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The Oregon Trail: Francis Parkman's Famous History of the 1846 Expedition

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Before his death in the early 1890's, Francis Parkman would be hailed by many as North America's greatest historian. One of his first major works, The Oregon Trail, illustrates why. Written in 1847, the book chronicles an extensive journey by the youthful Parkman and his loyal friend Quincy Shaw the previous spring and summer. Parkman's express purpose was to see the "real" American West and live among "real" American Indians before their way of life passed forever. A vigorous young man, possessed of a keen intellect and observant eye, and already blessed with a rare and masterful prose style, Parkman chronicles his journey from St. Louis into the heart of the largely "unknown" American Plains. Peopled then by only a few white traders, trappers and ruffians, slowly pushing their way into the domain of the Pawnee, Comanche, Arapaho, Dakota, "Shienne", Snakes and Crows, the West was a truly wild and dangerous place - and Parkman revels in it, providing meticulous descriptions of the landscape, people, and struggle for life and lifeways that would soon be no more.

Along the way Parkman introduces you to the men of Fort Laramie (established and maintained by traders, long before soldiers came to the territory), lives amongst a Dakota band, hunts buffalo, weathers awe-inspiring Plains' thunderstorms and periods of drought, explores the Black Hills, the Rocky Mountains, and New Mexico. His journey takes him up the Missouri River, the Platte, the Arkansas and more. And far more than describe fascinating places and events, Parkman charms with full renderings of the characters he meets along the way: redoubtable hunter and guide Henry Chatillion, muleteer and cook Delorier, the dolorous Raymond and Reynal, jester Tete Rouge, hundreds of loathesome "pioneers", Indians Mene-Seela, Smoke, Whirlwind, Hail Storm, Big Crow and more. All characters worthy of Mark Twain. Plus, we are made witness to Parkman and Shaw's slow transformation from adventurous young Bostonian scholars to worthy "plainsmen".

Even before finishing his college studies, Parkman declared that his ambition was to chronicle the "struggle for the continent". He achieved his goal in glorious measure. Parkman's works on the founding of "New France", LaSalle's explorations, the French/Indian Wars, Pontiac's conspiracy, Montcalm and Wolfe, etc., remain standards today, rich source material for authors from DeVoto to Eckert.

His brilliance lies in the fact that Parkman was no "arm chair" historian. His research was not limited to books and papers found in libraries from Boston to London and Paris. He personally visited nearly every town, battlefield, and waterway he wrote about. Parkman was also deeply committed to understanding the effects of the English/French/American struggles for the continent on the hundreds of North American tribes that were caught in the middle. To wit, the "Oregon Trail" trip to the Plains of the 1840s was designed to assist the historian's mind in understanding what was lost by eastern tribes decimated during the wars and land-lust of the preceding century. Even then Parkman foresaw a similar misfortune for western tribes: loss of free roaming on their ancestral lands; extinction of the buffalo; the ravaging effects of disease, whiskey and other evils of white contact. But Parkman was no romantic. He refers to the various tribes and some individuals (both white and red) as "savages", revealing a touch of his mid-1800s Bostonian elitism, yet by no means can Parkman be considered a closed-minded misanthrope. His life's work, starting with The Oregon Trail, reveals far too much sensitivity and fairness of thought for that label to stick. Read this, then dive into Parkman's later work on the history of Canada and early America. It is astonishingly good stuff!

Francis Parkman lived the Oregon Trail, slept it, ate it, marveled at it, and wrote an excellent memoir that leaves one with the feel of sand in your boots and the smell of buffalo roasting on the fire.

As a young man, Parkman went out west in 1846 to discover the American Indian. Setting out from Independence, Mo., Parkman proceeded to Ft. Larime (Wyoming), spent many weeks with a band of Indians as they hunted buffalo and secured life's necessities for the coming season, and returned to "the settlements" via Bent's Fort (Colorado) and the upper Santa Fe Trail. (Making this wonderful book misnamed since he was only on about the first 1/3 of the Oregon Trail and never crossed the Rockies).

What Parkman has left us is a wonderfully descriptive first person account of overland travel in the rugged west and the life of the Indian (as viewed by an outsider).

The strength of this book is in the details. Parkman has a keen eye whether it is turned towards imposing landscapes, Indian village life and travel, or buffalo hunting. This book has a gritty feel that paints the grandeur of western vistas as well as the hard reality of subsistence life (both Indian and white traveler) lived outdoors in a frequently unforgiving land.

Parkman's voice does have a 19th century feel. Modern readers will find he over-introduces new subjects (ie, "since, reader, we are telling of a buffalo hunt, now is a good time to acquaint you with the manner in which buffalo are brought to ground.") and the book does not have the flow associated with more contemporary writing. His attitudes towards Indians reflect the majority view of that time period and he was certainly at times a gratuitous hunter.

But the book's descriptive power, as well as the fascinating telling of life among the Indians and on the plains makes this well worth the time. This is a first person account that speaks of authenticity and gave me a feel for "what it must have been like." A good read.

The Oregon Trail still stands as a classic of American literature and of a rapidly vanishing past. Written as an account of a summer he spent traveling the Oregon Trail, Parkman captures the details of communal Native American life with no sentimentality, just hard reality. Even though written in 1846, Parkman is amazingly precise in his estimation of the vanishing frontier and Native American way of life. At times, he is rather callous toward the Native Americans, but this also reflects his times and environment. Highly recommended.

Living at the main jumping-off point of the Oregon, Santa Fe and California Trails, and having traveled frequently throughout the great plains and Rocky Mountains, I thought this book would be a good read. I wasn't disappointed.
The book chronicles the author's trip along the Oregon Trail in the Spring and Summer of 1846. He begins by joining a group of fellow adventurers at Westport, Missouri, in present day Kansas City. Together they embark for Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. From there they head out to the plains, visiting Fort Laramie in Wyoming and the Black Hills of South Dakota. While in this general vicinity, the author joins a band of Indians and lives with them for a prolonged period, richly detailing the living conditions and customs of a Plains tribe at this time. He accompanies the tribe on a hunting trip to the Black Hills where he details this pristine area before the onrush of white encroachers after Custer's 1873 expedition.
The title of the book is somewhat misleading in that the author doesn't travel the entire Oregon Trail. In fact he only traverses about 1/3 of the trail, for he returns to Fort Laramie after his stay with the Indians where he regroups with his party before heading to Bent's Fort in Colorado. The country in between these two forts is vividly illustrated by his pen as is the fort itself upon his arrival.
At the fort his party is joined by a jester of sorts, a mentally ill volunteer soldier who had been left behind by his unit on their way to fight in the Mexican War which had begun just prior to the author's trip. He gives a colorful description of this man and his odd attributes during their return trip to civilization.
The party follows the Arkansas River through Kansas on their way back to Westport. Along the way they meet Indians and groups of soldiers marhing along the Santa Fe Trail toward action in Mexico and California. They also partake in hunting buffalo and of this experience the author does an exceptional job of putting the reader at the scene of the hunt. While this makes for exciting reading, it is also sad when one reflects that actions such as those of this party would later lead to the near extinction of the bufalo as well as the irradication of the plains' Indians lifestyle.
Having been on the plains, I felt that the author did a good job of describing the varying weather there, from the oppresive heat to the violent storms. I found it interesting that whenever one of these storms should arrive, the author and his companions would seek shelter below trees, contrary to what we are taught today. But then again, being caught out on the open plains with no adequate shelter when one of these tempests arose, I suppose one can see the reasoning in their actions.
This book was a quick read and I found it very educational. It was fun to see the plains through the eyes of someone who had been there when they were still little touched by civilization. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the period, as well as to those who are studying the history of the nation's development or thinking of traveling in this part of the country.

Francis Parkman lived the Oregon Trail, slept it, ate it, marveled at it, and wrote an excellent memoir that leaves one with the feel of sand in your boots and the smell of buffalo roasting on the fire.

As a young man, Parkman went out west in 1846 to discover the American Indian. Setting out from Independence, Mo., Parkman proceeded to Ft. Larime (Wyoming), spent many weeks with a band of Indians as they hunted buffalo and secured life's necessities for the coming season, and returned to "the settlements" via Bent's Fort (Colorado) and the upper Santa Fe Trail. (Making this wonderful book misnamed since he was only on about the first 1/3 of the Oregon Trail and never crossed the Rockies).

What Parkman has left us is a wonderfully descriptive first person account of overland travel in the rugged west and the life of the Indian (as viewed by an outsider).

The strength of this book is in the details. Parkman has a keen eye whether it is turned towards imposing landscapes, Indian village life and travel, or buffalo hunting. This book has a gritty feel that paints the grandeur of western vistas as well as the hard reality of subsistence life (both Indian and white traveler) lived outdoors in a frequently unforgiving land.

Parkman's voice does have a 19th century feel. Modern readers will find he over-introduces new subjects (ie, "since, reader, we are telling of a buffalo hunt, now is a good time to acquaint you with the manner in which buffalo are brought to ground.") and the book does not have the flow associated with more contemporary writing. His attitudes towards Indians reflect the majority view of that time period and he was certainly at times a gratuitous hunter.

But the book's descriptive power, as well as the fascinating telling of life among the Indians and on the plains makes this well worth the time. This is a first person account that speaks of authenticity and gave me a feel for "what it must have been like." A good read.

I heard this book on tape. For people who are interested in the history of The West and the Indians, this book is a must. I liked it and this wonderful reader so much that I have ordered the tape for several of my friends.

I've read other reviews of this book and books written during the same time that bash Parkman's view and portrayal of the Native Americans and the buffalo hunts described in the book. Many of today's reviewers look at these titles through the lens of a person brought up between 1970 and 2010... and it's natural for us to become uneasy when we read of Native Americans referred to as "savages" and to read descriptions of what we would think of today as buffalo massacres that pushed the herds to the brink of extinction... but, as a life-long student of history I know that it is important for us to try to put on that thick skin and delve into these historical titles, and pare away rhetoric and period stereotypes and mine the true history out of the texts. We already know how a lot of these stories ended because we have the advantage of looking back over the last 200 years -- our challenge is to remember the context in which they were written.

On April 28, 1846, Francis Parkman, who had already decided that he was going to write the history of the settling of America, and Quincy Adams Shaw set forth from St. Louis up the Missouri River for a "tour of curiosity and amusement to the Rocky Mountains." They traveled some 1700 miles, meeting trappers, gamblers, woodsmen, soldiers and Indians and Parkman eventually spent three weeks hunting buffalo with a band of Oglala Sioux. The following year he published this travelogue which remains one of the great books ever produced by an American and embarked him on a career as one of Americaís first great historians.

On their trip, they were accompanied by Henry Chatillon, a hunter & guide, and Deslauriers, a muleteer. Parkman, in a passage which nicely illustrates his mastery of descriptive technique, sketches them as follows:

Deslauriers was a Canadian, with all the characteristics of the true Jean Baptiste. Neither fatigue,
exposure, nor hard labor could ever impair his cheerfulness and gayety, or his politeness to his
bourgeois; and when night came, he would sit down by the fire, smoke his pipe, and tell stories
with the utmost contentment. The prairie was his element. Henry Chatillon was of a different
stamp. When we were at St. Louis, several gentleman of the Fur Company had kindly offered to
procure for us a hunter and guide suited for our purposes, and on coming one afternoon to the
office, we found there a tall and exceedingly well-dressed man, with a face so open and frank that it
attracted our notice at once. We were surprised at being told that that it was he who wished to
guide us to the mountains. He was born in a little French town near St. Louis, and from the age of
fifteen years had been constantly in the neighborhood of the Rocky Mountains, employed for the
most part by the company, to supply their forts with buffalo meat. As a hunter, he had but one
rival in the whole region, a man named Simoneau, with whom, to the honor of both of them, he
was on the terms of closest friendship. He had arrived at St. Louis the day before, from the
mountains, where he had been for four years; and he now asked only to go and spend a day with
his mother, before setting out on another expedition. His age was about thirty; and he was six feet
high, and very powerfully and gracefully moulded. The prairies had been his school; he could
neither read nor write, but he had a natural refinement and delicacy of mind, such as is rare even in
women. His manly face was a mirror of uprightness, simplicity, and kindness of heart; he had,
moreover, a keen perception of character, and a tact that would preserve him from flagrant error in
any society. Henry had not the restless energy of an Anglo-American. He was content to take
things as he found them; and his chief fault arose from an excess of easy generosity, not conducive
to thriving in the world. Yet it was commonly remarked of him, that whatever he might choose to
do with what belonged to himself, the property of others was always safe in his hands. His bravery
was as much celebrated in the mountains as his skill in hunting; but it is characteristic of him that in
a country where the rifle is the chief arbiter between man and man, he was very seldom involved in
quarrels. Once or twice, indeed, his quiet good nature had been mistaken and presumed upon, but
the consequences of the error were such, that no one was ever known to repeat it. No better
evidence of the intrepidity of his temper could be asked, than the common report that he had killed
more than thirty grizzly bears. He was a proof of what unaided nature will sometimes do. I have
never, in the city or in the wilderness, met a better man than my true-hearted friend, Henry
Chatillon."

Any man would consider his life well spent if he could inspire that portrait. But lest you think he's too pedantic, he also writes with great humor, to wit:

Whiskey, by the way, circulates more freely in Westport than is altogether safe in a place where
every man carries a loaded pistol in his pocket.

or try this remark on setting out from Fort Leavenworth:

Thus we bade a long adieu to bed and board, and the principles of Blackstoneís commentaries.

Parkman's later work, The French and English in North America, was one of the first works published by the Library of America and it was the first great work of history produced by an American. It is also epic in length, numbering some 2000 pages or so. For a little easier introduction to his work, try The Oregon Trail.

GRADE: A

this real-life journal of a wealthy Bostonian adventurer traveling the Oregon trail in the late 1840s is outstanding in its description and as a historical reference. A must for students of history of the American West.

This is an excellent book giving the reader a first person view of the Frontier in the 1840s. The details make the reader feel as if they were living the adventure themselves.

If you are looking for a book that tells of a journey on the Oregon Trail, this is NOT the book for you. A better for the book title might have been "A Summer On The Frontier: Life Among The Indians and Explorers." The author follows the Oregon Trail until he reaches Fort Laramie, and then spends the rest of his time among the indians who inhabited the plains and badlands at the time.

If you are looking for vivid picture of life among the indians, buffaloes, and explorers, this IS the book for you!