The Oregon Trail

by Francis Parkman

Keen observations and a graphic style characterize the author's remarkable record of a vanishing frontier. Detailed accounts of the hardships experienced while traveling across mountains and prairies; vibrant portraits of emigrants and Western wildlife; and vivid descriptions of Indian life and culture. A classic of American frontier literature.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Classics, Travel, Adventure, American History, Westerns

400 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1849

About the author

Francis Parkman was an American historian.

He is best known as author of The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life and his seven-volume France and England in North America. These works are still valued as historical sources and as literature. He was also a leading horticulturist, briefly a Professor of Horticulture at Harvard University and author of several books on the topic.

Parkman was a trustee of the Boston Athenæum from 1858 until his death in 1893.

Reviews

[J.L. Sutton · Rating 1 out of 5]

"The sons of civilization, drawn by the fascinations of a fresher and bolder life, thronged to the western in multitudes which blighted the charm that had lured them."



This quote about the 'sons of civilization' reflects the tone in Francis Parkman's The Oregon Trail. The blight Parkman speaks of has nothing to do with how American Indians were killed or pushed off their land. I know this is considered an important historical work, but it was difficult to appreciate much about this account. Sure, he is a product of his times. However, given Parkman's biases, how can anything he wrote about Indians be trusted? I was astonished when he described the decent behavior of some Indians, but put it to the fact that they had been threatened with extermination. He called this "an admirable state of mind."

While there are some observations of immigrants on the Oregon Trail and descriptions of nature (translated especially as the hunting of buffalo), there are many many long-winded descriptions of treacherous, motley, ugly snake-eyed squalid uncouth brutish savages with their "strange, unbridled impulses." The hordes of Indians pass in front of Parkman's eyes as "agents or villainy" or as a diseased scourge on land that they seem to have no right to occupy. The arrogance was breathtaking. I'd had some of the same difficulty with Osborne Russell's contemporary accountJournal Of A Trapper: Nine Years in the Rocky Mountains, 1834-1843 that I read a few weeks ago, but, I think, there are still reasons to read it. The Oregon Trail not so much. 1.5 stars rounded down.

[Graychin · Rating 4 out of 5]

In my little book reviews I’m always coming back to this idea of sympathetic imagination. Sympathetic imagination, for me, is the ability to put oneself in another person’s place, to imaginatively enter into someone else’s mind and perspective. Exercising sympathetic imagination means withholding judgment, extending charity, allowing – either by stepping forward or by not retreating – the gap that separates us from others to close at least a little bit. It’s the stuff of cliché (walking in another’s shoes, seeing through another’s eyes, etc.) but without it life and art are unbearable.

It’s not always easy. Sometimes the effort is exhausting. When it comes to the exercise of sympathetic imagination in reading, it helps when the prose is pleasant and the story a good one. Because characters can disappoint.

Francis Parkman’s autobiographical The Oregon Trail is a nice example of what I mean. Fresh out of Harvard, the young Parkman and his friend Quincy Shaw set out in 1846 for the Great Plains. From St Louis they move upriver with a revolving cast of emigrants, trappers, traders and wilderness guides. At Fort Laramie, in what’s now eastern Wyoming, Parkman sets out with a band of Sioux for the Black Hills. He lives with them, hunts with them, eats with them, and smokes with them, for two months.

Parkman explains that he’s had a lifelong fascination with the Indians. As an historian, he would go on to spend most of his career analyzing the story of their relations with the French and British colonists. In order to experience the life of aboriginal Americans in an uncivilized state, he’s travelled halfway across the continent. It’s remarkable, then, how little curiosity he exhibits. To him, the Sioux in whose company he’s living are (for the most part) unenlightened savages. He frankly considers them stupid, cruel, stubborn, backward. He doesn’t ask, or doesn’t think worth reporting, much of what they have to say about the world and their place in it. What does the universe look like to the Sioux in the summer of 1846? Parkman doesn’t explore the question deeply. By the time he’s making his retreat to St Louis at summer’s end, you get the idea that he’s sick to death of Indians and will cheer on their eventual genocide.

That’s probably putting it too strongly, but the fact is that Parkman’s sympathetic imagination utterly fails him. And not only with regard to the Indians. The white man (preferably Anglo-Saxon and Protestant) he considers the paragon of creation. The Indians he places lower; but lower still (he explicitly states), are most of the unlettered French Canadian mountain men, the Mexicans with whom the United States has just entered into war, and the Mormon “fanatics” on their way over the mountains where, Parkman speculates, they’ll try to forge a Californian empire.

(The perfect vermin of the earth for Parkman, however, isn’t human at all. It’s the buffalo. I’m not going to suggest that he owes the beasts the same debt of sympathy he owes his fellow man, but his unrelenting campaign of bloodlust against the buffalo – especially on the return trip – gets hard to stomach.)

Herman Melville, reviewing the book a couple years after its publication, gives Parkman a righteous chastisement for his lack of curiosity and fellow-feeling. Melville in his own masterpiece goes to some length (especially considering the era) to avoid the same pitfall. His Tashtego and Queequeg are fully realized and fully sympathetic men, equal heirs and possessors of earth and sea with Ishmael himself.

However, as Melville says once he’s put away the stick, Parkman’s book is nonetheless successful, wonderfully so, full of fascinating observations of frontier and wilderness life, hilarious and pitiful anecdotes and vignettes, gritty character sketches and reportage. Parkman is a good writer and the story he tells is utterly fresh and bracing. Despite its flaws, The Oregon Trail is a real “treasure” of American letters and history. There’s less sympathy than we might have hoped for, yes, but thankfully there’s even less sentimentality.

In the end, Parkman’s limitations don’t let us off the hook. It becomes necessary for us to exercise our sympathetic imagination, as readers, for the benefit of Parkman, who so frequently fails to exercise his own for the benefit of his subjects.

[Claudia · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was disappointed in this book. I had highly anticipated reading this book for several years. I had the impression it was about a journey from Missouri to Oregon or California on the Oregon Trail.

The author only traveled perhaps half of the trail and did not comment or even mention the iconic landmarks like Chimney Rock. Or what it felt like to ride in a Conestoga Wagon.

Rather the author regaled us with reasons why the "white" man was so superior. Indeed he ranked in order men of the prairie thusly: 1. Whites 2. Indians. 3. Mexicans. Gave a biased snap shot of life on the prairie and demonstrated why there are no buffalo left: they were all shot- some for sport and trophies; some for food. The Native Americans depended in them to live. The book shows the beginning of the destruction of the prairie and the beginning of the displacement if the Native American.

[Jean · Rating 3 out of 5]

Turned out “The Oregon Trail” by Francis Parkman was not the book I was looking for about the Oregon Trail, but it was interesting. The book was published in 1849. Parkman provided beautiful, detailed descriptions of his travels including the flora and fauna but also people and places. I find one must be careful not to judge but to learn from how things were in the time frame the book was written. Overall, the book was worth the read.

I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. The book is six hours and six minutes. Frank Muller does a good job narrating the book.

[Moonkiszt · Rating 2 out of 5]

I nearly didn't finish this. I've been obsessed with pioneers and the west and my ancestors. This book, which I've read a couple of times many, many years ago, I've read with new eyes and ears this time, and since it was published in 1849, it is absolutely not PC. Where in the past I was able to overlook and seek out word of my people in the pages, this time it was anything but that.

I'm still disgusted and pondering this. I don't quite know what to do with this other than weep and wonder how to reconcile all that's happened. For right now, am just trying to read the other side of this story, rather than this blather. Mr. Parkman was marketing and spreading his own kind of hate, making sure to cover the land with people like him, at an incredible cost to those who'd been here for thousands of years.

As Helen Hunt Jackson said, it truly was a Century of Dishonor.

[Bob Newman · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Pur-sioux-ing Exotica"

In the 1970s, British university graduates could take a year off and make their way across Europe, through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, overland to India. It was "breaking away", "a testing of self", "seeing the world", "the search for the other" or maybe just drugs and a hippie vibe. In 1846, a Harvard graduate certainly didn't have such an option, but still he could choose not to travel across to Europe for the usual Grand Tour. The 20th century European travelers in Asia viewed the various peoples they met with a mix of incomprehension, awe, prejudice, and myth. Parkman's account of a journey to the high plains of America reminded me of the latter day tales immensely, though in his day, "cultural relativity" had not been thought of. At 23, just out of Harvard, he and another Boston friend headed for the West, then just being opened up (or invaded) by overland pioneers, Mormons, trappers, buffalo hunters, and soldiers. Parkman and Co. travelled through Kansas, Nebraska, and into parts of South Dakota, Wyoming and Colorado. He met many Indians, spending a couple months with an Oglala Dakota band. Totally ignorant of their language and assuming innate understanding on his own part, he drew a rather biased portrait. Yet such is the skill of his writing and his feel for drama, that any reader will still, over 160 years later, find this book hard to put down. His descriptions of the land, the storms, the vast herds of bison, the rugged but raggedy trappers and mountain men, and the look and behavior of the Indians is as vivid as a book of photographs. Parkman has left us an invaluable document whatever its shortcomings. He provides us with a rare look at an America now completely disappeared. After all, "Overland to India" occurred in the Age of Photography, but Parkman had no camera. To have written this book despite being in bad health for most of the trip is indeed an achievement. It's an American classic well-deserving of the name, despite its jaundiced treatment of the so-called savages, who hosted him, helped him, and never hurt him. That bias too is part of the same history.

[Dimitris Papastergiou · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was ok!

Almost rated 3 stars but...

The Oregon Trail or Let's Shoot Some Buffalo or Indians Suck, Whites Rule.

I really love the way Parkman describes a scene. and for that and that only I'll read more of his stuff and try something else too, what made me not put 3 stars, was that he was talking about shooting buffalo so much that at some point I was searching for a page in the damn book that didn't include the word "buffalo", like, seriously.. we get it, you shot and hunt buffalos for fun and food and whatever. WE. GET. IT.

And, also, the constant hate on mexicans and indians, that went along with the constant (white) men rule all and we're superior and with all of his fancy talking. That's a bit excused cuz it's my personal pet peeve, fancy talkers. Every now and then he would think of something he said when something would happen and that something would be such an amazing thing to say at the moment like it's straight out of a fucking poem, so, no, you're not convincing to me and I won't bite and I'll be cringing to your quotes.

Anyway... so for all of that plus all the racism, he gets one star off cuz it made me angry lots of times while reading. The dude REALLY hates indians and he makes sure to talk about it lots of times.

As I explained in other books about "those times", I choose not to judge someone's book based on what it was like to live in times like these back then and whatnot, but I choose to judge someone's book by what the person's like, so if you're a racist like Twain or Parkman or whoever, you're shitty and that's that for me, because people who weren't fucking racists, they too were alive back then.

Oh well, it was ok. I liked the theme and times, I love the old west, and the way he describes everything from the places to the tribes and whatnot, he's writings are holding up great, even though sometimes I kinda doubt that some things happened the way he says they did, mostly cuz of what was happening, Parkman should be dead like a handful of times from a buffalo to an accident happening or illness or whatever. And that makes me wanna read more of his stuff to really get into his books.

[Jay French · Rating 3 out of 5]

This surprised me in a number of ways. First, the author doesn’t make it much farther down the Oregon Trail than Wyoming due to ill health, running out of good weather, and an opportunity to do some travelling with an Indian band. Second, the writing holds up well. To me this read more modernly than many of the books I’ve read from the turn of the century, some 50 years later. Parkman’s goal was to describe what he saw and did, and he does this with vigor but not an overwhelming amount of Victorian-era flourish. And there was a good amount of humor, especially on his return trip taking along an oafish “soldier”. He writes about the Indian tribes, but also of the fellow travelers of the trail, the occasional soldiers, the French trappers turned trail leaders that manage to keep his group mostly alive, the bad guys and the good, buffalo, and quicksand. You also got a good idea for Parkman’s personality – at times Parkman focuses on his illness, at times he expounds on how races should be ranked. I found the writing interesting, but at times it felt a bit lengthy. It became repetitive fording rivers, killing buffalo, and meeting up with people of questionable intents. On reflection, there were so many ways Parkman and his fellow travelers narrowly escaped death that it is a wonder they returned. That is the allure of this book to young adventurous types. It reads like a more recent Western, with lots of action, and lots of description. I’ll be reading more Parkman.

[Cliff Harrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an illustrated true story by Francis Parkman, an American historian who takes you over the Oregon Trail breaking new frontier in the early American West. Parkman went on a 2,000 mile journey through the wilderness of the American West that would take him six months to reach the end of his trail, Fort Laramie. He wrote several historical books as a result of his journey, including "The Oregon Trail".

Readers should beware, Parkman never went to Oregon as the title inspires. His goal was to meet and study the Indians. Coming West to meet the Indians is why he made the trip, not to go to Oregon. Fort Laramie was his destination and turn-around point where he headed back East after his mission was complete.

The Oregon Trail is an easy-to-read, young adult type book that reads like a Western novel complete with illustrations. But it's not fiction, it is the historical recording 23-year-old Parkman, a recent Harvard College student, wrote during his journey from the East to the great American West.

A gifted writer who captured history as his wagon train travels across the Great Plains, the American prairie, through Indian land and buffalo ranges. He was fascinated with the Native American people and that was his primary motivation factor in heading West into untested wilderness territory, to meet these people and write about them.

Parkman's book makes a great read for anyone who wants to escape the modern world and venture into the wagon trails of the Old West where danger and risk are an hourly part of life, and death. Parkman wasn't only a historian, he was a good writer who wrote good ol' stories. It's a book that you don't want to close the back cover on, you want it to keep on going. Unfortunately, it does not. And the greatest let down to most people is the title was a bit deceiving since the wagon train that moved slowly up the Oregon Trail never arrived in Oregon. Still, it was a good read with a great little story.

[Deacon Tom (Feeling Better) · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book for history buffs. It doesn't read life a mm ovel. The author handled the research well.

[Zaghol]

Tak dapat aku habiskan buku ni haha tapi dahsyat jugak publisher ni, terjemah novel spaghetti western 1849 ke bahasa melayu! Bukan apa, aku rasa versi asal memang best dan popular, cuma versi yang memang target untuk budak sekolah ni diringkaskan seringkas ringkasnya daripada 400 muka asal kepada 120 page je (lagi 10 tu iklan), aku perasan banyak perkara dilangkau sebab dari bab ke bab sampai ceritanya kacau bilau, sekejap sini, sekejap sana, watak pun banyak gila. Bila aku baca review english version semua orang suka je. Nampak sangat penterjemah "gagal" menterjemahkan roh novel ini ke bahasa ibunda.

p/s: bak kata Dali Fazuri (penterjemah Frankenstein dan Dracula), ko kena kaji latar masa novel tersebut ditulis supaya ko boleh faham "feel" zaman tu. Bukan main terjemah "word to word"!.

[Kelsey Bryant · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hovering between two and three stars, but I'm rounding up to three because of Parkman's skilled writing and his beautifully descriptive passages of the landscape. That was my favorite part---his descriptions of nature. He captured the breathtaking landscape of the West in all its varied characters.

His writing was descriptive at every point, making me feel like I was seeing his scenes in person. That is an incredible skill. I just wish I liked his subject matter better. I've been interested in the Oregon Trail (the trail, not the book) since childhood, but this book touched very lightly on the wagon train emigrants and talked much more about the different American Indian tribes in the area, trappers and other wilderness wanderers who were single men, and buffalo hunting. So much buffalo hunting. For someone who hates reading about animals being killed, I had an especially hard time persevering through those parts.

Another thing I didn't appreciate was Parkman's attitude. I know it reflected most white Americans' viewpoints at the time, but I got tired of all the demeaning things he had to say about the people (mainly Indians and Mexicans but also the wagon train emigrants) he encountered.

So all in all, it was his good writing that kept me going till the end. That and the valuable historical insight that his work gives as a primary source on a slice of the 1840s American West. We may not like it nowadays, but it is important to remember how things were.

[Jennifer Bohnhoff · Rating 2 out of 5]

In 1846, a young Bostonian named Francis Parkman set out for an adventure on the Oregon Trail. His recollections were published in book form three years later, and while they make interesting reading for anyone researching the opening of the American west, Parkman's account will grate against most modern sensibilities. Parkman's descriptions of the natives is condescending and filled with the assumptions of the noble savages that were part of America's Manifest Destiny. His descriptions are overly romantic when they are not belittling.

If you are looking for a full account of what life was like on the Oregon Trail, this isn't it. Parkman may have begun with the intention of traveling the trail, but he was waylaid somewhere in the Black Hills. From there, he describes going down to Bents Fort and Pueblo, Colorado, but makes it no farther west. But the well read person will recognise a lot of the names of mountain men and soldiers from this period, and Parkman's account of Kearney's military movement along the trail at the beginning of the Mexican American War is of interest.

[Howard · Rating 5 out of 5]

REREAD

[عبد الله القصير · Rating 3 out of 5]

الإنسان ابن بيئته ومحيطه، فما يقوله وما يكتبه يعكس هذه البيئة التي عاش بها ومن الظلم محاكمة كتاباته وآرائه بأحكامنا وآرائنا الآن. فالمؤلف كتب كتابه قبل أكثر من 170 سنة عن رحلته في طريق المهاجرين الأمريكان الذين بدأوا يهاجرون من وسط الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية إلى غربها سواء إلى أوريغون أو كاليفورنيا. قلت أننا لا يجب أن نحكم على آرائه لأن كتابه ملئ بالنعوت العنصرية التي لو كتبها أحد بالوقت احضر لما وجد من ينشرها له، فالهندي الأحمر متوحش وبربري وقذر والأفريقي زنجي وكسول ومزعج. لكن ميزة الكتاب أنه نص أدبي جميل وصف فيه المؤلف الحياة في البراري الأمريكية بتصوير جميل وجذاب يجعلك تعيش معه يومياته، مع أن يومياته لم يحدث فيها أي حدث يستحق النشر إلا أنه أبدع بنقل الحياة العادية لقوافل الرحل الأوروبيين وعذابات الرحلة ومخيمات الهنود الحمر وعاداتهم بتدخين التبغ وصيد البافلو والحياة بالقرى النائية وخليط السكان فيها.
لكن قراءتك للسير الذاتية تعطيك انطباع عن المؤلف في بعض الحالات مخالف لما يريد المؤلف ايصاله لك. بقراءة سيرته يبين لك جزء من شخصيته وأسلوبه، فالمؤلف واضح أنه نزق مغرور فكل من قابلهم وصادقهم فيهم بعض السلبيات التي لا يتحرج من قولها ونشرها، فهو البوسطني المتحضر الذي يرى الجميع من تحت أنفه.

[DJNana · Rating 3 out of 5]

From the title, I was expecting this book to be a little more about, well, the Oregon Trail.

Y’know, oxen pulling covered wagons full of children and women across the prairies, in search of new land.

Instead, this is more about author Francis’s fascination with the American Indians. For the most part. It’s quite interesting, misdirection of the title notwithstanding. Astounding to think that the period described is under two centuries ago - journaling a 2 month period in 1846. Just a short period ago.

The prairie was broad and open, and people were streaming in, settling it. The Mormons, it seems, were quite infamous as they were searching for a place to make their own. The buffalo herds were still numerous, although already it was understood that the herds were being thinned out drastically. Wildlife in general was abundant, and quite dangerous. Forts, and spots of civilisation, were few and far apart. And the Indians were still for the most part untouched by Western civilisation - wild, free, lawless groups of people, living off the land.

Francis spent a bulk of time with the Indians, and he documents their culture in some detail. His view on them as ‘uncivilised’ and ‘savage’ might offend the sensibilities of the modern reader, but it was the common view of the time. And when you read some of these stories, you might understand a little more why that was the case.

What I personally enjoyed the most was the strong brand of masculinity on display - weakness was openly mocked, both by the Indians and by Francis’s party. A man had to be strong, skilled and capable to survive, and make the most of the opportunities offered him. It was a time when the world was wild and dangerous, and strong men were appreciated. Fun to read about.

Would I re-read: no.

[Thom Swennes · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title of this narrative is somewhat ambiguous as in the author’s own words the primary goal of this account is to relay the life and customs of the plains Indians. One would imagine that the title would indicate that the author actually went to Oregon, which he didn’t. He undertook this westward trek in an attempt to satisfy his curiosity as at the time he couldn’t find reliable published references at the time. This book was first published in 1849 and describes the sights, difficulties and tribulations of a trip across the country to the Rocky Mountains. Stories of hunting and fur traders spur the imagination and the reader can almost picture the unspoiled vista of endless forests and plains. The amazingly descriptive accounts paint a vivid picture of proud Indian tribes at the zenith of their evolution. He had little idea that most of the tribes he met and befriended would be extinct less than a century later. The description of a prairie dog town that he observed would easily serve as an inspiration for Watership Down. Even though he claimed an affinity for the buffalo, this didn’t deter him from arbitrarily and indiscriminately killing them. This book had a number of shortcomings but made up much with color. Most people interested in this time would enjoy this book.

[Illiterate · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although Parkman presumably thinks the Indians are interesting, he has little liking or empathy for them.

[Steve]

I began this work expecting a trek to the Pacific Ocean, Lewis and Clark style; after all, the title is The Oregon Trail. Surely Oregon would figure somewhere in these pages. Nope. Mr. Parkman never crossed the Rockies. I think this rather lame record was tailored to eastern American readers who were keen to follow life on the prairie, which involved hunting buffalo, cavorting with a potpourri of travelers, and interacting with numerous Indian tribes, some kind, some hostile – and they for good reason. Mr. Parkman seemed to spend more time describing the killing of buffalo than on any other single experience on that five-month journey out of St. Louis. I’m reminded of Richard Henry Dana’s commentary in Two Years Before the Mast regarding the buffalo trade. How many of those creatures were slaughtered in the mid-nineteenth century to reach near-extinction, many killed for mere pleasure in this account?

Mr. Parkman recorded plenty of colorful characters along his journey, which did provide me some enjoyment.

Henry Chatillon and Tete Rouge were of the same age; that is, about thirty. Henry was twice as large, and fully six times as strong at Tete Rouge. Henry’s face was roughened by winds and storms; Tete Rouge’s was bloated by sherry cobblers and brandy toddy. Henry talked of Indians and buffalo; Tete Rouge of theaters and oyster cellars. Henry had led a life of hardship and privation; Tete Rouge never had a whim which he would not gratify at the first moment he was able. Henry moreover was the most disinterested man I ever saw; while Tete Rouge, though equally good natured in his way, cared for nobody but himself.

Interesting personal anecdotes aside, I did not find this work significant, except as testimony to how easily we can wreak destruction upon our environment and to those who hinder our inflated will for narrow, selfish progress.

[Fr. Brandon G · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun and insightful glimpse into life in the west and near west!

[Mary Soderstrom · Rating 4 out of 5]

For this nebulous book about roads I'm working on, I picked up American historian Francis Parkman's The Oregon Trail this week. My

experience this summer in what was the Oregon Territory started me think about the routes that settlers took going West, and I wanted to refresh my memory.

Whoops! To my surprise I found that I'd not read Parkman's book, although it has been sitting on my shelf for probably 20 years. The historian was in his 20s when he set out with a friend in 1846 to travel across the continent. He didn't make it to the Pacific, but his account of his travels has all the exciting immediacy of the very best travel writing, as well as the weight of an historical document.

His health, never all that good, was ruined on the trip. Nevertheless, despite the fact his illness several times rendered him blind so that he had to have documents read to him, he went on to write a series of about New France and its relations with the British that have no peer in English--and some would say, not in French either.

They are:

Conspiracy of Pontiac (1851)

The Pioneers of France in the New World (1865)

The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century (1867)

La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West (1869)

The Old Régime in Canada (1874)

Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV (1877)

Montcalm and Wolfe (1884)

A Half Century of Conflict (1892)

But The Oregon Trail is in a different register. There are moment when I gnashed my teeth about his snobbism, but I was found myself being carried away just as I was by Darwin's The Voyage of the Beagle journals, and Bruce Chatwin's quite different but similarly thought-provoking The Songlines. Great reading when Fall begins to settle down around us, but wanderlust persists.

The book is available in several editions, and also as an e-book at Project Gutenberg.

[Heidi Burkhart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Parkman was not a great writer but did write what appears to be an accurate account of his experiences. I mistakenly thought he was traveling with a wagon train on the trail but this is not so. What disturbed me were the many blunders that occurred, and the wanton slaughter of so many animals, especially bison, on their journey.

[Numidica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting, in an 1846 kind of way. I read it in college years ago.

[Geve_]

Not putting stars on this one.
This is a first hand account of the author's experience traveling the Oregon Trail, or rather, part of it. He was physically unable to complete the journey, which is interesting considering he talked a lot of shit about how weak and frail women are, but tens of thousands of them walked the entire trail. ANYWAYS, he ended up hanging out with some Lakota instead and had a lot to say about them too.

I think this is an interesting read in many ways. It's a snapshot in time, through a very particular lens. He was clearly racist, and his opinions of people were based on whether they were French, German, Scottish or Native. I wouldn't take his thoughts on Lakota society to mean very much since he was racist, and also seeing them at a pretty fucking terrible point in their history. Reading his stupid opinions about shit is still pretty useful, since those were opinions probably held by quite a few whites of the same era, and recognizing that helps us think critically about many stories and "truths" of that time. Assuming what he's describing is an accurate representation of what was really happening is probably not the best idea.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Oregon Trail by Francis Parkman is the author's classic autobiographical account of the experiences of those adventurous travelers heading west to start a new life. Parkman was one of those who, along with his friend Quincy Shaw just out of Harvard, departed from St. Louis, Missouri, heading out to see the Great Plains and to study and explore the various Indian tribes that lived there and had fascinated him. This wasn't exactly what I had expected to read, I still found the account quite fascinating. It was really much more a personal account of the customs and way of life of the various tribes that he encountered and spent significant time with. He did fall in with some travelers along the Oregon Trail from time to time and describes the lives and times of many of these settlers. Many of them were specifically on their way to destinations including California and of course Oregon with many taking up residence at many places along the way. This classic account of that journey could have been titled a study of the American Indians of the Great Plains. But it was quite interesting in any case. I've also read another book of this same title written by by Rinker Buck who traveled the historical route taken by the settlers in modern times with his brother in a covered wagon to recreate the experience of the original travelers; well worth the read and much more descriptive of the trail and the obstacles the original travelers had to overcome.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Parkman's book is often cited by historians as a first-hand story of the western frontier at the time of the Mexican-American War (1846-47). It is colorful and includes historic characters whose path he and his traveling partner would cross, including the Donner Party (though this wagon train wouldn't become led by the Donners until after Parkman met them) and Gen. Steven Kearney, who he met at Fort Leavenworth. Kearney would then become famous (and get the promotion to general) for his march on California during the war.

Parkman's accounts are personal and colorful, benefitting from months spent with Sioux tribes along the frontier of the Rockies. The author, who would later write several histories of the U.S. and Canada, would become a horticultural professor at Harvard. Little of his horticultural interests emerge in this book and his profound disdain for Indian lifestyles is prevalent. It is interesting that critics as early as Hermann Melville critiqued this book, Melville saying that the title was misleading, as Parkman never travels into the Rocky Mountains but comes down the Front Range. The portions of the trail that Parkman covered were the flat first 1/3 of the Oregon Trail.

I read this in the Kindle edition, which is well formatted (unlike many Kindle books). However, it suffers greatly from the lack of the most rudimentary maps.

[Lyle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book did not mention

1 - bare bone rations
2 - grueling pace
3 - resting for 14 days to cure cholera
4 - waiting for conditions to improve

There was almost no rafting and not a single wagon wheel was repaired while crossing the mountains. In fact, wagon parties were only mentioned like once and they never even really reached Oregon, or really traveled the trail. There was however,

1 - buffalo stampedes
2 - killing way more meat then one could carry
3 - illnesses without resting
4 - Indian and mountain men

That's about it. So basically this book and my remembrance of the game did not jive.

That being said, the journals of frontiersmen are very interesting to me because it really highlights that almost everything I had learned about history was inaccurate, or missing vast swaths of context. The author takes a lesser view of Indians then most trapper's journals, but is fascinated with them and makes a point to spend a good deal of time in their company and living with them. Read in and out of the pages and it gives a snapshot of life of the plain's Indians... Although, even with that said, the tribes manners and lifestyles varied widely, so keep that in mind.

The adventuring is there. There is a lot of bad weather. They do not mentioned bears much, but frogs and lizards a lot.

[Sarah-Kate · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was very dry. Most of the book consists of the author's ramblings which were often redundant and offered little substance.

He never traveled further west than Fort Laramie, Wyoming and missed several iconic landmarks and offered a very narrow perspective of the Oregon Trail. The book mostly centers around his experiences hunting buffalo with a small group of men. A very crude, yet accurate title would be "Hunting on the First Half of the Oregon Trail".

The content (especially the descriptions of his surroundings and people) is often repetitive.

Take a shot every time:

- A buffalo is mentioned

- He mentions the horses and mules

- Someone kills or butchers an animal

- Someone discusses hunting or killing an animal

- Somebody or something is simply referred to as just “old” (used over 100 times)

- Somebody smokes or shoots something

The educational value is low, the story is dry and offers a pretty limited view of the Oregon Trail. It's more of a hunting diary than anything else.

If you're interested in getting a good overview of the Oregon Trail, I would recommend passing this book and picking something else. As some other reviewers mentioned, I’d rather just read a history book than this recount. You’ll get more out of simply reading the Oregon Trail Wikipedia page than you will from this book.

[Jennifer Zartman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Francis Parkman writes with incredible style in these memoirs about his "tour of curiosity and amusement to the Rocky Mountains." He wanted to learn about the Indians, to "live in the midst of them, and become, as it were, one of them." He spent weeks among the Ogallala, and even though he suffered from dysentery he embraced every adventure that came his way. His descriptions included vivid word pictures like "cacti were hanging like reptiles at the edges of every ravine." I particularly enjoyed his understatement in his description of riding a mule. "If one is anxious to place himself in a situation where the hazardous and the ludicrous are combined in about equal proportions, let him get upon a vicious mule, with a snaffle bit, and try to drive her through the woods down a slope of 45 degrees...His mule, if she be a true one, will alternately stop short and dive violently forward, and his position upon her back will be somewhat diversified and extraordinary." This book provides wonderful insight into the thinking of the 1840's and a good picture of the true wild west.

[Bob Schnell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Francis Parkman Jr.'s travelogue of the Wild West evokes a time and a place very well. The reader gets a very real sense of what it was like to live with various tribes, participate in buffalo hunts, meet up with wagon trains of emigrants, etc. What is missing is any real journalistic probing of what is going on and what it may mean for those who would follow in his footsteps. Obviously, the author never intended to write anything of the sort, but as a witness to a country in the midst of cultural, political and ideological change, it would have been helpful to at least get his opinion. Please note that as a product of its time, this book is not at all politically correct by today's standards and the reader may be a bit shocked at the author's joy in animal slaughter or his description of some Native Americans as "ugly Indians". An extra half star for the inclusion of the antics of Tete Rouge, a fellow traveler in the latter part of the book who provides a nice bit of comic relief.