job was to tend to the livestock that accompanied the wagon caravans. In 1829, Carson accompanied the mountain man Ewing Young and a large trapping party to California, the place that would figure prominently in his life in a celebrity-making way. On this trip, in a skirmish with Apaches, Carson killed his first Indian, and scalped him. In the course of his life, Carson killed a number of people both Indian and Hispanic, mostly in the milieu of war or the violent background of the fur trade. In this he was a typically stoic man of his time. But the contemporary leftwing academic take on him as a genocidal monster is wrong.
By the 1830s Kit Carson was a first rate mountain man despite his diminutive stature (5 feet, 6 inches). Bernard DeVoto, in Across the Wide Missouri (1947), his Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the Rocky Mountain fur trade, calls Carson (along with Jim Bridger and Thomas Fitzpatrick) in his old-school bombastic style, "…the mountain man as master craftsman, partisan, explorer, conqueror, and maker and bequeather of the West."
In his trapping years Carson ranged from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of present New Mexico to the Northern Rockies. He attended a number of summer Rendezvous, those annual commercial bacchanals so important to the fur trade. As a member of a Rocky Mountain Fur Company brigade, he spent the winter of 1832-33 on the Salmon River of present Idaho with such mountain stalwarts as Bridger and Fitzpatrick. At the 1835 Green River Rendezvous in present western Wyoming, Carson fought a duel from horseback with a French-Canadian trapper named Joseph Chouinard over the affections of an Arapaho woman named "Singing Grass." Kit shot Chouinard's thumb off in the fight and sustained a flesh wound to his own head (historians disagree as to whether Carson then killed Chouinard), and afterwards married Singing Grass. She died in childbirth while delivering Carson's second daughter a few years later. And by 1840 the fur trade suffered the economic demise noted by history. But a new chapter in Carson's life was about to begin.
CARSON'S ASCENT INTO the national consciousness began after his 1842 introduction to John C. Fremont aboard a Missouri River steamboat. They were both unknown, but Fremont had recently married Jessie Benton, the politically savvy headstrong daughter of the powerful Missouri U.S. Senator Thomas Hart Benton, a progenitor of American Manifest Destiny and future enthusiastic proponent of the Mexican War. Fremont had great dreams about western exploration, and a new father-in-law who could aid in the realization of those dreams. Carson would participate in the first three of four future Fremont "expeditions." These government-sponsored epic wanderings took Fremont and Carson from the Great Plains to the Pacific.
Along with Carson, Fremont employed a number of "retired" (and most still relatively young) mountain men on different journeys, including Fitzpatrick, Alexis Godey, Basil Lejeunesse, and William Sherley "Old Bill" Williams. Fremont -- "The Pathfinder," as the eastern press dubbed him -- in his egotistical way always fancied himself an explorer in the Lewis and Clark mold. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The ex-mountain men in Fremont's employ had over the previous twenty years tramped through the same country that Fremont supposedly "discovered." For instance, the press hailed him as the discoverer of South Pass, while Fitzpatrick had been with the first party of American trappers to traverse that wide saddle in the Wyoming Rockies from the east in February, 1824. (It had actually been first crossed from the west by some of Wilson Price Hunt's returning "Astorians" in 1812.) Since then it had been a regularly traveled route in the mountain trade even by the first use of wagons bound for the 1836 Rendezvous. The idea of Fremont discovering a place that he was guided to by people who first saw it decades earlier is laughable, but Carson went along with the charade. To him it was a job. South Pass had for twenty years been an integral reference point for what Bernard DeVoto called "the mountain man mind." But the boss was certainly full of himself. DeVoto wrote extensively about Fremont in The Year of Decision: 1846, once playfully referring to him as "Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines."
In the spring of 1842 the Fremont-Carson party went through South Pass and along the western slopes of the Wind River Mountains in present western Wyoming. Fremont insisted on climbing the 13,745 feet peak that bears his name today. He was convinced that it was the highest in the Rockies (so much for those 54 "Fourteeners" in present Colorado, and Fremont Peak isn't even the loftiest in "the Winds," Gannett Peak is at 13,804) and wanted to plant a American flag at the summit. The party accomplished this feat with some difficulty, so Captain Jinks could have his moment of glory. Carson might have thought him crazy, because his hard won experience had taught him to play it safe in rough country. It was dangerous not to. For years, he had roamed the western wilderness by well-worn Indian trails, broad river valleys, and through the lowest and most accessible mountain passes. Paradoxically, the mountain men were too smart to be mountaineers.
The second expedition in 1843 traveled through much of the Pacific Northwest and then proceeded to trespass in Mexican California. They returned east by a hard crossing of the Sierra Nevada in winter. Starvation threatened, and Carson saved the day by butchering some of the mules.
The third expedition beginning in 1845 is the one that catches the eye of historians. Fremont, Carson, and 55 men found themselves in California on the eve of the Mexican War. A credible historical conspiracy theory has Fremont as an agent provocateur in California with the blessing of his father-in-law, Senator Benton, and indeed of President James Polk himself.
Carson participated in a series of byzantine historical events beginning with Fremont's support of the short-lived Bear Flag Republic and culminating with brilliant scouting service for General Stephen Watts Kearney at the Battle of San Pasqual, which essentially ceded California to the United States by force of arms. After carrying official dispatches to Washington, Carson was now famous enough to enjoy dinner with President and Mrs. Polk. Other than that he hated the capital, and nursed special dislikes for prying newspaper reporters and the "city" clothes that made him yearn for comfortable buckskins.
About the Author
Bill Croke, formerly of Cody, Wyoming, is a writer in Salmon, Idaho.
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Old Westerner| 12.23.09 @ 10:16AM
One might wish to consult with the Navajo regarding the value of Kit Carson. As with so much in American history there are two sides to the man. Nonetheless the contributions he, Fremont and others made to the settlement of this country are indeed worthy of note.
Northern Rebel| 12.23.09 @ 10:27AM
I am a trained speed reader, but I slowed down to savor this one! Thanks for an article, on a true American pioneer.
I appear frequently in public libraries, and in the biography section, you'll find the likes of Bill Clinton, Michael Jackson, George Bush, and various entertainers and politicians, which is fine.
But you can't find the information in this article, or info about so many others, who shaped the American landscape, particularly the movement west. It solidified our greatness, and it gets swept under the rug, or curiously condemned.
It's a damned shame.
Ron L| 12.23.09 @ 1:11PM
Try "Blood and Thunder" by Hampton Sides. Unusual book, sort of a life and times of Kit Carson. Best book I read (actually, listened to the audio tape) in 2008. I highly recommend it.
Al Adab| 12.23.09 @ 2:52PM
Very good read and worth the price. How the west was settled is a truly American epic.
pugsley| 12.23.09 @ 10:34AM
Political correctness, the liberals find so much to hang their heads in shame for. Things that have been going on since the dawn of time, yet to them only the American experience is deplorable.
KyMouse| 12.23.09 @ 11:37AM
I haven't seen anything in the Kentucky press about Kit Carson's bicentennial (although I haven't been scouring the papers or TV), so thanks for this fine article, Mr. Croke.
You mentioned Buffalo Bill Cody: When I was in seventh grade, my history teacher told us that she had a brief memory of Cody, whom her family knew-- she was sitting on a wagon with him, eating the ice cream he had bought her. She was young enough to be more impressed by the ice cream than by him, but came to appreciate the moment as the years went by.
Richard Baker| 12.23.09 @ 12:02PM
Saints or sinners. I remember the line from "The Man who shot Liberty Valence" where the editor of the Shinbone Star newspaper says,"This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." So it is with these Western explorers. Every country has its legends and the US is no different. Happy Birthday, Kit Carson.
grant1863| 12.23.09 @ 12:13PM
I also want to thank you for such a great piece. I always wonder how many of the mountain men would be in prison today or in Iraq/Afghanistan?
Too bad Mr. DeVoto's "bombastic" style hasn't come back. I'm in the middle of reading several of his books and they are great.
Merry Christmas.
Big Leo| 12.23.09 @ 1:06PM
One small correction to a great article about a fascinating subject-- the farthest west battle of the Civil War was fought at Pichaco Peak in Arizona, between Casa Grande and Tucson.
Pingback| 12.23.09 @ 1:26PM
The American Spectator : Western Renaissance Man: Kit Carson at 200 American Me links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
crookedwren| 12.24.09 @ 12:49AM
I haven't time to read this right now, but my husband has done a great deal of reading on the West. We traveled out to Bent's Fort -- or the reconstruction of Bent's Fort -- and then followed the Santa Fe Trail back to St. Louis. As my husband drove the rather straight roads, I read aloud from books we had bought. One of them was about Lucien Maxwell. Interesting.
At Bent's Fort, we met a descendant of Kit Carson's working there. Odd, but the minute we saw him, my husband was reminded of Carson.
When we get a few minutes to pause, we'll enjoy this article I know.
Merry Christmas, all.
flywhoaman| 12.24.09 @ 10:25AM
When describing her maternal grandfather, my mother used to say that while he was more closely related to steamboat inventor Fulton, he was most proud of being Kit Carson's distant cousin. This great grandfather founded Huntington, Indiana after a colorful life of feeding the transcontinental railroad workers with a team of other hunters. This wonderful article on Carson reminds me that there were countless people who, like Kit, were invaluable in settling this once great country.
Merry Christmas to all at the American Spectator... editors, writers and readers. May we find a hero like Kit to put us on a better path in 2010.
Tex Expatriate| 12.24.09 @ 3:44PM
Anyone wanting to know a whole lot about Carson should read Edwin L. Sabin's 1995 book in two volumes, Kit Carson Days. Carson was everything an American ought to be.
Will Lange| 12.25.09 @ 3:59PM
My thanks to Mr. Croke for his article on Kit Carson. One correction, Kit's father was more likely 55 and not 64 years old when Kit was born. Lindsey Carson was probably 64 when he died. While Sides' recent book is an interesting and well written work I consider him more of a journalist and story teller than historian. The best Carson biography is "Kit Carson, A Pattern for Heroes" by Thelma S. Guild and Harvey L. Carter. Carter's "Dear Old Kit" is the best academic study. Marc Simmons is the best current historian on Carson.
In regard to the Navajo campaign several elements should be kept in mind. It was during a time of war while the Union was very vulnerable. At the beginning of the Civil War the army was very small and much of it was scattered across the west. When the solders were withdrawn to fight the Civil War the native tribes not surprisingly tried to take advantage of the situation, the Dakota in the north, the Comanche in Texas, and the Apache/Navajo in the Southwest. Many today would confuse the Navajo with the Pueblo peoples. The Navajo were then much more like their linguistic kin, the Apache than they were the Pueblo. The Pueblo and Spanish more or less lived together for about two and a half centuries up to that time. The Navajo, Apache, Ute and others were their near neighbors. The ethic the more nomadic people lived under was living by the right of conquest. The Navajo among others raided and killed the Pueblos and Spanish/New Mexicans for corn, horses, slaves and sheep. The Pueblos and New Mexicans retaliated when they could, including taking slaves. Carson's campaign made the Navajo a subject people and ended their raiding.
Secondly, Carson refused to follow the harshest orders from his Army superiors. He several times tried to resign.
Thirdly, he clearly saw Native Americans and the various tribes as people. He had two Indian wives before his Spanish wife. He learned their languages. He raised a Navajo boy in his home as a son. He and his wife Josefa Jaramillo knew the boy would die if they had not taken him into their home and family. He saw how contact with Americans was destroying the Natives and how important it was for that time to separate them for the Natives to survive. Carson spoke out publicly about this and traveled from Colorado to Washington and back when his health was very poor just before his death.
Kit's father was not the only Carson to have children late in life. Many people would be surprised that Kit and Josefa have one granddaughter alive, living in Colorado, and fifteen great grandchildren around the country. Although not a Mason, I very proudly wore his Masonic ring on December 24, 2009 to honor him on the 200th Anniversary of his birth.
Will Lange
(William Carson Lange, great grandson)
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I’ll have a Poptropica full written walkthrough very soon, but in the meantime, here are some answers to some of the frequently asked questions about Mythology Island. Having trouble? Post a question in the comments and I’ll try to answer it!
Getting Hercules to Help You
Hercules won’t help you until you have all five items from Zeus’ quest.Poptropica Once you have the five items, bring them to Athena. Zeus will appear and steal them. The big jerk! Once this happens, talk to Athena and she will tell you that Hercules will help you. You’ll need to have the magic mirror from Aphrodite because Hercules doesn’t want to have to walk. He’s so lazy!
Getting the Hydra Scale
You can see how to do this in the videos, but basically you need to jump up when the Hydra is about to strike. Poptropica He will rear one of his heads back to attack and his eyes will bulge out. When this happens, jump up in the air and then try to land on top of his head. That head will get knocked out. When all five heads get knocked out, the Hydra will be asleep and you can click on him to get one of the scales. Poptropica I’ll have a full written walkthrough very soon, but in the meantime, here are some answers to some of the frequently asked questions about Mythology Island. Having trouble? Post a question in the comments and I’ll try to answer it!
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Eric Jay Dolin| 4.29.10 @ 9:50PM
Given the topic, I wanted to let you know about my upcoming book, FUR, FORTUNE, AND EMPIRE: THE EPIC HISTORY OF THE FUR TRADE IN AMERICA (W. W. Norton, July 2010). Kit Carson is profiled in the book. A video that gives an overview of the book can be found on YouTube at,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSNNoeUf4bA
You can also find out more about the book at my website: www.ericjaydolin.com.