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The Santa Fe Trail

7/30/2019

Two routes from Independence to Santa Fe. (National Park Service)

Conestoga freight wagon.

Roger M McCoy
When the Spanish ruled Mexico, which included provinces north of the Rio Grande River, they declared that trade with New Mexican natives and colonists was illegal. During this time traders from the United States gradually traveled to trading posts farther west along the Rio Grande River, and eventually reached the Spanish territory of New Mexico. Most such traders were stopped by Spanish officials and sent home. Hence during this time there was almost no trade by Mexico City or the United States with the territory of New Mexico.
  The Mexicans had lived under Spain’s dominance since 1607, more than two centuries. In their second attempt at independence the Mexicans finally won their freedom and became independent in 1821. This opened the door for anyone to trade with Mexico. Americans entered the game that same year and developed the Santa Fe Trail as a route for traders traveling from Independence, Missouri to Santa Fe, New Mexico.
  The city of Santa Fe has a long and interesting history. Native Americans are known to have had a settlement in what today is downtown Santa Fe since soon after 900 A.D., making the city the oldest continuously occupied settlement in the United States.
  Following the Mexican-American war in 1848 the United States acquired much of the southwest by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and Santa Fe became an American city in the territory of New Mexico. This further opened the region to economic development and settlement by Americans. With this, Santa Fe became an important trade center both with the rest of Mexico and with the United States.
Seeing a new opportunity, Missouri trader William Becknell wasted no time loading up several wagons and headed for Santa Fe in September 1821. With a small group of men and a cargo of goods he arrived in Santa Fe on November 16. They were welcomed with open arms by Mexican citizens and government officials and encouraged to return soon with more goods to trade. Becknell’s initial path to Santa Fe became known as the Mountain route of the Santa Fe Trail. This route also became important for stagecoach travel and mail delivery and marked the beginning of the Santa Fe Trail as we know it today.
  Returning to Missouri Becknell took a shorter route along the Cimarron River which soon became the most traveled track to Santa Fe. The map above shows the Cimarron Cutoff leaving the Arkansas River at the Cimarron River near present day Dodge City, Kansas. From there it continued southwest ending in Santa Fe. The Cimarron route was about 100 miles shorter than the route through Raton Pass and less difficult. The supply of water was less reliable however and raids by the Comanches or Apaches were more common.
  The route of the trail led southwest from Independence to the Arkansas River near the present site of Great Bend, Kansas (shown on the map as Fort Zarah). From there it followed the Arkansas River westward to Bent’s Fort (see Note 1) near present day La Junta, Colorado, then southward along the Purgatoire River (see Note 2) to Santa Fe. It went southward into Santa Fe across the narrow and difficult Raton Mountain Pass at 7,834 feet elevation.
  Both the Mountain and Cimarron routes crossed the northwestern territory of the Comanche Tribe. In the beginning the Comanches and Apaches would not tolerate passage of wagon trains on their land and frequently attacked them. When these tribes later became an important market for American traders they then required compensation for passage through their land.
  Business was booming and traffic traveling to Santa Fe along the Arkansas River became so heavy that bison herds often had difficulty following their usual seasonal migration to grazing lands.

Wagons and Draft Animals on the Santa Fe Trail.
  Because the primary use of the Santa Fe Trail was hauling freight, the large Conestoga wagon was usually preferred. Why was a freight wagon called Conestoga? The name first appears regarding the Susquehannock tribe in Pennsylvania, who were called Conestogas by European settlers. The original design of the wagon, which was made in the Conestoga River region of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in the late eighteenth century, was given that name.
  The choice of draft animal in the first few years of travel to Santa Fe was horses. Later mules or oxen, which are hardier than the horse, were preferred by wagon train outfitters. Outfitters often debated the advantages of oxen compared to mules but it became a matter of individual choice. Some trains were mixed with some wagons pulled by oxen and others by mules. The illustration above shows only one yoke of oxen, but a loaded Conestoga would usually require six yoke of oxen or four teams of horses.
  The comparison of animals centered around cost and hardiness. Mules were more expensive than oxen, but were faster and made better time. Mules also better maintained their strength in the heat, provided grass was in ample supply. But for very long distances, requiring months of travel over rough or sandy roads, oxen usually endured better than mules.
  Cost was the main factor for most migrants and traders. Six mules cost six hundred dollars. Eight oxen cost only two hundred dollars. Also oxen were less desired by Indians, which made raids less likely. The cost of a Conestoga freight wagon ranged from $130 to $165 depending on size and load capacity. A typical Conestoga wagon could hold a load of 3,500 to 5,000 pounds. Traders began buying bigger wagons over time and by the late 1850’s could they carry as much as 8,000 pounds.
  The Santa Fe Railroad brought an end to wagon trains on the Santa Fe Trail. In 1880 the rail construction finally reached Albuquerque with a branch to Santa Fe. On February 9, a Santa Fe Railway train arrived with considerable fanfare at the Santa Fe railroad depot, effectively ending the Santa Fe Trail as a wagon trail. As other railroads expanded westward, the importance of wagon trails collapsed. Slow-moving wagons drawn by mules or oxen simply could not compete with trains for hauling freight or passengers westward. Today the Amtrak Southwest Chief train follows the original 1880 railway/Santa Fe Trail route, using a tunnel through Raton Pass.

Note 1: The trading post on the Arkansas River called Bent’s Fort was established in 1833 by Charles and William Bent. It was an important fur trading stop for mountain men, settlers, teamsters and local tribes, but it soon became a destination for Santa Fe-bound wagon trains to rest and resupply.

Note 2: Because of local pronunciation the name Purgatoire River name has appeared on some USGS maps as the “Picketwire” River.

Sources
Cather, Willa. Death Comes to the Archbishop. Vintage Books. 1990 (first published 1927).
Duffus, Robert. The Santa Fe Trail. Longmans, Green And Co. 1930.
Vestal, Stanley. The Old Santa Fe Trail. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 1996.
Wikipedia. wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Fe_Trail. 1999.

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The Hastings Cutoff

7/9/2019

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The Hastings Cutoff, shown in red, passed Pilot Peak (10,720 ft.) at the west edge of the Great Salt Lake Desert. Pilot Peak is visible from many miles and was used as a guiding landmark. Kmusser/Wikimedia Commons

Roger M McCoy

  The story of this trail concerns a certain Lansford Hastings who saw California as a land of opportunity. This enterprising man visualized the area becoming the ‘Republic of California’ with himself as president. Hastings hoped to cement this plan by inducing large numbers of people to emigrate there. To this end he wrote a book called The Emigrants Guide to Oregon and California (1845). Hastings described California and Oregon in glowing terms and gave advice on equipment, supplies, and routes to overland travelers. The primary route to California that he outlined separated from the Oregon Trail west of Fort Hall in present day Idaho and followed the Humboldt River as described here in an earlier blog, The California Trail Part 1 (5/30/2019). His book gave many details about the route and persuaded many Americans to migrate west. In his guidebook Hastings also gave brief mention of a cutoff, or alternate route, that left the Oregon trail in the present day state of western Wyoming near Fort Bridger, crossed Utah with its formidable salt barrens, known today as the Bonneville Salt Flats, and eventually rejoined the California trail west of Wells, in northeastern Nevada. [The table-like surface of the Salt Flats is part of the bed of prehistoric Lake Bonneville which covered nearly 20,000 square miles mostly in present day western Utah.]
   Hastings’ made it sound extremely easy, however he mentioned the cutoff before actually traveling the route himself, and he was probably unaware of the difficulties in crossing the roadless Wasatch Mountains and the barren, waterless salt flats of western Utah. In 1845 Hastings led a party of wagons over the cutoff and arrived in California safely after a difficult trip. The following year the unfortunate Donner party chose to travel the same route. Their misfortune came because of serious delays crossing the Wasatch Mountains and the Great Salt Lake Desert, which includes the Bonneville Salt Flats.
   One later migrant, Dexter Tiffany, had a fairly positive first impression of the Great Salt Lake Desert as, “entirely destitute of all vegetation so much as your parlor carpet and perfectly white.” He also mentioned that the surface of the salt plain is hard and makes a fine road. Unfortunately their loaded wagons soon broke through the salt crust and became mired in thick mud.
   Dexter Tiffany later wrote a much worse view of the Salt Flats. “The surface was about the consistency of wet mortar into which the feet of our horses and mules sank in some places just over the hoof. The wagon wheels sank some six or eight inches.” Tiffany continued with his description of crossing the Salt Flats, “Exhausted oxen littered the trail’s next twenty miles.” At the end of the Salt Flats they found Pilot Spring with “fine springs and fine grass” at the eastern base of Pilot Mountain. Migrants usually rested a day or two at Pilot Springs before continuing west. Tiffany aptly explained the need for rest. He wrote, “I felt sick and weak and slept and dozed all day and thought I should have the fever and could not go on but I did.”
   After a few more days of travel beyond Pilot Springs, the Hastings Cutoff makes another time consuming detour around the Ruby Mountains in northeastern Nevada. The Hastings route crosses the Ruby Mountains at Overland Pass near the south end of the mountains. This pass is easy to cross, but a little reconnaissance by Hastings would have shown that the migrants could have traveled a shorter distance by heading directly toward the springs at the head of the Humboldt River near present day Wells, Nevada without going around the south end of the Ruby Mountains. The Hastings route meandered 150 miles to travel westward only fifty or sixty miles from Pilot Springs to the head of the Humboldt River.
   The detour around the south end of the Ruby Mountains added five or six days, but was not the only problem causing delays on the Hastings cutoff. The greater delays were also caused during the crossing of the Wasatch Mountains, which required road-building by the migrants, and the Salt Flats, which slowed their pace considerably. These delays were largely responsible for the Donner group reaching the Sierra Nevada mountains about a month behind schedule. There they were stopped in October by an early onset of winter for which they were unprepared. After becoming snowbound, many died of starvation and some of the emigrants resorted to eating their animals and, tragically, the deceased members of the group.
   Few migrants followed the Hastings Cutoff after the Donner disaster because the news was spread rapidly by other travelers and writers. One example was written by migrant O.J. Hall: “Those who took the Hastings Cutoff went 60 miles without water, many died—some that reached water were past speaking, with black tongue, blood ran from their mouth. When they revived, they took water back to others. It was a horrible scene. Wagons and property lay in piles along the trail.” Captain John McNulty wrote, “They suffered much--reduced to the necessity of drinking their mules’ urine.” McNulty further described the Hastings Trail, “…a route in my humble opinion which will consign many emigrants and their animals to the wolves, and the rest to much suffering.”
   Virginia Reed, a surviving member of the Donner Party, wrote this succinct instruction in an 1847 letter home. “Don’t let this letter dishearten anybody and never take no cutoffs and hurry along as fast as you can.”
   Alas, Hastings’ hope for a Republic of California faded when Mexico ceded California to the United States in 1848 following the Mexican-American war.
   These pioneer diaries often read like the great heroic sagas or epic poems in which the hero goes through repeated life-threatening trials interspersed by brief periods of relief. Indeed the men and women making these trips had no idea of the hardships awaiting them and their lives were unwittingly heroic.

Sources
Bagley, Will. With Golden Visions Bright Before Them: Trails to the Mining West 1849-1852.
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. 2012.

Davis, Robert E. Following Sarah: Sarah Davis's 1849-1850 Journey from Michigan to
     California. Quiet Spring Publishers, 2013.

Morgan, Dale L., The Humboldt: Highroad of the West. Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Press. 1943.

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The California Trail, Part 2

6/20/2019

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The two dark green lines terminating at Sutter’s Fort show the Carson Pass route and the Donner Pass route.

Ascent or descent of the Sierras sometimes meant unloading and disassembling the wagons and hoisting them over barriers. People and livestock would go around on foot.

Roger McCoy

Despite the migrants’ great hopes for trouble-free travel, the California Trail only got harder. When one hardship eased another equally difficult one replaced it. A case in point is the struggle wagon trains endured crossing their greatest barrier, the Sierra Nevadas (Spanish translation: snowy mountain range). The two most frequently used routes over the mountains were over Carson Pass and Donner Pass. These two passes are now crossed by State Highway 88 and Interstate 80.
   After crossing the Forty-mile Desert the weary people and their worn-out animals faced this last obstacle. One early migrant wrote, “We thought we had seen the elephant, but we were mistaken, but at the mountain we saw him good.” The phrase “See the elephant” was a common expression of the early nineteenth century reflecting the rarity and strangeness of an animal that was first imported to America in 1785. It eventually came to mean anything exotic and strange—a “now I’ve seen everything” statement.
Carson Pass
As wagon trains followed the Carson River and the trail began to climb, Bernard Reid wrote, “…the first mile or two is pretty and shady with a good road—but presto, what a change! Steep pitches [slopes] up and down—appalling rocks,—stumps and logs,—sudden bends— all make the worst piece of road I ever saw or dreamed of.
   With immense effort they somehow made it through the rocky debris in the Carson Canyon. The twisted path up the canyon required three river crossings, and according to George Lawson it was, “the most desperate road I ever saw, even for pack horses. For wagons you would think it impossible.” Amasa Morgan found the canyon choked with “rocks so large we had difficulty in driving our wagons through.” Lell Woodley wrote that the six miles of Carson Canyon was “the roughest piece of road that we found between Missouri and California. There were great boulders from the size of a barrel to that of a stagecoach promiscuously piled in the bed. It took us two days to make the six miles.”
   The final approach to Carson Pass was as hard as “climbing a wall.” One wagon driver said,”It was not only right up and down, but leant a little over us.” Near the top he said, “We were half the day at least getting our wagons the last two miles over the mountains using eight yoke of oxen to do it.” Travelers who followed noted seeing abandoned goods of all kinds as wagon loads had to be lightened or wagons were upset on the treacherous trail. One migrant said he saw “wrecked wagons, trunks, axes, gold washers, two sawmill blades, and other articles scattered in all directions.” Once over the brow of the pass Charles Boyle described the beauty of what he saw. “Before us far down between the mountains lay a beautiful green valley surrounded by high mountains of bare solid granite of which the lower part was covered by a growth of pine trees while the summits were lightly capped with snow.” After crossing another final pass Peter Decker wrote, “Stopping we looked around at a view too magnificently grand and wildly romantic for me to attempt to describe.”
   James Wilkins wrote that the scenery was sublime and noted, “Here on the summit of the backbone of America we were favored with a storm of hail, rain and sleet. The wind blew icy cold.” At this time one of the woman in the company “was taken with pangs of labor and we had to descend as quickly as possible over a most rock road to the first grass, which we did not reach until after dark.” Wilkins wondered that the woman was able to endure the jolts and bounces of the trip. He pitched his tent to shelter her and “before morning she was delivered of a little girl.” After a two-day rest the company continued and Wilkins said the woman was “doing as well as could be expected under the circumstances.”
   The descent on the western slope of the Sierras was also difficult, but on reaching their final destination in the Sacramento gold fields Gordon Cone wrote, “We are now in the gold region and beyond all danger of snows and the mountains. The climate is warm and the atmosphere is balmy.” But they did not arrive in one piece. An inventory of his wagon train showed that two carts and four wagons were all that remained of the ten wagons that left Ohio.” Boyle reported that Tommy Davis had already found two specks of gold.
Donner Pass
  Meanwhile other emigrants followed the Truckee River toward a crossing of the Sierra Nevada Mountains passing through the site of present day Reno, Nevada. After 1847 the name Truckee Pass became Donner Pass in recognition of the disaster met by the Donner-Reid Party while crossing the Sierras. Many later wagon parties avoided Donner Pass because of a stigma attached to the name. Those who used Donner Pass followed the Truckee River almost to its source at Lake Tahoe, which is just southeast of the pass.
   They began their ascent in a beautiful valley “over a very good road for a mountain road.” Augustus Burbank described the scene as “…clothed with a heavy forest and highly elevated. Some grass and small streams.” Then the pull became more difficult as the trail steepened. These unfortunate emigrants were stranded by an October blizzard without shelter or adequate supplies and food. There they were stranded until the spring of 1847. During their desperate entrapment some members of the group resorted to cannibalism to survive. Of the eighty-three members of the Donner Party who were trapped in the mountains, only forty-five survived the harsh winter to reach California.
   Many later travelers stopped to see the remains of the Donner Party near Donner Lake as they neared the pass. Thomas Van Dorn wrote, “A surprising number of gold seekers described visiting what they called “cannibal camp,” the ruins of the shanties on Alder Creek and Donner Lake. Some told grotesque tales, such as Edward McIlhaney when he “stopped at the cabins at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains where the Donovan [Donner] party perished in ’46. There were several cabins. The roofs had rotted and fallen in and the [tree] stumps were twenty feet high where they stood on the snow to get wood to make a fire to keep them from freezing. The ground was covered with human bones still there.” James Abell noted that nothing remained “but the square enclosures with patches of newspaper hanging to the logs on the inside to keep out the cold.” He found scattered shreds of clothing and “bones of all descriptions, human and other.” Elisha Perkins added that, “…the imagination could find full scope in the indications of human suffering scattered around. I gathered some relics as curiosities and left, thankful that late as my journey had been prolonged, I was still safe from any such catastrophe as befell these unfortunates.” A full description of the Donner tragedy is beyond the scope of this article. Today the Donner Memorial State Park near Truckee, California preserves the site and tells their story in the Emigrant Trail Museum.
Edward Jackson said the final ascent to the pass was “over the worst road we have seen yet. The road was filled with large rocks and looked impossible for wagons to pass over. John McCarty wrote that the ascent was “extremely difficult—took twelve or fifteen yoke of cattle to draw up the lightest loaded wagon.” Migrants felt great relief upon finally reaching the summit and felt they had achieved a major milestone. Many imagined their troubles would now end with an easy descent, but nothing was easy in the Sierras. Instead they saw more mountains, gorges, and snow fields in their path. Isaac Wistar lamented, “Beyond, instead of the expected Sacramento Valley, nothing broke the magnificent expanse of the mountain chains.” D.B. Wood described the western descent of the Sierras as “rough beyond description.” John Markel complained that it “was the damn-dest, roughest, and rockyest road ever saw. We had to take out the mules and let our wagons down with ropes and it was off of one rock onto another all day.” Joseph Wood described trees “worn half down where wagons had been let down by a rope wound around them. This point was a descent over a ledge of rock some 30 feet—not quite perpendicular—our cattle taken around by a narrow passage and our wagons let down by ropes. At the foot of almost every steep we find the remains of broken wagons. A chain to one wagon broke and it rolled over three times, smashing everything to pieces.” No grass grew on those mountain trails and they had to cut down trees for the mules to eat the leaves and bark The mules soon associated the chopping sound with food and began braying with hunger. Cattle became very weak and were reduced to eating oak leaves for the last few days.
   At last the trains reached the rolling hills of the Sacramento Valley, their long sought destination. Once there one migrant described “the process of gold working a going on.” along the stream. Many migrants immediately “got out our pans and went at it and washed out half a dollars worth in no time.” Gold in 1850 was worth $20.67 per ounce. About 0.024 ounces would be worth half a dollar.
   In general, migrants seeking gold fared rather poorly. Some found only a little gold, many found more but failed to get rich, very few discovered a lode deposit and became rich. Most migrants drawn by golden riches soon reverted to the trade they practiced back home—mostly farming. Agriculture became the real motherlode of California. Today it is nearly impossible for us to imagine the strength and courage needed for the strenuous and exhausting trek made by those pioneers.

Sources
Bagley, Will. With Golden Visions Bright Before Them: Trails to the Mining West 1849-1852. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. 2012

Davis, Robert E. Following Sarah: Sarah Davis’s 1849-1850 Journey from Michigan to California. Twentynine Palms, CA: Quiet Creek Corp. 2013.

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The California Trail, Part 1

5/30/2019

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The California Trail separated from the Oregon Trail and headed southwest to the Humboldt River in present day northeastern Nevada.

Wagon trains in 1855 traveling through a dry landscape with little grass for livestock.

Roger M McCoy

The California Trail,Part 1
   The California Trail turned away from the Oregon Trail about sixty miles east of present day Idaho Falls, and headed southwest toward the beginning of the Humboldt River near present day Wells, Nevada. The source of the Humboldt River main stem in northeastern Nevada is a spring called Humboldt Wells. From that point the wagon trains headed westward following the Humboldt River to its end in the Humboldt Sink. This article covers the California Trail emigrants along the Humboldt River.
About 300 diaries written by migrants on the California Trail provide a wealth of insight into travel through the harsh and unfamiliar terrain of the Great Basin Desert, mostly within the present State of Nevada. Weeks of travel along the Humboldt River through scorching heat and stifling dust taxed the endurance of men, women, horses, mules, and oxen. The saving factor that made such a trip possible was the Humboldt River itself. The river provided water for most of the route across the Basin, and supported grass of variable quality along its shores. The diaries of those nineteenth century migrants give accounts of distances, quality of water and grass, and the general conditions and hardships the travelers faced. The following is a sampling written during crossings from 1849 to 1855 through the Great Basin.
   One migrant, James Wilkins, expressed his strong opinion of the Great Basin, “…the most detestable countries God ever made, to say nothing of its sterility and barrenness.” The wagon trace followed the river for almost 300 miles, but for most migrants the trip seemed unending, partly because they had no certain way of knowing how much farther they had to go.
   Often one wagon train was followed closely by others, sometimes creating a congestion of people. The route became so crowded at times that A.H. Houston wrote, “The immense crowd on the road made the trip more difficult and disagreeable. If you tried to pass other trains, you broke down your team in doing so. If you laid by to recruit, hundreds of teams were passing daily, making it more difficult to procure grass.” (The word “recruit” was commonly used in the nineteenth century meaning replenish or refresh.) Finding adequate grass for livestock was a daily problem. Some stretches of the trail offered good grass, but in many places grass was inadequate. Joseph Wood, lamenting the poor grass as his cattle began wasting away, wrote, “The grass does not contain sufficient nourishment for teams that have so much work to perform and hardships to endure.”

As they went downstream conditions grew worse daily. Charles Tinker: “Feed grew scarcer & water poorer & the weather hotter.” As the river water became more alkaline the travelers began to hate the river. Elisha Perkins wrote, “I must agree with the majority of the Emigrants in nicknaming it ‘Humbug River.” He added that the “river had become only a good sized creek. We could hardly get enough for our mules to eat and water barely drinkable from saline and sulfurous impregnation and having a milky color.”
    Another constant problem was the six to ten inches of dust that lay on the trail raising choking clouds into the air. William Z. Walker wrote, “The dust along the stream in intolerable, filling our eyes so that we could hardly see our animals. We were visited by such a hurricane of dust during the forenoon that we were obliged to turn out of the road and stop till the wind subsided.” John Middleton added, “Our poor faded and exhausted cattle! It harrowed my soul that I could render them no relief—that we must rush on to save our lives at the expense of others. Poor obedient creatures, what hellish cruelties I have seen inflicted on them by hard-hearted men.” Unfortunately the travelers who arrived later in the summer found conditions worse because the grass had not sufficiently recovered from the passage of earlier wagon trains. Wagon wheels passing through the hot dust dried to the point that their wooden wheels rattled “like a bag of bones” as they turned. Not surprisingly many migrants had buyers remorse as conditions worsened. Joseph Wood wrote, “I would give One Dollar for a newspaper, Five for a letter and Fifty to see our friends. We shall be glad to leave the valley of the Humboldt.”
   The marshy conditions at the terminus of the Humboldt River provided good stands of grass and the travelers stopped long enough to cut ample grass to carry for the perilous trek across the Carson Sink. Through August the grassy meadow was crowded with emigrants. Thomas van Dorn wrote, “Without this grass here, this route would be abandoned, but it forms a natural recruiting point in this vast desert region,”
   Near today’s Lovelock, Nevada, the nearly depleted Humboldt River spread out into a vast playa and intermittent wetland called Humboldt Sink, now shown on maps as Humboldt Lake. This harsh dry lake bed, or playa, merged with another massive playa, the Carson Sink, formed at the terminus of the Carson River flowing from the Sierra Mountains. The two great playas were separated by a low, almost imperceptible, divide called the Humboldt Bar. The Carson Sink became known to migrants as “The Forty-mile Desert.” The scene on the Forty-mile Desert is bleak, flat, and featureless. The Carson Sink is visible as you speed by on Interstate 80 and one can only imagine crossing it on foot or in a slow-moving wagon.
   Migrants often wrote of their disgust for conditions at the end of the Humboldt. Amasa Morgan lamented that, “This river that forces its way 290 miles through narrow Kanyans sandy deserts and around many a mountain here is lost in the earth, and whare its waters go to no one knows.” David Hindman called the area “a pool of black, stagnant water…upon which the stillness of death was resting.” A migrant named Addison Crane wrote a poem expressing his disdain for the Humboldt River:
       Farewell to thee, thou stinking, turbid stream,
       Amid who's waters frogs and serpents glean.
       Thou putrid mass of filth, farewell forever.

   At the Humboldt Bar the trail divided with one branch going northwest to the Truckee River and the other southeasterly to the Carson River. Both distances were about the same which most diaries estimate to be a little more than forty miles. Rumors and advice based on hearsay persuaded travelers that one or the other route would be better to take. Actually they were about equally bad. The Truckee route led to Donner Pass and the Carson route crossed the Sierra Nevada at Carson Pass. Crossing the Sierras is the subject of another blog. Before crossing the Forty-mile Desert, they first tried to prepare for their animals. They filled everything that could hold water—kegs, boilers, kettles, coffee pots, and rubber boots, and cut extra grass to carry over the desert expanse.
   Joseph Berrien said the forty-five miles of desert had fifteen miles of heavy sand and advised, “Be careful to drive in the night. Expect to find the worst desert you ever saw and you will find it worse than you expected.” Thomas Evershed described his first impression of the Carson Sink as, “a beautiful sheet of water seemingly about a mile across with the reflections of the mountains in it. …it was a mirage, the first we had seen. Soon it disappeared, leaving not a trace behind except the carcass of an old ox. Oh! For a drink of good ice water.”
   Whether traveling by day or night the Carson Sink was a perilous time for man and beast. One migrant wrote, “During the day our supply of water became exhausted. The teams began to fail. The roadside was almost covered with the carcasses of animals that could not make further progress and lay there.” When the animals died there was no way to pull the wagon, leaving many wagons abandoned along the roadside. They reported that the dead animals created “unsupportable stench, while the moans and creaky teeth of the yet living was enough to move a dragon to pity. Wagons abandoned by their owners are to be seen in every direction.”
   Writing about the Forty-mile Desert crossing Luzena Wilson wrote, “It was a hard march over the desert. The men were tired of goading on the poor oxen which seemed ready to drop at every step. They were covered with a thick coating of dust, even the tongue which hung from their mouths was swollen with thirst and heat.” Wilson continued his description of the desert crossing and told of the change he saw as they neared the Carson River. “The miserable beasts seemed to scent the freshness in the air, and they raised their heads and traveled more briskly. Within half a mile of the river the animals broke into a run in a stampede and refused to stop until they had plunged neck deep in the refreshing flood and when they were unyoked they snorted, tossed their heads and rolled over and over in the water.…after a journey of two thousand miles they raised heads and tails and galloped at full speed, an emigrant wagon with flapping sides jolting at their heels.” The Carson Sink gradually accumulated cattle carcasses and abandoned wagons left by travelers whose oxen had collapsed in the desert. A migrant then had no choice but to finish the trek on foot carrying what belongings he could on his back.
   Based on the accounts of travelers on the California Trail it is clear it was a trip of hardship from the beginning. But the last segment crossing the Forty-mile Desert took a heavy toll. Most people managed to complete the crossing, but in a demoralized state. Regardless they had no choice but to press on to the next hurdle, the Sierra Nevada Mountains, another grueling episode requiring the last bit of energy from man and beast.

Sources
Bagley, Will. With Golden Visions Bright Before Them: Trails to the Mining West 1849-1852. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. 2012.
Morgan, Dale L., The Humboldt: Highroad of the West. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 1943.

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The Trail of Tears

5/11/2019

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Route of Cherokee migration. The Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw, and Seminole tribes followed slightly different routes from the Southeast U.S.and settled in other parts of the Indian Territory.

Trail of Tears painting by Robert Lindneux, 1942

Roger M McCoy
  Forced migration or incarceration of an entire population is usually motivated by racism with a heavy dose of greed for land. One such tragedy was the forced migration of Native American tribes from the southeastern states to an area designated as Indian Territory, (now Oklahoma) and the largest such migration was of the Cherokee nation in 1838.
Along with the U.S. government policy of forced ceding of Indian land, was a policy of preparing the Indians for assimilation into white society. In the nineteenth century the U.S. government abetted by Christian churches and missionaries attempted to force assimilation of all tribes by complete eradication of Native cultures. This effort included violent dispossession of land, prohibiting Native languages, and changing Native lifestyles. Even in the early twentieth century, Indian children were sent to “white” boarding schools to try to enculturate them, also all native American artwork and language was disallowed. Despite a significant disadvantage in political power and material resources, Native Americans developed a resistance to assimilation to ensure the survival of their communities. These government assimilation efforts were particularly successful among the tribes who became known as “The Five Civilized Tribes:” Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole. The Cherokees went furthest in becoming “civilized” in the hope it would protect them against continued encroachment by white settlers. They adopted European-style farming, set up grist mills and lumber mills, lived in European-style houses, and converted to Christianity. They even devised their own alphabet so they could write their language, and wrote a constitution for the Cherokee nation with the expectation of recognition as an independent entity.

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   The state of Georgia objected that recognition of the Cherokee’s as sovereign nation would create a state within a state and demanded that the government remove them. Other states made the same demands. To prevent a constitutional crisis President Jackson ordered compulsory removal. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 required the relocation of more than 100,000 Indians living east of the Mississippi River. White settlers had begun encroaching on Indian lands in the Southeast soon after the Revolutionary War and the squatters eventually brought pressure on the federal government to remove the Indians. In the beginning, inducements were offered to encourage voluntary migration as much as possible. Many voluntary relocations occurred but not enough to satisfy the terms of the Indian Removal Act. President Jackson negotiated a land exchange treaty with the Cherokee. Forced relocations were then carried out by U.S. government. Tribes subjected to movement between 1830 and 1850 were of the Cherokee, Muscogee, Seminole, Chickasaw, Creek, and Choctaw nations located primarily in the southeastern states. Each tribal relocation has a tragic story of hardship and illness, but the experience of the Cherokees was especially hard. The Cherokees referred to their ordeal as the “trail that made us cry,” and became known as the Trail of Tears.
In late summer of 1838 a group of Cherokees left the stockade where they had been held for months awaiting the beginning of their long journey. One of them later recalled, “At this very moment a low sound of distant thunder fell on my ear. In the western direction a dark spiral cloud was rising above the horizon and sent forth a murmur I almost fancied a voice of divine indignation for the wrongs of my poor unhappy countrymen, driven by brutal power from all they loved and cherished in the land of their fathers, to satisfy the cravings of avarice.” Others who saw the cloud also regarded it as an omen of tragedy.
Another writer observed the looks of sadness and anger on the Cherokee’s faces: “Some carry a downcast look of despair, others have a wild frantic appearance as if they were about to pounce like a tiger upon their enemies.” Above all they felt they had been betrayed by the U.S. government, especially by President Andrew Jackson himself.
Relocation of so many people over a distance of up to a 1,000 miles, depending on the route taken, would be daunting task even today. In the nineteenth century it was brutal. The Cherokees were not moved as one single unit, but traveled in several groups of varying size over dirt roads that turned into impassable mud mires during rainy periods. In hilly areas the Cherokees often had to double team the wagons. River crossings provided other problems. Low water season on the Tennessee River required long waits for the water to rise enough for a ferry to operate. Winter ice floes on the Mississippi often stopped crossing for a month or more. Even with ideal conditions river crossings were a major operation. One group of 1,766 people, eighty-eight wagons, 881 horses, and many oxen required two and a half days to cross the Tennessee River in fair weather, using four ferries from early morning to late evening. The treks continued in the heat of summer and the cold blasts of winter. A limited number of people, the elderly and disabled, were able to ride in a wagon or on horseback. One observer wrote, “Many go on horseback and multitudes go on foot—even aged females, apparently nearly ready to drop into the grave, were traveling with heavy burdens on their back—on the sometimes frozen ground and sometimes muddy roads, with no covering for their feet except what nature had given them.”
    Government escorts determined campsites in advance at ten to fifteen mile intervals, which was considered a day’s journey for such a large group. Campsites must have ample space for wagons plus grass for livestock. Shelter was canvas tents and food was primarily cornmeal and salt pork. The lack of clean drinking water was a frequent problem sometime leading to sickness. Also illnesses such as measles, whooping cough, dysentery, and respiratory infections often swept through the migrant groups. Army doctors and Cherokee doctors treated the illnesses as well as possible under the adverse conditions, but the Cherokee doctors were hampered by the lack of herbs they normally found in their native area.
Some Cherokee groups took a route that used river boats for much of the trip. This required overland travel to the Tennessee River system, then downstream to the Ohio River, to the Mississippi River, to the mouth of the Arkansas River, then upstream on the Arkansas River to the eastern parts of the new Indian Territory (east of present day Tulsa, Oklahoma).
The Cherokees arrived in the Indian Territory exhausted and discouraged. Of 16,000 Cherokees who trekked from the east, 4,000 died enroute. The U.S. government had agreed to provide rations for a year after arriving in Indian Territory. Provisions consisted of salt pork or fresh beef, wheat flour, corn, and salt. Unfortunately distribution was erratic and the Cherokees went through periods of ample food supplies followed by periods of scarcity.
Looking at the Trail of Tears today we can see some ugly underlying motives, namely racism and greed for land owned by Native Americans. Unfortunately these impulses were given the sanction of the U.S. government thus subverting the ideals of America. In the nineteenth century few Americans, except the tribes, were aware of the tragedy of the Trail of Tears, and many who were aware failed to see it as a tragedy.
In 2006 the then Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, Chadwick Smith, wrote, “…this episode of history should be studied because it is the culmination of two sins that have plagued humankind since the beginning of time: simple greed and lust for power.” He further added, “We are a people who have faced adversity, survived, adapted, and who now prosper and excel.”

Sources
Haywood, John. The Great Migrations. London: Quercus Books. 2008.
King, Duane. The Cherokee Trail of Tears. Portland, Oregon: Graphic Arts Books. 2007.
Perdue, Theda and Michael Green. The Cherokee Nation Trail of Tears. New York:            Penguin Books. 2007

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The Silk Road

4/21/2019

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A simplified version of the Silk Road network of land and sea routes.

This caravanserai, or roadside inn, provided Silk Road travelers a place to rest and recover during journeys. It was built between the third and fifth centuries CE.

Roger M McCoy
   When China and ancient Persia (present day Iran) were the two world centers of power, wealth, and culture during the sixth century BCE, it was natural that trade would develop between them. With the rise of the Roman Empire, trade extended westward into Europe. Changes came about when the Romans gained control over much of western Asia and discovered the many luxuries from the Far East. Citizens of Rome gladly embraced these new luxuries and prosperity grew for the Empire as a whole. Eventually the chief Asian export, silk, led to such a change in Roman lifestyle that the writer Seneca, around 60 BCE, claimed that silk caused a decline into social decadence because the new clinging Asian fabric showed too much of the female figure, but few people listened to his rant. In the first century CE, Pliny the Elder complained that the cost of silk was so inflated that an excessive amount of money was being sent to foreign countries. There is ample evidence, however, that Roman goods traveled the trail eastward as well. For example Roman glassware, silver and gold objects, and other artifacts have been discovered in archeological sites in China and the Korean peninsula. Clearly silk was a driving force in international trade.
    Naturally Europeans thought of starting their own silk industry. The Byzantine Emperor Justinian, who ruled from 527–565 CE, sent monks to China to steal some highly guarded silkworm eggs. Thus silk production entered into the Mediterranean area centered on Constantinople. Because the quality of Chinese silk was still far superior to anything produced in Europe, silk trade along the trail continued to thrive.
The routes known as the Silk Road eventually formed a widespread network including sea routes from India and China. Goods moving eastward included dates, nuts, and saffron from Persia, glass bottles from Egypt, myrrh from East Africa, and European goods such as fine glassware and objects of gold and silver. In return the caravans brought bolts of silk cloth, lacquerware, and fine porcelain from China, and sandalwood and spices from India via southern routes. Several southward spurs allowed traders to reach the sea and continue the journey by ship. The ocean route of the Silk Road connected China to Southeast Asia, Indonesia, then on to India, Persia, and Egypt. After a short overland transfer at the neck of land where the Suez Canal is now located, goods were carried on to Europe. Not surprisingly silk was used as the common currency along these routes. Towns and merchants along the route also prospered by the passing caravans. On the land routes a network of shelters were built with accommodations and provisions for camels and people, like early-day motels.
     In 1271 Marco Polo, who went to China to visit the Kublai Kahn, traveled most of his journey overland along the Silk Road. Polo gave some idea of the immensity and emptiness of the land of Central Asia when he later wrote, “You can ride for twenty days without finding any inhabited spot, so that travelers are obliged to carry all their provisions with them, and we are constantly falling in with those wild beasts which are so numerous and dangerous.” Some analysts of Polo’s writing have found that he sometimes exaggerated and manufactured details. The book of his experiences is titled, Book of the Marvels of the World, usually called, The Travels of Marco Polo.

  Although the primary use of the Silk Road was commerce, other important movements also used the Road. Mainly the network of routes making up the Silk Road became important in the spreading and mixing of Greek, Persian, Indian, and Chinese cultures. One example is the spread of religions. Buddhism and Christianity each moved into China along these routes beginning as early as the first century CE. After the seventh century Islam also spread to the east. Unsurprisingly the interaction of these Eastern and Western cultures also influenced their art. One example is the influence of Greek art on India’s Buddhist art, during the period between the conquests of Alexander the Great in the fourth century BCE and the spread of Islam in the seventh century CE. During the seventh century Persian craftsmen emigrated along the road into China bringing finely made works of silver to the great Tang Dynasty.
   Part of the Silk Road still exists as a paved highway connecting Pakistan and China. The existing old road was the impetus behind a United Nations plan for a trans-Asian highway and railway. Today the Silk Road has taken a renewed importance as China has made plans to develop improved transportation and trade in Central Asia. In 2013 President Xi Jinping announced that the Silk Road would be reborn as the Belt and Road Initiative, a very ambitious infrastructure project.

Sources
Frankopan, Peter. The Silk Roads: A New History of the World. New York: Vintage
Books, 2017.
Harris, Kate. Lands of Lost Borders: A Journey on the Silk Road. New York: Harper
Collins Publishers, 2018.
Kurlansky, Mark. Salt: A World History. New York: Walker Publishing, 2002.
Monteleone, Davide. A New Silk Road. The New Yorker. January 8, 2018

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How Historic Trails Came To Be.

4/12/2019

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The Silk Road. Fifteenth century illustration on a portolan map.

Roger M McCoy
What first prompted groups of humans to leave a place they had occupied for thousands of years and begin the migrations that populated the world? Perhaps food sources disappeared. Perhaps they were driven out by neighboring tribes who had been forced from their own homeland. The thing is that ever since humans first left east Africa about 75,000-100,000 years ago, they have continued wandering from place to place. Most of those migrations left no permanent trail, even though researchers using DNA analysis now know the general direction and sequence of movements.
   Other migrations have created permanent trails, many of which are still in use today as highway or railroad routes. Some well-known examples in North America are the Oregon Trail, the Santa Fe Trail, and the California Trail, which migrants or merchants followed in hope of better opportunity. Each of these are well-known routes of movement from east to west across parts of North America and continue to be in use today in approximately the same locations. Similar trails exist in many other parts of the world.
   One of the oldest historic trails is the Silk Road used by tradesmen carrying goods from East Asia to Persia and Syria. It is more correct to call the Silk Road a network of trails moving goods from both China and India. Travel and trade began along segments of the route began over 2,000 years ago and continued through the rise and fall of various kingdoms. Eventually the various segments began to connect into a complete trail between China and Europe. During the Middle Ages east-west trade had to pass through the Ottoman Empire which imposed stiff tariffs on Eastern goods (cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and fine fabrics). In the fifteenth century European importers saw strong economic advantages to finding a sea route to the East and urged the rulers of Spain and Portugal to support efforts by Christopher Columbus and Vasco de Gama to reach India by sea. Thus we see that the ancient Silk Road has a connection to the discovery of the New World.
   Not all trails were created by people seeking new opportunity or economic gain. An especially tragic movement of people was a forced relocation of Native Americans from various parts of the southeastern United States into an area designated as Indian Territory, now Oklahoma. Many people died on that forced march known as the Trail of Tears. Other forced movements did not leave trails, such as the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492, or the diaspora from Israel. Religion was also a basis for certain movements or pilgrimages beginning in the Middle Ages. Some of these movements also left trails.
   Before humans had knowledge of other places, the primary cause of migration would have been some change that forced them to leave, e.g. climate change, depletion of necessary resources, or the expulsion of unwanted populations by existing rulers or by invaders. Later as global awareness grew, migration could be prompted by some perceived opportunity in another place…better resources and the potential for trade. Therefore the primary reasons for human migration can be reduced to being forced from a region or being drawn away by distant opportunities. Two other elements that have often led to movement are the expectation of fame and glory and simple human curiosity to know what is in back of beyond.
  In most cases these migrations left trails that have endured through time, and they were used by pilgrims, nomads, merchants, and warriors. They formed a great communication network, and could be called the world’s central nervous system. This series of blogs will look at the origin and purposes of historic trails with insight into real experiences by first person descriptions when available. A thread throughout will be the idea of trails as bridges: bridges between eastern and western cultures; bridges between centers of civilization; bridges between markets; and bridges between religious centers.

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Forward>>

Historic Trails Blogs

The Santa Fe Trail

The Hastings Cutoff

The California Trail, Part 2

The California Trail, Part 1

The Trail of Tears

The Silk Road

How Historic Trails Came To Be.

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