From Publishers Weekly
The famous trail of romantic western lore was established in about 1610 by Spanish settlers of Mexico who had explored western and southern regions of North America long before the French and English arrived. Stretching 900 miles from its origin in Santa Fe through present-day Colorado and Kansas, the trail, originally a combination of many old paths worn down by buffalo, ends in Franklin, Mo. Enterprising Americans from the east soon discovered that the Spanish of Santa Fe and the nearby Indians had many material needs (cotton prints, factory products, including the latest guns and ammunition, whiskey) that they could supply very profitably. Thus the Santa Fe Trail came to be known as a key commercial link to the west. On their return trips, tradesmen brought back Mexican products like wool, buffalo hides and horses, mules, gold coins, gold dust and silver. Dary (Cowboy Culture; Red Blood and Black Ink, etc.), a leading historian of the Old West, draws on original newspaper stories, letters, diaries, books and expedition records to re-create the adventures of many tough and colorful people who endured a journey that might take more than two months, if they were lucky enough to survive severe hardship, bad weather, broken axles and marauding tribes. The Santa Fe Trail continued to serve as the heart of the "commerce of the prairies" until it was replaced in the 1860s by railroads. (Nov. 17)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Unlike the Oregon Trail, a conduit for emigrants, the Santa Fe Trail was primarily a route for commerce. It prospered, despite terrific dangers to those who traveled it, because goods brought over the trail were considerably less expensive than those brought to Santa Fe via the competing route to Chihuahua and Mexico City. For devotees of the history of the West, Dary is the consummate guide to the annals of the trail. Opening with background on the Spanish crown's conquest and establishment of the province of New Mexico, and Santa Fe's founding in 1610, Dary passes quickly over the somnolent century and a quarter that followed and quickens the story with the first French traders, who pushed off from the Missouri River to brave the parched plains. The first recorded attempt, in about 1715, failed, but one in 1739 succeeded, with its leader writing of his near-death experience in an Indian attack. Indeed, a red-blooded and often brutal motif reigns over Dary's narrative, with trader/Indian skirmishes running right through to the trail's decline with the coming of the railroad in the 1860s. The dangers of ambush induced an occasional trader to bury his bullion rather than lose it to the Pawnees or Comanches, creating legends of buried treasure that Dary integrates with well-known facts about life on the trail. As he proceeds from Zebulon Pike's trek to Santa Fe in 1807 to the daring pioneering trading caravan of William Becknell in 1821 to the growth of trading posts and towns along the trail, the reader grows increasingly impressed with Dary's rendering of a balanced, comprehensive, and suitably dramatic story: it should become the standard source for the trail's history for some years to come.
Gilbert TalylorCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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