QUEBEC-RESEARCH-L Archives

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Subject: July 7, 1863
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2005 17:15:50 EDT

July 7

1863 Kit Carson's campaign against the Indians
On this day, Lt. Colonel Christopher "Kit" Carson leaves Santa Fe with his
troops, beginning his campaign against the Indians of New Mexico and Arizona.
A famed mountain man before the Civil War, Carson was responsible for waging
a destructive war against the Navajo that resulted in their removal from the
Four Corners area to southeastern New Mexico.
Carson was perhaps the most famous trapper and guide in the West. He
traveled with the expeditions of John C. Fremont in the 1840s, leading Fremont
through the Great Basin. Fremont's flattering portrayal of Carson made the
mountain man a hero when the reports were published and widely read in the east.
Later, Carson guided Stephen Watts Kearney to New Mexico during the
Mexican-American War. In the 1850s he became the Indian agent for New Mexico, a position
he left in 1861 to accept a commission as lieutenant colonel in the 1st New
Mexico Volunteers.
Although Carson's unit saw action in the New Mexico battles of 1862, he was
most famous for his campaign against the Indians. Despite his reputation for
being sympathetic and accommodating to tribes such as the Mescaleros, Kiowas,
and Navajo, Carson waged a brutal campaign against the Navajo in 1863. When
bands of Navajo refused to accept confinement on reservations, Carson
terrorized the Navajo lands--burning crops, destroying villages, and slaughtering
livestock. Carson rounded up some 8,000 Navajo and marched them across New
Mexico for imprisonment on the Bosque Redondo, over 300 miles from their homes,
where they remained for the duration of the war.

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