Kit Carson's Glorious Days?

[Cynthia]

I know I should post this in the culture vultures, but I believe it to be a true American story

Not unlike the story we live today. ...

As it turns out.....good and bad of it all..... Kit Carson was a tyrant of sorts.....and yet a peace maker and a diplomat;   yet he sided with the rules of the eastern American pre civil war.... . sadly. The pre civil war era dictated his life.
Yet, we have named schools after him.  go figure. He burned millions of pounds of Navajo crops.

If you have never been to Arizona and witnessed the awesome Canyon de Chelly...You must visit!

The only thing I can compare it to is the visit I took to New York City, herself.

Tall buildings. (cliffs and slices of the mountain)....capturing my spirit.

"I don't know if I did right or I did wrong, but I did the best I could". Kit Carson

Telling. Very telling in terms of all who stand here today.

A New West? A new world in progress? That's what we hope for is it not?

Imagine that. A new world...a new agent of empire. Obama just might be the new Lincoln. I hope so.

We must allow for the worst of time to become the best of times.

Follow the west, young man...follow the west.

[Xavier_Onassis]

I assume you saw the excellent Kit Carson documentary PBS did several months ago. It covered his entire life, and did a great job of it. It seems that the Indians went through several phases in the attitudes of palefaces.

First they were 'noble savages', as Columbus first described them, like big dumb children who never heard of God or Jesus and perhaps were innocent of the Original Sin. Then Columbus and his men made contact with the Caribes, who were kidnappers and cannibals, and Indians were seen as diabolic at worst and pests to be tamed and enslaved at best.

The same seemed to happen in New England: the Indians befriended the Plymouth and Jamestown Colonies, and taught them how to grow corn and other crops and how to survive. Later the colonists wanted more land, and the Indians became pests. Indians cooperated with the expansion of White settlements by dying of all sorts of epidemic diseases brought by the Europeans.

By the time Carson came around, there were good Indians and bad Indians. The Pawnee and Kickapoo were good, because they served as scouts and stayed out of their way. The Cherokees, Choctaws, Creeks and the other 'civilized tribes' were seen as good, because they settled down and became farmers, but bad to some, including Andrew Jacksn, because they chose to do this on Georgia, Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi farmland,which was coveted by settlers and the government, who wanted to sell it to them.

Carson had several Indian wives, and then married into a Spanish family in New Mexico. He was friendly with the Spanish and the Utes, who were enemies of the Navajo, some of whom were raiding Spanish towns, so he got involved in the destruction of the Navajo villages in Canyon de Chelly, which he later regretted, as th Navajos suffered greatly at their new reservation at Bosque Redondo.

In Carson's time, Indians were seen as members of different tribes, not as a single minority as we see them today: some were seen as better than others, since some were not a nuisance to White expansion. The Pueblo Indians, for example, stayed in one place and caused few problems. They were also not sitting on any gold or silver deposits, which was a big advantage for them.

Indians still see a distinction between various tribes.

[Cynthia]

Thank you Xavier. That was beautifully written.

You have captured the essence of the history of  New Mexico.

The culture of the Native American is indeed that of a peaceful nature.....farmers, ranchers artists and more.
The History of Kit Carson is fascinating to me.

This was the first time I had heard of his story in depth ...thanks to American Experience.

You are a solid rock of knowledge in that arena.....Muchas Gracias  XO. It's nice to hear from a true historian like yourself.

Cindy

[Cynthia]

O, by the way...

Was he a hero or was he the reason for the downfall of the Navajo nation?

What a study. What a study indeed.

They say that we often times wish we could revisit our youth and change our pace in the world. If I could, I would have been a candidate for the love of History.....God, it's good....history and stories told and untold.

No wonder I love to hear of the battles won and lost in a person's life.

We all have those battles to share....life is short.
Can anyone here share her/his own battle won...or lost?

Just curious.

Cindy

[Plane]

Not long ago Tony Hillerman died.

I like his books , you get an entertaining story and a few historical and cultural facts along with.

[Xavier_Onassis]

O, by the way...

Was he a hero or was he the reason for the downfall of the Navajo nation?

=========================
Carson was a man of his times, or better yet, several times: the time of the mountain man, the time of the Mexican War, the time of the Indian Wars, and the time of Western expansion.

He was effective and knowledgeable in everything he did. He was an ally of the Utes and the Spanish against the Navajo raiders when the campaign begain, but in the end, he realized that moving the Navajo from Canyon de Chelly to Bosque Redondo was the wrong thing to do and done in the wrong way, and opposed it before he died.

The destruction of the Navajo pueblo at Canyon de Chelly was effective at forcing the Navajo to stop raiding and to move. It was not a heroic act, as history turned out, but after the return the Navajo were a peaceful people. If Carson had not cooperated, someone else would have moved the Navajos.  The Comanches were a whole lot nastier as raiders, but eventually Quanah Parker was bribed to rein them in.

Nomadic tribal Indians and modern civilization were incompatible. The Whites were not able to cede enough territory for this until they got to Alaska. That was the problem.  In Alaska it was easier, because the weather was the common enemy of all concerned.

I am assuming you saw the PBS special on Carson: it was terrific. The best commercial film I have seen on the Indians was "Little Big Man", starring Dustin Hoffman, about a 123 year old man who saw it all from the 1820's to the 1940's. It was based on a novel by Thomas Berger, which is also a great book. There is a sequel, Return of Little Big Man, also worth a read. The Time-Life Books on the American West are excellent: I managed to get the whole 20 volume  set, one volume at a time, in yard sales. Also really good is "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee", by Dee Brown.

I have been really fond of NM since I was on the staff at Philmont Scout Ranch in Cimarron, around 1958. Then I went to NMSU in Las Cruces from 1962 to 1964.

[Plane]

O, by the way...

Was he a hero or was he the reason for the downfall of the Navajo nation?

=========================
Carson was a man of his times, or better yet, several times: the time of the mountain man, the time of the Mexican War, the time of the Indian Wars, and the time of Western expansion.

He was effective and knowledgeable in everything he did. He was an ally of the Utes and the Spanish against the Navajo raiders when the campaign begain, but in the end, he realized that moving the Navajo from Canyon de Chelly to Bosque Redondo was the wrong thing to do and done in the wrong way, and opposed it before he died.

The destruction of the Navajo pueblo at Canyon de Chelly was effective at forcing the Navajo to stop raiding and to move. It was not a heroic act, as history turned out, but after the return the Navajo were a peaceful people. If Carson had not cooperated, someone else would have moved the Navajos.  The Comanches were a whole lot nastier as raiders, but eventually Quanah Parker was bribed to rein them in.

Nomadic tribal Indians and modern civilization were incompatible. The Whites were not able to cede enough territory for this until they got to Alaska. That was the problem.  In Alaska it was easier, because the weather was the common enemy of all concerned.

I am assuming you saw the PBS special on Carson: it was terrific. The best commercial film I have seen on the Indians was "Little Big Man", starring Dustin Hoffman, about a 123 year old man who saw it all from the 1820's to the 1940's. It was based on a novel by Thomas Berger, which is also a great book. There is a sequel, Return of Little Big Man, also worth a read. The Time-Life Books on the American West are excellent: I managed to get the whole 20 volume  set, one volume at a time, in yard sales. Also really good is "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee", by Dee Brown.

I have been really fond of NM since I was on the staff at Philmont Scout Ranch in Cimarron, around 1958. Then I went to NMSU in Las Cruces from 1962 to 1964.

Indians were not all nomads , Cherokee had established towns and plantations and had learned to hire lawyers before they were sent west , Navaho were not very nomadic either , the tipical Navaho home is a solid adobe structure called a "hogan".

[Xavier_Onassis]

Indians were not all nomads , Cherokee had established towns and plantations and had learned to hire lawyers before they were sent west , Navaho were not very nomadic either , the tipical Navaho home is a solid adobe structure called a "hogan".

I said that earlier: the Cherokee settled in villages and towns.

Some of the Navajo were settled in a single place, but some were raiding Spanish settlements for cattle, horses and sheep, which is why it was decided to remove them from their defensible location in Canyon de Chelly and move them to Bosque Redondo, as I said earlier. Try to catch the PBS special on Kit Carson.

All Indians live in permanent dwellings these days, I don't think any are nomadic, though some may commute. The Navajo hogan is not normally made of adobe. They are made of logs and perhaps some sticks and mud.

http://www.kstrom.net/isk/maps/houses/hogan.html

Pueblo Indians live in squarish adobe homes, many of them multistory.
The Hopi are a pueblo group. The Pueblo Indians last rebelled against the Spanish in the 1500's, and never gave the US government much trouble. They were lucky that there were no gold deposits rumored to be on Pueblo land.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pueblo_people

The Navajo and the Hopi have not been allies, but have managed to live more or less harmoniously.

[Plane]

Indians were not all nomads , Cherokee had established towns and plantations and had learned to hire lawyers before they were sent west , Navaho were not very nomadic either , the tipical Navaho home is a solid adobe structure called a "hogan".

I said that earlier: the Cherokee settled in villages and towns.

Some of the Navajo were settled in a single place, but some were raiding Spanish settlements for cattle, horses and sheep, which is why it was decided to remove them from their defensible location in Canyon de Chelly and move them to Bosque Redondo, as I said earlier. Try to catch the PBS special on Kit Carson.

All Indians live in permanent dwellings these days, I don't think any are nomadic, though some may commute. The Navajo hogan is not normally made of adobe. They are made of logs and perhaps some sticks and mud.

http://www.kstrom.net/isk/maps/houses/hogan.html

Pueblo Indians live in squarish adobe homes, many of them multistory.
The Hopi are a pueblo group. The Pueblo Indians last rebelled against the Spanish in the 1500's, and never gave the US government much trouble. They were lucky that there were no gold deposits rumored to be on Pueblo land.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pueblo_people

The Navajo and the Hopi have not been allies, but have managed to live more or less harmoniously.

Good article , thanks.

To protect a fork-tip hogan against bitter winter cold, when a hogan is built in windy places (such as this Monument Valley one) it might be entirely covered with packed adobe or mud, if it was in a valley where earth or clay is available, hiding the 5-faceted shape of the first or male hogan with thick, winter-protective walls. This round-looking packed-mud femalehogan was constructed by the Navajo Nation, for its Monument Valley parksite, where tourists can photograph and look inside this life-sized model without disturbing people, sacred objects, or hogans abandoned because a death has occurred inside.

I was mistaken to think the hogan was an adobie structure , when it really only sometimes is.

What I was getting at though is that Indians with settled ways were often as not incompatible with American culture as it was at that time.
This reminds me of the thread on philosophy . The part about takeing the organs of a healthy person . There may not be anything at all wrong with the way an Indian was useing the land that supported his lifestyle , but that same land could support a dozen more people liveing in the European farming tradition and there just happened to be about that many comeing round.
So this could be a case of philosophy being bent to necessity , I doubt that haveing taken the land , that the dozen new guys would give it willingly to twelve dozen persons who could support themselves in a Hindu farming tradition on the same land.

[Xavier_Onassis]

I don't think the Civilized Tribes (Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Seminole, etc. that were driven off to Oklahoma by Andrew Jackson's expulsions were any less efficient as farmers than the White people who replaced them after the Indian lands were sold off for $1.25 an acre or so. Jackson did not want them making political alliances with other powers, such as the British, French, Spanish or Mexicans. A prosperous Indian Georgia might decide to secede, support its own political faction,or ally itself with the abolitionists.

Philosophy was the last thing on Jackson's mind when he expelled the Indians.

Indians are rarely anthropological purists. They see no problem with using free plastic water jugs instead of spending a day or so throwing less durable pots. They see plastic sheeting as a better water repellent than thatch, and a lot easier to install. Killing a cow and eating it is more productive than hunting a smaller deer and eating that.

The old folks will point out that the pots and thatch roofs are prettier, and the hunter was more skilled than the butcher. The younger people scoff at such things and prefer to spend their time nice and warm indoors, watching TV.

American culture is addictive. Some tribes have become so sedentary in their eating and activity habits that most of them are obese diabetics. This is true of several Arizona tribes.

When booze had to be fermented from corn, the Lakota had no time to bother to make it. Now they find it all to cheap and easy to make from a variety of home cleaning products and stuff like Sterno.

[Cynthia]

She can do a LOT!



While the idea of meeting the demands of Navajo culture and the Western world are usually seen as an ongoing challenge, Nez sees it as blessing.

"The ones who are able to learn the Bilagáana way, they are advantaged because they can still come back and learn this," she said. "It's a blessing their minds are broadened."

Mary said she is happy the youth have the opportunity to leave the reservation and get an education. When she was a young girl, she begged her parents to let her go to school.


"They can do it. It's up to the person if they're willing to learn," she said. "(But) whenever the young people stop using the language and the traditions, we will become a lost tribe, a lost people."


http://www.navajotimes.com/entertainment/2008/0808ent/082108weaver.php

[Cynthia]

Not long ago Tony Hillerman died.

I like his books , you get an entertaining story and a few historical and cultural facts along with.

http://www.navajotimes.com/entertainment/2008/1108/110608hillerman.php

[Cynthia]

I spent time on the Lukachukai Rez with my Early Childhood Professor back in 1982.

Here are some photos from the net.

I remember the dorms were like small one room 50's or 60's style motels.

The horses ran wild and would often times peek through the front screen door of our dorm.

It was a delightful experience.

[Cynthia]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHLYIRm0dbo

[Cynthia]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oawKpAI-l9M