Prose Sketches and Poems, Written in the Western Country
Prose Sketches and Poems, Written in the Western Country

Author: Albert Pike

Publisher: Texas A&M University Press

Published: 1987

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13:

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Few copies of the original 1834 edition of this volume are known to exist today. It is more than just a rare book, though; it is also a unique item of Southwestern Americana that defies classification as reminiscence, fiction, or poetry, for it is all of these. In these literary forms Albert Pike became New Mexico's first Anglo-American short story writer and poet, and the narrative portion of his book is one of the earliest American travel accounts from the Mexican borderland. Pike's restless nature led him to follow the Santa Fe trail at a historic period only ten years after its opening, and he made his return through an uncharted area of the Comanche country of Texas. While not the first to explore the Taos-Santa Fe area of New Mexico, Pike gave the most detailed outsider's view of the area and its people at that time, recording his impressions in both short stories and reminiscences. This 1967 edition of Prose Sketches and Poems contains an illuminating introduction by David J. Weber, who gives a short biography of Pike's life and explanatory footnotes. The editor also has taken from contemporary newspapers and appended here eight more of Pike's short stories, which did not appear in the original book.

Prose Sketches and Poems
Prose Sketches and Poems

Author: Pike Albert 1809-1891

Publisher: Palala Press

Published: 2016-05-05

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 9781355541240

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This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Kit Carson Days, 1809-1868
Kit Carson Days, 1809-1868

Author: Edwin Legrand Sabin

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 1935-01-01

Total Pages: 524

ISBN-13: 9780803292383

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Volume 1 of Kit Carson Days shows Carson running away from his Missouri home at age fifteen in 1826. He joins a caravan headed toward Santa Fe and in the coming years shuttles between poverty and prosperity as a wrangler, teamster, and trapper. He lives all over the unplotted West, helping to open trails, harvesting fur, befriending mountain men, and fighting and trading with Indians. Carson’s reputation grows after John C. Frémont engages him as guide in 1842. He proves indispensable to the Pathfinder in three expeditions and plays a part in the Bear Flag Rebellion. The first volume is an encyclopedia of activity in the West during the first part of the nineteenth century, bringing into play such figures as Ewing Young, William Ashley, Jim Bridger, Jedediah Smith, Thomas Fitzpatrick, Hugh Glass, John Colter, William Sublette, Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, William Bent, Stephen Kearny, President James K. Polk, John Sutter, and Nathaniel Wyeth. This revised edition includes vivid chapters on the mountain man, his character, habits, clothing, and equipment. Volume 2 begins with Carson carrying the news of the conquest of California across the country to Washington, D.C., stopping en route to see his wife in Taos, New Mexico. The older Carson consolidates his fame as a courier, scout, soldier, and Indian agent. Americans, avid for newfound gold, turn to him as an authority on trail lore, and the government recognizes his usefulness in dealing with “the Indian problem.” Carson is seen against the larger background of incessant warfare in the Southwest after midcentury. He fights the Kiowas at Adobe Walls, chases the Apaches, and forces the Navajos into the Bosque Redondo. He fights in the Civil War and retires at fifty-eight—but dies two years later in 1868.

The Buffalo Soldier Tragedy of 1877
The Buffalo Soldier Tragedy of 1877

Author: Paul Howard Carlson

Publisher: Texas A&M University Press

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 194

ISBN-13: 1603446699

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The year 1877 was a drought year in West Texas. That summer, some forty buffalo soldiers struck out into the Llano Estacado, pursuing a band of raiding Comanches. Several days later they were missing and presumed dead from thirst. Although most of the soldiers straggled back into camp, four died, and others faced court-martial for desertion. Here, Carlson provides insight into the interaction of soldiers, hunters, settlers, and Indians on the Staked Plains.

The American Elsewhere
The American Elsewhere

Author: Jimmy L. Bryan Jr.

Publisher: University Press of Kansas

Published: 2017-09-15

Total Pages: 406

ISBN-13: 0700624783

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As important cultural icons of the early nineteenth-century United States, adventurers energized the mythologies of the West and contributed to the justifications of territorial conquest. They told stories of exhilarating perils, boundless landscapes, and erotic encounters that elevated their chauvinism, avarice, and violence into forms of nobility. As self-proclaimed avatars of American exceptionalism, Jimmy L. Bryan Jr. suggests in The American Elsewhere, adventurers transformed westward expansion into a project of romantic nationalism. A study of US expansionism from 1815–1848, The American Elsewhere delves into the “adventurelogues” of the era to reveal the emotional world of men who sought escape from the anonymity of the urban East and pressures of the Market Revolution. As volunteers, trappers, traders, or curiosity seekers, they stepped into “elsewheres,” distant and dangerous. With their words and art, they entered these unfamiliar realms that had fostered caution and apprehension, and they reimagined them as regions that awakened romantic and reckless optimism. In doing so, Bryan shows, adventurers created the figure of the remarkable American male that generated a wide appeal and encouraged a personal investment in nationhood among their audiences. Bryan provides a thorough reading of a wide variety of sources—including correspondence, travel accounts, fiction, poetry, artwork, and material culture—and finds that adventurers told stories and shaped images that beguiled a generation of Americans into believing in their own exceptionality and in their destiny to conquer the continent.