jjares reviewed The Santa Fe Trail: The History and Legacy of 19th Century America?s Most Popular Overland Route to the Southwest on + 3294 more book reviews
The obstacles that travelers across America faced were bitter weather, potentially deadly illnesses, and animals, hostile Native Americans, and an unforgiving landscape. The jumping-off spot for the trip overland was (at first) Franklin, Missouri. The trail went all the way to Santa Fe, which at that time was part of the newly independent country of Mexico. This trail was the way people traveled from 1822 till 1880 when the trains reached Santa Fe. The trip was about 870 miles in length.
This certainly wasn't the way Texas history was explained to me in school. We learned that Stephen Austin and his happy band of 300 settlers eagerly became Catholic and abandoned all idea of having slaves in the land they were given in Texas. The teachers also neglected to mention that indigenous Indians and the 2500 Mexicans already living there weren't happy with the new people who moved to Texas.
This book is most interesting; I learned things about mules vs. oxen that I'd never heard about while reading many, many books on the subject of settlers moving overland during the mid-and-late-1800s. The descriptions of various problems the settlers faced were also enlightening. I liked the fact that the settlers and travelers were quoted extensively.
The belief in Manifest Destiny was at the root of the Mexican-American War. That issue, coupled with the Texans creating an independent republic and being annexed by the US, created the impossibility of avoiding war. After the two-year war ended in 1848, there were huge ramifications for the US. The pro and anti-slavery groups were stymied by the admission of so many new states.
The information about the Mormons in this book was eye-opening. This book offered a taste of the continuing conflicts between Mormons and anti-Mormons as they moved westwardly to Utah. I've already decided that I need to find a book on the Mormon Wars.
For some 60 years, the Santa Fe Trail was the backbone of travel through the southwest, whether for finding new land to settle upon or to use it as a trading route. Initially, when the transcontinental train got started, both the overland trail and the trains coexisted. However, soon the economics of cheaper train travel drove the traders and settlers to abandon the trail in favor of the train.
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This certainly wasn't the way Texas history was explained to me in school. We learned that Stephen Austin and his happy band of 300 settlers eagerly became Catholic and abandoned all idea of having slaves in the land they were given in Texas. The teachers also neglected to mention that indigenous Indians and the 2500 Mexicans already living there weren't happy with the new people who moved to Texas.
This book is most interesting; I learned things about mules vs. oxen that I'd never heard about while reading many, many books on the subject of settlers moving overland during the mid-and-late-1800s. The descriptions of various problems the settlers faced were also enlightening. I liked the fact that the settlers and travelers were quoted extensively.
The belief in Manifest Destiny was at the root of the Mexican-American War. That issue, coupled with the Texans creating an independent republic and being annexed by the US, created the impossibility of avoiding war. After the two-year war ended in 1848, there were huge ramifications for the US. The pro and anti-slavery groups were stymied by the admission of so many new states.
The information about the Mormons in this book was eye-opening. This book offered a taste of the continuing conflicts between Mormons and anti-Mormons as they moved westwardly to Utah. I've already decided that I need to find a book on the Mormon Wars.
For some 60 years, the Santa Fe Trail was the backbone of travel through the southwest, whether for finding new land to settle upon or to use it as a trading route. Initially, when the transcontinental train got started, both the overland trail and the trains coexisted. However, soon the economics of cheaper train travel drove the traders and settlers to abandon the trail in favor of the train.
Read less
