How Kit Carson helped tame the West: the legendary explorer and mountain man--who could neither read nor write, yet was fluent in a number of languages--provides historians with an interesting paradox: a daring and fearless individual who was both friend and foe to Native Americans.

• Author: Kreyche, Gerald F.
• Position: USA Yesterday - Christopher Carson, an American pioneer - Biography

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...