Customer Reviews

Down the Santa Fe Trail and into Mexico: The Diary of Susan Shelby Magoffin, 1846-1847 (American Tribal Religions)

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Magoffin was a name familiar to the Mexicans who had trading relations with Susan's husband for years before he married her and took her with him from the states on an expedition to Chihuahua, Mexico. She kept a diary from which she drew her information for the only book I know written by a woman, young and pregnant, whose fate it was to die in her 26th year, at home. Accounts from her perspective at such a crucial time in relations between the United States and Mexico, in a venacular peculiarly her own, make her work one of considerable importance to the serious student of the time. Revealing also are individual encounters with men, some from her own country, and her opinion of Gen. Stephen Watts Kearny, commander of the U.S. Army of the West stationed in Sante Fe. Susan was a young lady of class the exercise of which makes the reader proud, and whose elegance charmed all who came to know her.

Many journals of travelers along the Santa Fe (and Oregon and California) Trail have been published, but Susan Magoffin's ranks among the best of them. Susan Magoffin was born of a wealthy family in Kentucky and had recently married the successful Santa Fe trader Samuel Magoffin. They had spent six months on a honeymoon trip to New York and Philadelphia (about which Susan also kept a journal, though to my knowledge it has not been published), and now, two months after their return to Independence, Missouri, she was to accompany her husband on a caravan transporting goods along the Santa Fe Trail to northern Mexico. She was 18 years old.

Magoffin is as charming as any 18 year old could be, and it's a joy for the reader to share her sense of adventure. She is obviously having the time of her life, despite the inconveniences of broken wagon bows and stormy weather. We also get a view of what life was like for typical travelers on the trail. There is also intrigue to a degree: Samuel's older brother James was on a mission for President Polk preceding Stephen Kearny's troops during the initial stages of the Mexican War, and news about James enters the journal at certain points, including once where he was robbed by the Apaches but somehow escaped with his life. After the trading caravan reached Santa Fe, the Magoffins contined on into Mexico, spending time at Chihuahua. The journal ends on September 8, 1847, and does not include her contracting yellow fever at Matamoras where she also gave birth to a son (he died a few days later). The couple then sailed across the Gulf of Mexico to the Mississippi River and to Susan's family in Kentucky. (Susan would live only another eight years, dying of childbirth at age 27.)

It's a wonderful first-hand account. My only complaint is that I wish editor Stella Drumm had identified locations (camping sites, geographic sites, etc.) mentioned by Magoffin in the journal. Other than that, it's a chronicle that can be read often and always seem fresh and exciting. A must-read record of an important and lively adventure.

It is with some awe in my own breast that I write a review for this remarkable little book, which is a "Historical Diary" and therefore of importance to those who would study history from the human element rather than strictly through footnotes. I offer a quote taken from her that struck me as one of the most unique I have heard uttered - flowing from the mind through the pen and on to posterity from of one of the Pioneers; the raw honesty springing from the personal epic she never designed for others other than family to ever see:

"There is such Independence, so much free, uncontaminated air, which impregnates the mind, the feelings, nay, every thought, with purity. I breathe free without that oppression and uneasiness felt in the gossiping circles felt in the settled home."

The writer is not polished; but her work was never intended to be published. What makes it so intriguing is that she managed to capture the moment, the time, complete with names, descriptions of the country and the peoples as she was thoughtfully living it, something most of us would either not think of doing, or be distracted in the monumental tasks of everyday work in such an environment. Which brings me to the crux of the matter in a hurry: this woman, though very young, was educated, had married a mature, much older man man who had a thriving, though fraught with danger Trade business established on the fringes of the frontiers. She was pampered throughout the journey; yet never seemed to take it for granted. As a result, she could write enthusiastically of events and gather wildflowers at will, almost as a scientific mode arising unintentioned from the moment; this free, unencumbered freedom from heavy responsibility obviously was one of the things that allowed her to devote her time, energy and full attention to matters of the day that were happening around her, while her servants did the mundane work. This alertness is felt throughout the book, even in the midst of the terror of Mexican and Indian attacks that came within miles of their supply train. I don't know how much of this she went back and wrote with a steadier hand, but it appears that she was in full self-control at all times, even during these times of high stress.

Her devotion to her husband is genuine, and is felt in a way much different than many diaries I have read. It seems as though their union was one of love, companionship; yet comprised of a strong sense of individualism, another idea that was rare within that era of female domination. She describes the grass, the cold, sweet limestone water, the suffering of the animals when lack of feed and water arose - it made no difference - the wagons must travel on.

In short, she wrote what is possibly one of the most accurate, historical accountings, unembellished of the Santa Fe Trail at that time simply because she didn't know she was doing it.

If you love old Southwest history, American Frontier History of any kind, you will enjoy this book.

Rarely, even a dedicated bookworm, who has imbibed innumerable books on a plethora of subjects, encounters a story where a narrator's voice becomes alive, distinct and unique. Susan Shelby Magoffin's diary, from 1846-1847, reveals a young American woman wise beyond her years, a delightful encounter between author and reader. The hardships of the journey down the Santa Fe Trail and into Mexico exacted a severe toll on Susan's health - she died at 28. But what a richly lived life this intelligent, finely observant individual had. Her diary expands beyond the confines of its subject matter, to a larger relevance of what a gift it is to look through another's eyes, into their consciousness from long ago, share for awhile their intimate world.

There is one drawback to this memoir: the totally heavy-handed editing of Susan's diary in the 1920's by the prudish and racist librarian and amateur historian Stella M. Drumm. One can be thankful that Drumm convinced Susan's daughter to allow publication of the diary, but at what cost! At least what remains has not been lost to history, as appears the case with the rest of Susan's personal journals. Drumm's stilted footnotes, added to the narrative in 1927, are quite detailed, but are outdated compared to the early original diary, and contain several historic inaccuracies. The extensive footnotes intrude on the flow of Susan's voice, and Drumm chose to exclude later writings, so that the diary ends with shocking abruptness. Susan loved her little dog Ring, and constantly mentions him through the early narrative. Suddenly, he is gone from the text, exhibiting yet more of Drumm's censorious editing decisions. It is surprising that as much of Susan's original voice remains, despite chopping by Drumm.

There is room for misunderstanding when scholars attempt to box Susan into a PC corner, but that approach is irrelevant. Susan's comparison of her miscarriage to the birth of an Indian baby in Fort Bent just underlines her sadness that for all her care and an attentive physician, she still lost her baby. The love and grief of her husband and herself are beautifully described, but this is a resilient young woman, proud of her family's pioneer heritage. This and her faith give her the strength to express her curiosity about the world she and her husband explore. There is a wonderful, dry self-irony, Susan mocks herself time and again, though some may misunderstand this, when she is expressing amusement at herself and the "human condition." Encounters between herself and other cultures are not PC, but no one is spared, least of all herself. It is important to keep in mind the historic context in which this personal journal was written; given this, Susan is remarkably open and curious about other cultures, many times comparing Spanish society as being more civilized than what she was familiar with back home. The things she is critical of, she notes honestly, but without the sweeping prejudice typical of her time period. Susan learns to speak Spanish and goes on to attend Mass is southern New Mexico and Mexico, writing respectfully of her host's culture, gardens, faith, and food, to the point of stating in pure Kentucky vernacular of 1847, "I shall make me a recipe book" (p 209).

More importantly, there is a hidden narrative in these pages that Drumm did not succeed in concealing. Susan and her husband were deeply in love, his respect and cherishing of his young bride is apparent, and her delight in this clear. But Susan's voice changes tone after an encounter in Santa Fe with Dona Juliana, who intrudes upon her hospitality, coming into her home and calling her a little girl, rather than the respectful term Senora. This lady was a great "friend" of the Magoffin brothers. Samuel was 45 years old to Susan's 18 when they married months before this journey. He and his older brother James made the trip to Santa Fe many times as prosperous traders, and maintained a house near the plaza. Dona Juliana is like the snake in the grass trying to steal the joy of the couple, deriding the young bride in the guise of compliments to her husband, in a language Susan is later to become fluent in. After this woman from Sam's past shows up one more time, never to visit again, an elderly Spanish lady comes to visit, and informs Susan that she would have to teach her how to handle men better. The ebullient, effervescent lightness departs from Susan's voice after this. Then, William Magoffin, Samuel's much younger brother, arrives in Santa Fe to join their wagon train. After they depart Santa Fe, for weeks on end Susan cares for William while he is sick, not mentioning her husband at all. Susan suffers torments of guilt, stating her flesh is weak and sinful. Was she attracted to William? After one of Susan's tormented entries, there is a blank spot, where only the date remains (perhaps another instance of Drumm's editing). In El Paso, while Sam is attending business, another older woman asks Susan if she is worried that her husband might be with his other senorita. Susan states that she could have "cried her eyes out" (p 212). Although she knows her husband is loyal, it's clear he engaged in other relationships before marrying. In Mexico, Susan suffers through another pregnancy, stating that, "this thing of marrying is not what it is cracked up to be" (p 245). The diary ends soon after this. Susan gets sick and loses another child. Thankfully, she and her husband seem reconciled before the diary's abrupt end, her tone regained some of its earlier delight.

After all his young wife's suffering, Sam sells their wagons and never works in the trade again, though he could have made a fortune. William too never pursues the family business, instead, he becomes a doctor. James, the older brother who helped Americans and Mexicans negotiate the territory of New Mexico, remained in the trade, based in El Paso, and made a fortune. Howard R. Lamar's introduction provides an excellent historic context for the mysterious role of James, and the profitable business of the Santa Fe traders. Lamar mentions that Susan wrote an earlier diary as well, that "filled an entire volume," about her marriage and an "initial honeymoon trip of six months to New York and Philadelphia" (p xi). One can assume that Susan, such a wonderfully communicative and observant person, continued to document her life after the Mexican sojourn. I wish that someone would unearth Susan Hart Shelby Magoffin's earlier volume and publish it, along with any additional diaries.

Superb read (not a mystery) and evocative account of NM history: Death Comes for the Archbishop (Vintage Classics)

Another original and almost lost Western (Montana) voice: The Story Of Mary MacLane & Other Writings

Spanish Perspective: Romance of a Little Village Girl (Paso Por Aqui : Series on the Nuevomexicano Literary Heritage)

I am an author. I am writing a novel based on my grandmother's life. I'm using this book as a guide to writing her story. She was born in 1863 in Clinton, Iowa and traveled west. The route she took is not know but this book gives a vivid account of the trail and its tribulations and high points.

Positive side: Rare view of this time in history.
Negative: Not very well written, but the young woman was not a professional writer so makes sense. It is best seen as a descriptive diary.
Negative: The font and printing is difficult for me to read. Came close to giving me a headache each time I picked it up to read. Always seemed 'kind of blotchy" and the letters would run together.

All in all, if you have a real interest in this place and time period it is worth the read. If you are looking for a well written story - look elsewhere.

This is very enlightening about the 19th Century southwest. Beyond the foot notes and the writing style for that period the reader will wake up in the 20th Century after feeling the sights and sounds of the southwest.
Anyone interested in The war with Mexico should include this book in their research and/or library.

This is a journal of real American history, written by a young and insightful woman. It is short and fun to live vicariously the adventurous journey of Susan Magoffin. Unfortunatly, she contracted malaria on her journey and there are gaps in her journal due to her illness. Also, she was fearful that her diary would fall into the hands of the enemy, and so left out real significant information. I would recommend this reading to anyone who is interested in American History, especially of the South West.

Hampton Sides, author of the well received Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West, writes about this fine diary:

"Susan Shelby Magoffin was a very dedicated, disciplined diarist. [She] and her husband, a veteran Santa Fe Trail merchant, had just married and were on the Santa Fe Trail when they were overtaken and engulfed by nearly 2,000 troops on their way to conquer New Mexico during the Mexican-American War.... She writes about all of this with considerable amounts of wit and charm ...."

The other reviews here have described some of the strengths and weaknesses of this diary and in particular the decisions made by the original editor of the diary, Stell M. Drumm. But for me like Sides, simply reading this diary by an enthusiastic teenager was a great joy.

You can read this diary simply as an adventure story told from a domestic point of view: details of camplife, the road, the prairies, the wildlife, the buffalo, antelope and fierce birds, terrible storms, toilsome mountain passes, "slippy" river passages, and people: traders, soldiers, teamsters, Native Americans from the plains and the pueblos,

Here are a few of my favorite passages:

Magoffin and her husband came from wealthy and religious Kentucky families, both of which had a history of moving west into frontier communities. She had moved from Pennsylvania to Tennessee to Kentucky before her marriage, but was still somewhat sheltered: "It is disagreeable to hear so much swearing, the animals are unruly 'tis true and worries the patience of their drivers, but I scarcely think they need to be so profane."

in 1846, Samuel Magoffin and his brother James had been involved in the Santa Fe trade, which linked the United States (through Missouri) and Mexico (through Santa Fe), for almost two decades. The Magoffins had economic ties that spread northeast to New York, where Samuel and Susan honeymooned, and south to Chihuahua and Saltillo, where the couple planned to travel.

Magoffin wrote her diary to share with her family back home; she clearly adored her husband and called him "mi alma" throughout. "My journal tells a story tonight different from what it has ever done before" she writes in her first entry: she recognizes the benefits of their wealth, her tent was "a grand affair indeed," and she calls herself a "wandering princess". She clearly appreciated her servants, and Ring, her dog.

To an extent her diary is based on the format of Gregg's Commerce of the Prairies, or, The Journal of a Santa Fé trader, 1831-1839, which she clearly had read: "Passed a great many buffalo (some thousands) ... very ugly, ill-shapen things with their long shaggy hair over their heads and the great hump on their backs...."

Her party catches up with the US Army at Bent's Fort in southeastern Colorado. She was impressed with the prevalence of gambling by the soldiers and other male denizens of the Fort, including the presence of "a regular race track," "the cackling of chickens" for cock-fighting, and "a regularly established billiard room!"

She miscarries at the Fort: "In a few short months I should have been a happy mother and made the heart of a father glad. [The miscarriage is "the ruling hand of a mighty Providence" but "he does not leave us comfortless!" She notes that an Indian woman at the fort "gave birth to a fine healthy baby." The woman "went to the River and bathed herself and it [the baby soon after it was born]. No doubt many ladies in civilized life are ruined by too careful treatments during childbirth, for this custom of the hethen is not known to be disadvantageous, but it is a 'hethenish custom.'"

At Mora, she tempers her original negative opinion of Mexican: "I did think the Mexicans were as void of refinement, judgement & c.[ulture] as the dumb animals till I heard one of them say "bonita muchachita" [pretty little girl]! And now I have reason and certainly a good one for changing my opinion; they are certainly a very quick and intelligent people."

At Santa Fe she meets Barcelo, aka Doña Tules: "the principal monte-bank keeper in Santa Fé, a stately dame of a certain age, the possessor of a portion of that shrewd sense and fascinating manner necessary to allure the wayward, inexperienced youth to the hall of final ruin." She also critiques a priest: [he] "neither preached nor prayed, leaving each one to pray for himself; he repeated some Latin neither understood by himself or his hearers."

The Magoffins left Santa Fe a few days after the Army and meets "the Pueblos or descendants of the original inhabitants - the principal cultivators of the soil...." As a traders wife, she notes: "We can buy in the States the filled bottles for three or four dollars a dozen, drink the liquor, and then sell the empty bottles for six dollars per doz."

The war continued around them and in January, 1847 she writes: the population of New Mexico was "rising between us and Santa Fe...and in truth we are flying before them." On February 1, 1847, she wonders if she would "ever get home again?"

On the lower Rio Grande, she writes: "I'll be rather careful walking out. The Indian is a wily man and one cannot be too precausious when in his territory."

These short extracts give a flavor of a very human and very intersting young woman on an adventure of her lifetime.

Robert C. Ross 2009

Addendum: The New Mexico State Historian has put together a timeline of her life; link in first Comment.

Chronology

July 30, 1827: Susan Shelby born near Danville, Kentucky.
November 25, 1845: Susan Shelby and Samuel Magoffin marry.
June 10, 1846: Magoffins leave Independence, Missouri, to travel "Down the Santa Fe Trail and into Mexico."
July 26, 1846: Magoffins arrive at Bent's Fort.
July 31, 1846: Susan Magoffin suffers miscarriage.
August 7, 1846: Magoffins leave Bent's Fort.
August 31, 1846: Magoffins arrive in Santa Fe.
October 7, 1846: Magoffins leave Santa Fe.
Mid to late October, 1846: Magoffins arrive in San Gabriel.
Late January, 1847: Magoffins leave San Gabriel.
September 8, 1847: Susan Shelby Magoffin's journal ends.
1855: Susan Shelby Magoffin dies.

B.

I found this book communicated very well a sense of actually traveling on the Santa Fe Trail and into Mexico in 1846 and the period of the Mexican American War.

I've seen the book criticized as not scholarly enough and, at the same time, not entertaining enough. While both might apply, the book offers what I found a unique perspective worthy of the relatively quick read.

It would also make the basis of a great movie in the hands of a talented screenwriter. : - )