Kit Carson

Christopher Houston Carson (December 24, 1809 – May 23, 1868) was an American frontiersman, fur trapper, wilderness guide, <a href="/facts/Indian_agent/YF4EKkwE">Indian agent</a> and <a href="/facts/United_States_Army/WACWBEK9">U.S. Army</a> officer. He became an <a href="/facts/American_frontier/J1LYReBP">American frontier</a> legend in his own lifetime through biographies and news articles; exaggerated versions of his exploits were the subject of <a href="/facts/Dime_novels/qhrA4ubt">dime novels</a>. His understated nature belied confirmed reports of his fearlessness, combat skills, tenacity, as well as profound effect on the <a href="/facts/Territorial_evolution_of_the_United_States/7NB9kvB5">westward expansion of the United States</a>. Although he was famous for much of his life, historians in later years have written that Kit Carson did not like, want, or even fully understand the fame that he experienced during his life.
Carson left home in rural <a href="/facts/Missouri/wQ3VAb99">Missouri</a> at 16 to become a <a href="/facts/Mountain_man/3dJHAqj4">mountain man</a> and trapper in the West. In the 1830s, he accompanied <a href="/facts/Ewing_Young/SSktbrkJ">Ewing Young</a> on an expedition to <a href="/facts/Alta_California/lU4fwI8h">Mexican California</a> and joined fur-trapping expeditions into the <a href="/facts/Rocky_Mountains/rDc3cU0E">Rocky Mountains</a>. He lived among and married into the <a href="/facts/Arapaho/wek6HfC2">Arapaho</a> and <a href="/facts/Cheyenne/rPt5AyA3">Cheyenne</a> tribes.
In the 1840s, Carson was hired as a guide by <a href="/facts/John_C._Fr%25C3%25A9mont/IAAgV0an">John C. Frémont</a>, whose expeditions covered much of <a href="/facts/California/zLW2vdQJ">California</a>, <a href="/facts/Oregon/4Uq446Ko">Oregon</a>, and the <a href="/facts/Great_Basin/w135lKBN">Great Basin</a> area. Frémont mapped and wrote reports and commentaries on the <a href="/facts/Oregon_Trail/npLsY0mo">Oregon Trail</a> to assist and encourage westward-bound pioneers, and Carson achieved national fame through those accounts. Under Frémont's command, Carson participated in the U.S. <a href="/facts/Conquest_of_California/6KJtuGgU">conquest of California</a> from <a href="/facts/Mexico/IT5bwhdh">Mexico</a>, and the <a href="/facts/Sacramento_River_massacre/M0KeV5l3">Sacramento River massacre</a> and <a href="/facts/Klamath_Lake_massacre/B83ICV0r">Klamath Lake massacre</a> against the Indians. Later in the war, Carson was a scout and courier, celebrated for his rescue mission after the <a href="/facts/Battle_of_San_Pasqual/jGSNTcRI">Battle of San Pasqual</a> and for his coast-to-coast journey to <a href="/facts/Washington%2c_D.C./enXPK156">Washington, D.C.</a>, to deliver news of the conflict in California. In the 1850s, he was appointed as the Indian agent to the <a href="/facts/Ute_Indians/fKLdYU3E">Ute Indians</a> and the <a href="/facts/Jicarilla/NgdBAEgA">Jicarilla</a> Apaches.
During the <a href="/facts/American_Civil_War/A9FT3ksD">American Civil War</a>, Carson led a regiment of mostly <a href="/facts/Hispanic_and_Latino_Americans/rIBPIUd3">Hispanic</a> volunteers from <a href="/facts/New_Mexico/wosJCGaW">New Mexico</a> on the side of the <a href="/facts/Union_(American_Civil_War)/KW6wJt7J">Union</a> at the <a href="/facts/Battle_of_Valverde/IFqxIG2B">Battle of Valverde</a> in 1862. When the <a href="/facts/Confederate_States_of_America/jMSDM4q3">Confederate</a> threat was eliminated in New Mexico, Carson led forces to suppress the <a href="/facts/Navajo_people/phXNDqz5">Navajo</a>, <a href="/facts/Mescalero/hIoSoa7s">Mescalero</a> Apache, <a href="/facts/Kiowa/pzQ9FIyk">Kiowa</a>, and <a href="/facts/Comanche/2PbVNu3Q">Comanche</a> tribes by destroying their food sources. He was breveted a brigadier general and took command of <a href="/facts/Fort_Garland/KMaNeyIP">Fort Garland, Colorado</a> but poor health soon forced him to retire from military life.
Carson was married three times and had ten children. He died at <a href="/facts/Fort_Lyon/U5EqsIn9">Fort Lyon</a> of an <a href="/facts/Aortic_aneurysm/8HxHLCG5">aortic aneurysm</a> on May 23, 1868. He is buried in <a href="/facts/Taos%2c_New_Mexico/X4QB6S1E">Taos, New Mexico</a>, next to his third wife, Josefa Carson. 
During the late nineteenth century, Kit Carson became a legendary symbol of America's frontier experience, which influenced twentieth century erection of statues and monuments, public events and celebrations, imagery by Hollywood, and the naming of geographical places.

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Kit Carson