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Kit Carson

Born in Madison County, Kentucky, near the city of Richmond, Carson was raised in Franklin, Missouri, where his family moved before his second birthday. Carson's father, Lindsey Carson, was a farmer of Scots-Irish descent, who had fought in the Revolutionary War under General Wade Hampton. There were a total of fifteen Carson children: five by Lindsey Carson's first wife, and ten by Kit's mother, Rebecca Robinson. Kit was the eleventh child in the family. The Carson family settled on a tract of land owned by the sons of Daniel Boone, who had purchased the land from the Spanish, prior to the Louisiana Purchase. The Boone and Carson families became good friends, working, socializing, and intermarrying.

Carson was seven when his father was killed by a falling tree while clearing land. Lindsey Carson's death reduced the Carson family to a desperate poverty, forcing young Kit to drop out of school to work on the family farm, as well as engage in hunting. At age 14, Kit was apprenticed to a saddlemaker in the settlement of Franklin, Missouri. Franklin was situated at the eastern end of the Santa Fe Trail, which had opened two years earlier. Many of the clientele at the saddleshop were trappers and traders, from whom Kit would hear their stirring tales of the Far West. Carson is reported to have found work in the saddle shop suffocating: he once stated "the business did not suite me, and I concluded to leave".
At sixteen, Carson secretly signed on with a large merchant caravan heading to Santa Fe tending the horses, mules, and oxen. During the winter of 1826-1827 he stayed with Matthew Kinkead, a trapper and explorer, in Taos, New Mexico which was known as the capital of the fur trade in the Southwest. Kinkead had been a friend of Carson's father in Missouri, and Kit began learning the skills of a trapper from him. Additionally he learned languages and became fluent in Spanish, Navajo, Apache, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Paiute, Shoshone, and Ute.

After gaining experience along the Santa Fe Trail and in Mexico on various expeditions, Carson signed on with Ewing Young and forty other fur men in the Spring of 1829, his first official outing as a trapper. The journey took the band into unexplored Apache country along the Gila River. Ewing's group was approached and attacked by Apache Indians. It was during this encounter that Carson shot and killed one of the attacking Indians, the first time he killed another person.

Carson attended an annual mountain man rendezvous during the summer of 1835 (at age 24) which was held that year along the Green River in southwestern Wyoming. He became interested in an Arapahoe woman whose name, Waa-Nibe, is approximated in English as "Singing Wind" or "Singing Grass" . Her tribe was camped nearby. Singing Wind is said to have been popular at the rendezvous, and also caught the attention of a French-Canadian trapper, Joseph Chouinard. When Singing Wind chose Carson over Chouinard, the rejected suitor became belligerent. Chouinard is reported to have disrupted the camp, and finally it seems Carson could tolerate the situation no longer. Words between the two were exchanged, and Carson and Chouinard charged each other on horses with drawn pistols: Carson blew off the thumb of his opponent, while Chouinard's shot missed. This incident is said to have made Carson renowned among the mountain men, but was considered to be uncharacteristic conduct for him.Carson considered his years as a trapper to be "the happiest days of my life". Accompanied by Singing Wind, he worked with the Hudson Bay Company, as well as the renowned frontiersman Jim Bridger, trapping beaver along the Yellowstone, Powder, and Big Horn Rivers, and was found throughout what is now Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana. Carson's first child, a daughter, was born in 1837, named Adeline. Carson's wife developed a fever shortly after the child's birth, and died in 1838.

At this time, the nation was undergoing a severe depression (see Panic of 1837). The fur industry was undermined by changing fashion styles: a new demand for silk hats replaced the demand for beaver fur. Also, the trapping industry had devastated the beaver population; this combination of facts ended the need for trappers. Carson stated, "Beaver was getting scarce, it became necessary to try our hand at something else". He attended the last mountain man rendezvous, held in the summer of 1840 (again at Ft. Bridger near the Green River) and moved on to Bent's Fort, finding employment as a hunter. Carson married a Cheyenne woman, Making-Out-Road, in 1841 but Making-Out-Road left him only a short time later to follow her tribe's migration. By 1842 he met and became engaged to the daughter of a prominent Taos family: Josefa Jaramillo. After receiving instruction from Padre Antonio José Martínez, he was baptized into the Catholic Church in 1842. When he was 34, he married 14-year-old Josefa, his third wife, on February 6, 1843. They raised eight children, the descendants of whom remain in the Arkansas Valley of Colorado.

Carson decided early in 1842 to return east to bring his daughter Adeline to live with relatives near Carson's former home of Franklin, for the purpose of providing her with an education. That summer he met John C. Frémont on a Missouri River steamboat in Missouri. Frémont was preparing to lead his first expedition and was looking for a guide to take him to South Pass. The two men made acquaintance, and Carson offered his services, as he had spent much time in the area. The five month journey, made with 25 men, was a success, and Fremont's report was published by Congress. His report "touched off a wave of wagon caravans filled with hopeful emigrants" heading West.Frémont's success in the first expedition lead to his second expedition, undertaken in the summer of 1843, which proposed to map and describe the second half of the Oregon Trail, from South Pass to the Columbia River. Due to his proven skill as a guide in the first expedition, Carson's services were again requested. This journey took them along the Great Salt Lake into Oregon, establishing all the land in the Great Basin to be land-locked, which contributed greatly to the understanding of North American geography at the time. Their trip brought them into sight of Mount Rainier, Mount Saint Helens, and Mount Hood.
One purpose of this expedition had been to locate the Buenaventura, a major east-west river that was believed to connect the Great Lakes with the Pacific Ocean. Though its existence was accepted as scientific fact at the time, it was not to be found: Frémont's second expedition established that this mystical river was a fable.

The second expedition became snowbound in the Sierra Nevadas that winter, and was in danger of mass starvation: however, Carson's expertise pulled them through, in spite of being half-starved-their mules "ate one another's tails and the leather of the pack saddles." The expedition moved south into the Mojave Desert, enduring attacks by Natives, which killed one man. Also, when the expedition had crossed into California, they had officially invaded Mexico. The threat of military intervention by that country sent Fremont's expedition further southeast, into Nevada, at a watering hole known as Las Vegas. The party traveled on to Bent's Fort, and by August, 1844 returned to Washington, over a year after their departure. Another Congressional report on Fremont's expedition was published. By the time of the second report in 1845, Frémont and Carson were becoming nationally famous.Somewhere along this route, Frémont and party came across a Mexican man and a boy who were survivors of an ambush by a band of Natives, who had killed two men, staked two women to the ground and mutilated them, and stolen 30 horses. Carson and fellow mountain man Alex Godey took pity on the two survivors. They tracked the Native band for 2 days, and upon locating them, rushed into their encampment. They killed two Native Americans, scattered the rest, and returned with the horses. "More than any other single factor or incident, [the Mojave Desert incident] from Frémont's second expedition report is where the Kit Carson legend was born….."

On June 1, 1845 John Frémont and 55 men left St. Louis, with Carson as guide, on the third expedition. The stated goal was to "map the source of the Arkansas River", on the east side of the Rocky Mountains. But upon reaching the Arkansas, Frémont suddenly made a hasty trail straight to California, without explanation. Arriving in the Sacramento Valley in early winter 1846, he promptly sought to stir up patriotic enthusiasm among the American settlers there. He promised that if war with Mexico started, his military force would "be there to protect them." Frémont nearly provoked a battle with General Jose Castro near Monterey, which would have likely resulted in the annihilation of Frémont's group, due to the superior numbers of the Mexican troops. Frémont then fled Mexican-controlled California, and went north to Oregon, finding camp at Klamath Lake.

No watchman was posted on the night of May 9, 1846, when Carson awoke to the sound of a thump. Jumping up, he saw his friend and fellow trapper Basil Lajeunesse sprawled in blood. He called an alarm and immediately everyone else came to: they were under attack by Native Americans estimated to be several dozen in number. By the time the assailants were beaten off, two other members of Frémonts group were dead. The one dead warrior was judged to be a Klamath Lake Native. Frémont's group fell into "an angry gloom." Carson was beside himself, and Fremont reports he smashed away at the dead warrior's face until it was pulp.

To avenge the deaths of his expedition members, Frémont chose to attack a Klamath Tribe fishing village named Dokdokwas, at the junction of the Williamson River and Klamath Lake, which took place May 10, 1846. The action completely destroyed the village, and involved the massacre of women and children. After the burning of the village, Carson was nearly killed by a Klamath warrior later that day: his gun misfired, and the warrior drew to fire a poison arrow; but Frémont, seeing Carson's predicament, trampled the warrior with his horse. Carson stated he felt that he owed Frémont his life due to this incident. "The tragedy of Dokdokwas is deepened by the fact that most scholars now agree that Frémont and Carson, in their blind vindictiveness, probably chose the wrong tribe to lash out against: In all likelihood the band of Indians that had killed [Frémont's three men] were from the neighboring Modocs….The Klamaths were culturally related to the Modocs, but the two tribes were bitter enemies". Sides, Blood and Thunder, p. 87
Turning south from Klamath Lake, Frémont led his expedition back down the Sacramento Valley, and slyly promoted an insurrection of American settlers, which he then took charge of once circumstances had adequately developed, known as the Bear Flag Revolt. Events escalated when a group of Mexicans murdered two American rebels. Frémont then intercepted three Mexican men on June 28, 1846, crossing the San Francisco Bay, who landed near San Quentin. Frémont ordered Carson to execute these three men in revenge for the deaths of the two Americans.

Frémont's California Battalion next moved south to the provincial capital of Monterey, California, and met Commodore Robert Stockton there in mid-July of 1846. Stockton had sailed into harbor with two American warships and taken claim to Monterey for the United States. Learning that the war with Mexico was underway, Stockton made plans to capture Los Angeles and San Diego and proceed on to Mexico City. He joined forces with Frémont, and made Carson a lieutenant, thus initiating Carson's military career. Frémont's unit arrived in San Diego on one of Stockton's ships on July 29, 1846, and took over the town without resistance. Stockton, traveling on a separate warship, claimed Santa Barbara a few days later. (See Mission Santa Barbara and Presidio of Santa Barbara). Meeting up and joining forces in San Diego, they marched to Los Angeles and claimed this town without any challenge, and Stockton declared California to be United States territory on August 17, 1846. The following day, August 18, Stephen W. Kearny rode into Santa Fe, New Mexico with his Army of the West and declared the New Mexican territory conquered.

Stockton and Frémont were eager to announce the conquest of California to President Polk, and wished for Carson to carry their correspondence overland to the President. Carson accepted the mission, and pledged to cross the continent within 60 days. He left Los Angeles with 15 men and 6 Delaware Native Americans on September 5.

Thirty one days later on October 6, Carson chanced to meet Kearny and his 300 dragoons at the deserted village of Valverde.[6] Kearny was under orders from the Polk Administration to subdue both New Mexico and California, and set up governments there. Learning that California was already conquered, he sent 200 of his men back to Santa Fe, and ordered Carson to guide him back to California so he could stabilize the situation there. Kearny sent the mail on to Washington by another courier.

For the next six weeks, Lt. Carson guided Kearny and the 100 dragoons west along the Gila River over very rugged terrain, arriving at the Colorado River on November 25. On some parts of the trail mules died at a rate of almost 12 a day. By December 5, three months after leaving Los Angeles, Carson had brought Kearny's men to within 25 miles their destination of San Diego.
A Mexican courier was captured en route to Sonora Mexico carrying letters to General Jose Castro that reported a Mexican revolt which had recaptured California from Commodore Stockton: all the costal cities now were back under Mexican control, except for San Diego, where the Mexicans had Stockton pinned down and under siege. Kearny was himself in perilous danger, as his force was reduced both in numbers and in a state of physical exhaustion: they had to come out of the Gila River trail and confront the Mexican forces, or risk perishing in the desert.

While approaching San Diego, Kearny sent a rancher ahead to notify Commodore Stockton of his presence. The rancher, Edward Stokes, returned with 39 American troops and information that several hundred Mexican dragoons under Capt Andres Pico were camped at the Indian village of San Pasqual, lying on the route between him and Stockton. Kearny decided to raid Pico in order to capture fresh horses, and sent out a scouting party on the night of December 5-6.
The scouting party encountered a barking dog in San Pasqual, and Captain Pico's troops were aroused from their sleep. Having been detected, Kearny decided to attack, and organized his troops to advance on San Pasqual. A complex battle evolved, where twenty-one Americans were killed and many more wounded: many from the long lances of the Mexican caballeros, who also displayed expert horsemanship. By the end of the second day, December 7, the Americans were nearly out of food and water, low on ammunition and weak from the journey along the Gila River. They faced starvation and possible annilation by the Mexican troops who vastly outnumbered them, and Kearny ordered his men to dig in on top of a small hill.
Kearny then sent Carson and two other men to slip through the siege and get reinforcements. Carson, Edward Beale, and an Indian left on the night of December 8 for San Diego which was 25 miles away. Because their canteens made too much noise, they were left along the path. Because their boots also made too much noise, Carson and Beale removed these and tucked them under their belts. These they lost, and Carson and Beale traveled the distance to San Diego barefoot through desert, rock, and cactus. By December 10, Kearny had decided all hope was gone, and planned to attempt a breakout the next morning: but that night, 200 American troops on fresh horses arrived, the Mexican army dispersed with the new show of strength. Kearny was able to arrive in San Diego by December 12. This action contributed to the prompt reconquest of California by the American forces.

Following the recapture of Los Angeles in 1847, Frémont was appointed Governor of California by Commodore Stockton. Frémont sent Carson to carry messages back to Washington City. He stopped in St. Louis and met with Senator Thomas Benton, who was a prominent supporter of the settling the West and a proponent of Manifest Destiny, and had been prominent in getting Frémont's expedition reports published by Congress. Once in Washington, Carson delivered his messages to Secretary of State James Buchanan, as well as had meetings with Secretary of War William Marcy and President James Polk. Having completed this mission, Carson received orders to do it all again: return to California with messages, receive further messages there, and bring those back yet again to Washington. By the end of the Frémont expeditions and these courier missions, Carson felt he wanted to settle down with Joséfa, and decided in 1849 to go into farming in Taos.

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