In this melancholy, engrossing narrative, historian Walker (Bear Flag Rising: The Conquest of California, 1846) tells the story of early emigration to the Pacific Northwest (from the 1810s to 1848, when America acquired most of the Western territories). "My ambition," Walker writes, was "to answer the questions I imagined the Platte River natives asking: Where were all these people going and why?" Proceeding chronologically, Walker looks for answers in pioneers' biographies. Drawing from the writings of well-known figures (like Washington Irving and Francis Parkman) and the letters of common travelers (mountain men seeking their fortune west of St. Louis, missionaries who aimed to convert reluctant Blackfeet and civilians traveling in overloaded caravans), he recounts not only the harrowing conditions on the Oregon Trail but the economic, geopolitical and personal reasons for westward migration. John Jacob Astor sent traders to the Columbia River basin in hopes of establishing a fur-trading empire; countless numbers went in search of gold; a few eccentrics went to find spiritual meaning. But they all got more than they bargained for in the way of Indian raids, mountain climbs, flooding rapids, desert heat, drifting snow and difficult terrain. Their journeys, he argues, did shape international politics, however. Not only did settlers' conflicts with (and betrayals of) Indians determine the future of the domestic frontier, the Oregon Trail eventually lured enough settlers to force Britain into an accommodation on boundaries with Canada. Walker constructs a compelling narrative that is a string of unusual profiles rather than an analytic account of a major event in American history. (Aug.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
The story of the European settlement of the Oregon Country (modern-day Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and western Wyoming) probably starts as early as 1543, when a Spanish explorer is supposed to have reached as far north as Klamath, CA. Walker, however, pays attention primarily to post-1800 efforts, briefly noting that, by the time of the Lewis and Clark expedition, fur trappers had been visiting the area for two centuries. This popular history covers the role of the Hudson Bay Company, John Jacob Astor, and a raft of missionaries, adventurers, lunatics, visionaries, explorers, thieves, and conquerors. Walker is the author of the more satisfactory The Boys of '98, which is considerably more accessible than this rather confusingly organized history of a much more complex subject. For public libraries with regional history collections or seeking tie-ins to the upcoming Lewis and Clark bicentennial.DEdwin B. Burgess, U.S. Army Combined Arms Research Lib., Fort Leavenworth, KS
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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