Historic Figures
WITH THE NAME HOUSTON
Kit Carson is one of the best known characters in the pantheon of the American Old West. He was born in the Missouri Territory and apprenticed at a young age to a saddle-maker, but this was not the life for Kit. At the age of fourteen he ran off and started his extraordinary life with fur-trapping. As such, he mingled with Native American tribes and married first, an Arapaho woman and after her death, a Cheyenne. Although he could neither read nor write (except to sign his name) Kit was proficient in Spanish, French, and several Native American languages. His teaming up with John C. Fremont was serendipitous – he worked as a guide for Fremont and during their long association, Kit Carson was present on expeditions into the Sierra Nevada and the Oregon Trail, and took part in California’s Bear Flag rebellion. The tales of these exploits made Kit the subject of dime novels during his lifetime; his popularity only grew wider after his death. Kit Carson worked as a federal Indian Agent and while he advocated for the reservation system, it is generally believed that he did so in the spirit of trying to protect the native people from the growing hostility on the part of white settlers. Nonetheless, he was one of those responsible for the relocation of thousands of Navajo to a reservation in New Mexico, an episode that became known as the Long Walk, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds. After serving in the Union Army during the Civil War, Kit Carson retired to the life of a rancher in Colorado. In 1868 he traveled to Washington D. C. in order to plead for assistance on behalf of the Ute tribe. Certainly a man of his times, and manifesting the overriding sense of superiority of the white man, Carson still appears to have been closer than many to our somewhat more enlightened times.
Kit Carson is one of the best known characters in the pantheon of the American Old West. He was born in the Missouri Territory and apprenticed at a young age to a saddle-maker, but this was not the life for Kit. At the age of fourteen he ran off and started his extraordinary life with fur-trapping. As such, he mingled with Native American tribes and married first, an Arapaho woman and after her death, a Cheyenne. Although he could neither read nor write (except to sign his name) Kit was proficient in Spanish, French, and several Native American languages. His teaming up with John C. Fremont was serendipitous – he worked as a guide for Fremont and during their long association, Kit Carson was present on expeditions into the Sierra Nevada and the Oregon Trail, and took part in California’s Bear Flag rebellion. The tales of these exploits made Kit the subject of dime novels during his lifetime; his popularity only grew wider after his death. Kit Carson worked as a federal Indian Agent and while he advocated for the reservation system, it is generally believed that he did so in the spirit of trying to protect the native people from the growing hostility on the part of white settlers. Nonetheless, he was one of those responsible for the relocation of thousands of Navajo to a reservation in New Mexico, an episode that became known as the Long Walk, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds. After serving in the Union Army during the Civil War, Kit Carson retired to the life of a rancher in Colorado. In 1868 he traveled to Washington D. C. in order to plead for assistance on behalf of the Ute tribe. Certainly a man of his times, and manifesting the overriding sense of superiority of the white man, Carson still appears to have been closer than many to our somewhat more enlightened times.
