The Santa Fe Trail

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The myth of the Trail was highly unsubstantiated and that these three people have shown that the Trail was typical as a travelling route and they faced similar issues to those that travelled during the same time periods. Each faced a range of challenges and dangers for their journeys. Furthermore they faced these alternate dangers with different ways. Respectively, James Calhoun, tackled his dangers through legislation and discussion with the Government. Josiah Gregg faced his dangers face on, and demonstrates the repeated dangers on each journey as well as those dangers that changed over time. Women faced their dangers alongside their families and again with an alternative approach. The common danger to all of these individuals was Native …show more content…
This trail was no more dangerous than any other mode of transport or trail. Santa Fe only had a small number of Black and Indian, this could reflect the isolation of New Mexico from the more eastern Southwestern states that seded in 1861. This could have been due to improved relations and the increase in treatise agreements between Native Americans and Americans in the 1850’s. Dee Brown notes that the American West as a paradigm part of the nation of a whole and in recent has developed into a cliché with academics debating its myths and realities. Slokin notes that the “mythmakers in this history are not conveyors of folkloric traditions but creators and purveyors of popular literary media.” This supports the argument that the myth has been created in the post Santa Fe Trade era due to dime novels and the exaggerations of the records of the travellers themselves. As such, Slotkin follows that “the frontier myth also became part of a nascent ideology and mythology. The economic pattern it rationalised and the individual virtues it celebrated.” The Santa Fe Trade created a legacy not just literary but culturally as …show more content…
Gregg and others demonstrated the numerous challenges that they faced throughout the period. From animals to Native Americans and even mother-nature posed challenges for each of those that travelled the Trail. Such dangers were not applicable to all of the travels, each trail experienced different dangers in total, and different severity of dangers. Each however, did all they could to protect against such dangers, such as electing a Captain of the Train, and making sure there were watches organised every night for the protection of the Train. Furthermore the military escort encouraged by the government but felt by the traders themselves. Robert E. Riegel and Robert G. Athearn note that “the importance of the Santa Fe Trade was not its dollar value, the average between 1822-1843 was $130,000 with the largest year 1843 totalling $450,000…. In fact the American government provided only moderate protection (six military escorts between 1829-1845) on the grounds that the business did not warrant more.” This demonstrates that although the trade was lucrative it was not the primary reason for the protection for the trade. It was the human elements and the want for settlers that posed the greatest advantage to the
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