The Last Book I Read

I haven't written before about what I'm reading, but thought I might start. Unlike movies, which I obviously watch sequentially (that is, one at a time), I'm usually in the middle of three or four books, hence it never really feels like I'm done; even when I finish one I'm still immersed in several others. But I thought it might be worthwhile to offer some comments about at least some of them, especially if I think some readers of the blog might want to look for them the next time they stop by the library or bookstore. So, the last book I finished was Blood and Thunder: The Epic of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West by Hampton Sides.

The cover promises an epic, and it is that. Kit Carson is clearly a central character in the narrative, but this is not a biography, as Carson vanishes from the story for long stretches, though he always eventually pops up again (and emerges as the central character in the latter portion of the book). And, though the idea of conquest is central to the plot, it has more to do with the defeat of a single Indian tribe, the Navajos, than a detailed exposition of how the entire trans-Mississippi region came under American control. I guess what I'm saying is that, don't let the cover mislead you about what this book is all about. The focus is on how the territory known as New Mexico was contested over about twenty years or so, between native peoples and interlopers from the south and later the east. It provides something of a split focus in the early sections, trading off chapters written from the perspective of the American military as it entered the region in the early days of the war with Mexico (and focusing on commanders like Stephen Kearney and John C. Fremont), with those offering more of the Navajo slant (particularly with respect to their famous leader Narbona). This makes for a balanced picture, and Sides does a nice job of developing the complex nature of the various groups' motives, strategies, and interactions. By the latter half of the book, as the timeline jumps ahead to the Civil War era, the overt Navajo perspective starts to fade, but because the reader has already been well-grounded in their background from the earlier chapters, we still feel the emotional weight of their round-up and re-location.

As long and as detailed as this book is, it really represents something of a snapshot of what unfolded in the American West between the days of Lewis and Clark and the end of the Indian wars in the 1890s. But it is an evocative snapshot, that has relevant counterparts almost everywhere in this country (even including much of the eastern portion going back to colonial days). While it is hardly a critique of the policies that led to reservations and even extermination of the natives, it certainly demonstrates how those policies emerged from basic competition for resources that were never as expansive as visionaries of the west (like Thomas Hart Benton or William Gilpin) promised. The ultimate tragedy is that respected and capable individuals like Narbona and Carson were implicated in treacherous acts that allowed the other side to paint them as villains, unleashing less scrupulous individuals like the vicious zealot John M. Chivington, which in turn led to destructive actions that almost always left the Indians especially weakened and vulnerable.

It's a compelling, and ultimately sad story. But at least it goes some way to restoring a human dimension to both sides, getting beyond the dime novel bally-hoo of Carson's career and restoring (for the non-Indian reader) a sense of the rich Navajo heritage of pride and accomplishment.