Christopher Houston Carson (December 24, 1809 – May 23, 1868), popularly known as Kit Carson, was an American frontiersman, fur trapper, wilderness guide, Indian agent and U.S. Army officer.
Carson left home in rural Missouri at 16 to become a mountain man and trapper in the West. In the 1830s, he accompanied Ewing Young on an expedition to Mexican California and joined fur-trapping expeditions into the Rocky Mountains. He lived among and married into the Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes. In the 1840s, Carson was hired as a guide by John C. Frémont, whose expeditions covered much of California, Oregon, and the Great Basin area. Frémont mapped and wrote reports and commentaries on the Oregon Trail to assist and encourage westward-bound pioneers, and Carson achieved national fame through those accounts. Under Frémont's command, Carson participated in the U.S. conquest of California from Mexico, and the Sacramento River massacre and Klamath Lake massacre against Native Americans. Later in the war, Carson was a scout and courier, celebrated for his rescue mission after the Battle of San Pasqual and for his coast-to-coast journey to Washington, D.C., to deliver news of the conflict in California. In the 1850s, he was appointed as the Indian agent to the Ute Indians and the Jicarilla Apaches.
During the American Civil War, Carson led a regiment of mostly Hispanic volunteers from New Mexico on the side of the Union at the Battle of Valverde in 1862. When the Confederate threat was eliminated in New Mexico, Carson led forces to suppress the Navajo, Mescalero Apache, Kiowa, and Comanche tribes by destroying their food sources. Carson oversaw the Long Walk of the Navajo. He was breveted a brigadier general and took command of Fort Garland, Colorado, but poor health soon forced him to retire from military life. Carson was married three times and had ten children. He died at Fort Lyon of an aortic aneurysm on May 23, 1868. He is buried in Taos, New Mexico, next to his third wife, Josefa Carson.
Carson became an American frontier legend in his own lifetime through biographies and news articles; exaggerated versions of his exploits were the subject of dime novels. His understated nature belied confirmed reports of his fearlessness, combat skills, tenacity, as well as profound effect on the westward expansion of the United States. Although he was famous for much of his life, historians in later years have written that Kit Carson did not like, want, or even fully understand the fame that he experienced during his life. During the late nineteenth century, Kit Carson became a legendary symbol of America's frontier experience, which influenced twentieth century erection of statues and monuments, public events and celebrations, imagery by Hollywood, and the naming of geographical places. In the 21st century, Carson's legacy has been contested, particularly due to his brutal treatment of Native Americans.
Early life (1809–1829)
Christopher Houston Carson was born on December 24, 1809, near Richmond, Madison County, Kentucky.Madison County (KY) Historical Society His parents were Lindsay Carson and his second wife, Rebecca Robinson. Lindsay had five children by his first wife, Lucy Bradley, and ten more children by Rebecca. Lindsay Carson had a Scots-Irish Presbyterian background.Sides 8–9 He was a farmer, a cabin builder, and a veteran of the American Indian Wars, and American Civil War.Roberts 54–55 He fought Natives on the American frontier and lost two fingers on his left hand in a battle with the Fox and Sauk Indians.
The Carson family moved to Boone's Lick, Howard County, Missouri, when Kit was about a year old. The family settled on a tract of land owned by the sons of Daniel Boone, who had purchased the land from the Spanish. The Boone and Carson families became good friends and worked and socialized together and intermarried. Lindsay's oldest son, William, married Boone's grand-niece, Millie Boone, in 1810. Their daughter Adaline became Kit's favorite playmate.Guild and Carter 9
Missouri was then the frontier of American westward expansionism; cabins were "forted" with tall stockade fences to defend against Native attacks. As men worked in the fields, sentries were posted with weapons to protect the farmers. Carson wrote in his Memoirs, "For two or three years after our arrival, we had to remain forted and it was necessary to have men stationed at the extremities of the fields for the protection of those that were laboring."
In 1818, Lindsay Carson died instantly when a tree limb fell on him while he was clearing a field. Kit was about eight years old. Despite being penniless, his mother took care of her children alone for four years. She then married Joseph Martin, a widower with several children.Guild and Carter 10 Kit was a young teenager and did not get along with his stepfather. The decision was made to apprentice him to David Workman, a saddler in Franklin, Missouri. Kit wrote in his Memoirs that Workman was "a good man, and I often recall the kind treatment I received".Guild and Carter 15
Franklin was situated at the eastern end of the Santa Fe Trail, which had opened two years earlier. Many of the customers at the saddle shop were trappers and traders from whom Carson heard stirring tales of the West. Carson found work in the saddlery not to his taste: he once stated that "the business did not suit me, and I concluded to leave."Carter 38–39
Santa Fe Trail In August 1826, against his mother's wishes, Kit ran away from his apprenticeship. He went west with a caravan of fur trappers and tended their livestock. They made their trek over the Santa Fe Trail to Santa Fe, the capital of Santa Fe de Nuevo México, reaching their destination in November 1826. He settled in Taos.Guild and Carter 27Roberts 56–57
Carson lived with Mathew Kinkead, a trapper and explorer who had served with Carson's older brothers during the War of 1812.Carter 42–50. Carson was mentored by Kinkead in learning the skills of a trapper and learning the necessary languages for trade. Eventually, he became fluent in Spanish and several Native American languages.
Workman put an advertisement in a local newspaper back in Missouri. He wrote that he would give a one-cent reward to anyone who brought the boy back to Franklin. No one claimed the reward. It was a bit of a joke, but Carson was free. The advertisement featured the first printed description of Carson: "Christopher Carson, a boy about 16 years old, small of his age, but thick set; light hair, ran away from the subscriber, living in Franklin, Howard county, Missouri, to whom he had been bound to learn the saddler's trade."
Between 1827 and 1829, Carson worked as cook, translator, and wagon driver in the southwest. He also worked at a copper mine near the Gila River, in southwestern New Mexico.Sides 14 In later life, Carson never mentioned any women from his youth. Only three specific women were mentioned in his writing: Josefa Jaramillo, his third and last wife; a comrade's mother in Washington, DC; and Mrs. Ann White, killed by Natives after the White massacre.Guild and Carter 26
Mountain man (1829–1841)
At the age of 19, Carson began his career as a mountain man. He traveled through many parts of the American West with famous mountain men like Jim Bridger and Old Bill Williams. He spent the winter of 1828–1829 as a cook for Ewing Young in Taos.Guild and Carter 32 He joined Young's trapping expedition of 1829. The leadership of Young and the experience of the venture are credited with shaping Carson's early life in the mountains. In addition to furs and the company of other mountain men, Carson sought action and adventure. Carson probably killed and scalped a Native for the first time when he was 19, during Young's expedition.Sides 16
In August 1829, the party went into Apache territory along the Gila River. The expedition was attacked, giving Carson his first experience of combat. Young's party continued on to Alta California; trapped and traded in California from Sacramento in the north to Los Angeles in the south; and returned to Taos, New Mexico, in April 1830 after it had trapped along the Colorado River.Carter 42–50
Carson joined a rescue party in Taos searching for the perpetrators of an attack on a wagon train, although the perpetrators managed to escape. Carson joined another expedition, led by Thomas Fitzpatrick and William Levin, in 1831. Fitzpatrick, Levin, and his trappers went north to the central Rocky Mountains. Carson hunted and trapped in the West for about ten years. He was known as a reliable man and a good fighter.Guild and Carter 48
Life for Carson as a mountain man was not easy. After collecting beavers from traps, he had to hold onto them for months at a time until the annual Rocky Mountain Rendezvous,Sides 15 held in remote areas of the West like the banks of the Green River in Wyoming. With the money received for the pelts, the necessities of an independent life, including fish hooks, flour and tobacco, were bought. As there was little or no medical access in the regions in which he worked, Carson had to dress his wounds and nurse himself.Cleland 44 There was also sometimes conflict with Indians.Cleland 40–41 Carson's primary clothing then was made of deer skins that had stiffened from being left outdoors for a long period of time. This clothing offered some protection against weapons used by hostile Indians.Cleland 21
Grizzly bears were one of the mountain man's greatest enemies.Cleland 43 In 1834, when Carson was hunting an elk alone, two bears crossed paths with him and quickly chased him up a tree. One of the bears tried, unsuccessfully, to make him fall by shaking the tree, but eventually went away. Carson then returned to his camp as fast as possible. He wrote in his Memoirs, "[The bear] finally concluded to leave, of which I was heartily pleased, never having been so scared in my life."Roberts 80
Carson's Memoirs are full of stories about hostile Indian encounters. In January 1833, for example, warriors of the Crow tribe stole nine horses from Carson's camp. Carson and two other men sprayed the Crow camp with gunfire, killing most of the Crow. Carson wrote in his Memoirs, "During our pursuit for the lost animals, we suffered considerably but, the success of having recovered our horses and sending many a redskin to his long home, our sufferings were soon forgotten."Roberts 82 Carson viewed the Blackfoot Nation as a hostile tribe and the greatest threat to his livelihood and safety. For this reason he came into conflict with them on several occasions. The historian David Roberts wrote: "It was taken for granted that the Blackfeet were bad Indians; to shoot them whenever he could was a mountain man's instinct and duty."Roberts 85 Carson had several encounters with the Blackfoot. His last battle with the Blackfoot took place in spring 1838. He was traveling with about one hundred mountain men led by Jim Bridger. In Montana Territory, the group found a teepee with the corpses of three Indians who had died of smallpox inside. Bridger wanted to move on, but Carson and the other young men wanted to kill Blackfoot,Roberts 87–88 so they found the Blackfoot village and killed ten Blackfoot warriors. The Blackfoot found some safety in a pile of rocks but were driven away. It is not known how many Blackfoot died in this incident. The historian David Roberts wrote that "if anything like pity filled Carson's breast as, in his twenty-ninth year, he beheld the ravaged camp of the Blackfoot, he did not bother to remember it." Carson wrote in his Memoirs that the battle was "the prettiest fight I ever saw".