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Kit Carson and His Three Wives: A Family History
Kit Carson (1809-1868) has long held a prominent place in the popular imagination of the American West. However, little is known about his family life thanks largely to Carson's own guardianship of his privacy. After almost four decades devoted to researching Kit Carson's personal life, Marc Simmons provides information here to further our understanding of Carson. Viewing Kit Carson's career as a husband and father sheds new light on the life choices he made. The changing economy of the 1840s made it increasingly difficult for a trapper and scout to support a growing family. Carson's years as an Indian agent in the 1850s provided him stability although he was never able to spend as much time with his family as any of them would have liked and he was never able to bring in a comfortable income. The Kit Carson Simmons portrays offers a welcome change from recent politicized interpretations of Carson's actions.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 12, 2025
I never thought I would be so captivated by such potentially dry subject matter, but this book made me genuinely laugh several times—not from humor, but from the ferocity and completeness of Marc's takedowns of historical revisionism and the many myths about Kit. I only read this to learn more about my ancestor and clean up my messy family tree (people will really invent entire relatives just to connect themselves to people like Kit Carson and Daniel Boone), but I want to keep this one around just to enjoy the skill behind it. Marc's research is impeccable, as is his dissection of existing research. He really throws down a gauntlet that I didn't even know existed.
September 18, 2021
The author did a marvelous job digging for information on Kit Carson's home life. Information is scant, but he managed to piece it together to describe each of Carson's wives -- two Native American women and one Hispanic woman. Kit's life of government service kept him away from home for long periods of time, but he managed to father several children and enjoyed playing with them when he was home in between government assignments. This is an interesting read all the way through and a new way to view one of America's most beloved western heroes.
March 21, 2023
I really appreciated Simmons attempt at emphasizing women's roles in not just shaping Kit Carson, but a multicultural West. Lots of inference and difficult source work, largely because there isn't much, but well done. Worth a read!
July 17, 2024
I didn't know that he had three wives, was illiterate, was hired on and off by the US government. Since I like history, I zipped right through this.
Carson was quite a guy but not everbody's hero.
Carson was quite a guy but not everbody's hero.
November 12, 2016
This is one of those books that I pick up when on our annual two month X-C road trip across the USA. We visit all types of historic sites and out of the way places and on this day we had gone to Taos, NM--one of those " beautiful " places with art galleries and boutiques and bohemian cafes that also happens to have an historic pueblo, beautiful Catholic church and the modest adobe home in which Kit Carson spent his family life with his wife, Josefa Jarmillo, the mother of eight of his children.
I'm not sure how many of the young people of this country or the modern Easterner knows of this man. He was one of the early mountain men, trappers and hunters of the pre-Civil War West. He hailed from Missouri but as many young men of the time, he found his way on the Santa Fe Trail to New Mexico and Arizona and Colorado. He gained fame as a trapper but became best known as the guide who led Fremont into California on at least three expeditions authorized by the Washington government to scout out the Spanish there and evaluate the English presence in Oregon Territory.
Not many people in the West required written works about the exploits of Carson and his ilk, but the folks in the East were greatly excited to hear about the savage red men and the white men who encountered him in the vast open spaces of the mysterious mountains and plains beyond the Mississippi. Just as in the present, newspaper reporters and paperback writers, who ventured into this territory to gather information, found that the more titillating the tale the more likely the sales of their works. As a result the stories of these adventurers were exaggerated and enhanced. Carson, himself illiterate, was amazed at the embellishments added to the stories of his activities. He himself, by most accounts from family and friends, was a man of great humility and devotion to duty as well as compassion and gentleness. Yet, the image of the man that has come down through the years is almost heroic beyond belief. The story of his private family life, as in most cases of his contemporaries, is practically non-existent and certainly, the story of his wives even more shadowed. What information about what came down within the first hundred years of his exploits painted him as one of the heroes of Westward expansion and worthy of great respect and regard. The erosion of this type of historical pride in the 1960's and onward, has further removed Kit Carson from the national memory.
In an effort to rectify this situation, Marc Simmons has spent almost forty years researching not only the facts of Carson's work but also the story of his marriage to three very disparate women over the course of his life. Two of them were Native American : Waa-Nibe, an Arapaho, to whom he was married by Indian culture of simply co-habiting after gifts to her father, gave him two daughters before her untimely death three years into the marriage. His second marriage, probably to provide a mother to his young daughters, was to a Cheyanne, Making-Out Road, who by all indications was quite a handful and who, after fourteen months, divorced him. It was not until he left the trapping, nomadic way of life that he finally married Josefa, a teen girl to his mid-aged self. She was his wife for 25 years and bore him eight children.
The story of these women, and of his children, male and female places Christfer Carson in a much different and softer setting than most of the other writings about him. Probably because there IS such a large assortment of books and articles dealing with his work for the Government as scout and courier, as soldier in the Civil War, as Indian Agent and primary architect of the Navajo version of the Trail of Tears, these aspects of his life are not dealt with in very great depth. In that way, this book, in my estimation, does what the author wishes to achieve: it rounds out the record, it shows an aspect of Carson's life not usually explored. But, also in my opinion, if coming new to learning of Carson, read some more of the record. He certainly is worthy of regard and respect for much of his life's work, but it cannot be overlooked that the Navajo and Apache of New Mexico and Arizona do not love this man. The story of Bosque Redondo is as heart wrenching as that of the Trail of Tears and Carson was the man who used the scorched earth tactics that resulted in the horror of that march and internment.
As, with all men who attain great renown, or at least most, Carson is not all good. On the other hand, he is not all bad. He is human. Do his errors, his faults, his foibles, outweigh his achievements and devotion to family and country? Depends on your viewpoint. But, whatever you decide, the story of life in New Mexico, the position and influence of women in its evolution and in the life of this man is interesting and worth the read.
I'm not sure how many of the young people of this country or the modern Easterner knows of this man. He was one of the early mountain men, trappers and hunters of the pre-Civil War West. He hailed from Missouri but as many young men of the time, he found his way on the Santa Fe Trail to New Mexico and Arizona and Colorado. He gained fame as a trapper but became best known as the guide who led Fremont into California on at least three expeditions authorized by the Washington government to scout out the Spanish there and evaluate the English presence in Oregon Territory.
Not many people in the West required written works about the exploits of Carson and his ilk, but the folks in the East were greatly excited to hear about the savage red men and the white men who encountered him in the vast open spaces of the mysterious mountains and plains beyond the Mississippi. Just as in the present, newspaper reporters and paperback writers, who ventured into this territory to gather information, found that the more titillating the tale the more likely the sales of their works. As a result the stories of these adventurers were exaggerated and enhanced. Carson, himself illiterate, was amazed at the embellishments added to the stories of his activities. He himself, by most accounts from family and friends, was a man of great humility and devotion to duty as well as compassion and gentleness. Yet, the image of the man that has come down through the years is almost heroic beyond belief. The story of his private family life, as in most cases of his contemporaries, is practically non-existent and certainly, the story of his wives even more shadowed. What information about what came down within the first hundred years of his exploits painted him as one of the heroes of Westward expansion and worthy of great respect and regard. The erosion of this type of historical pride in the 1960's and onward, has further removed Kit Carson from the national memory.
In an effort to rectify this situation, Marc Simmons has spent almost forty years researching not only the facts of Carson's work but also the story of his marriage to three very disparate women over the course of his life. Two of them were Native American : Waa-Nibe, an Arapaho, to whom he was married by Indian culture of simply co-habiting after gifts to her father, gave him two daughters before her untimely death three years into the marriage. His second marriage, probably to provide a mother to his young daughters, was to a Cheyanne, Making-Out Road, who by all indications was quite a handful and who, after fourteen months, divorced him. It was not until he left the trapping, nomadic way of life that he finally married Josefa, a teen girl to his mid-aged self. She was his wife for 25 years and bore him eight children.
The story of these women, and of his children, male and female places Christfer Carson in a much different and softer setting than most of the other writings about him. Probably because there IS such a large assortment of books and articles dealing with his work for the Government as scout and courier, as soldier in the Civil War, as Indian Agent and primary architect of the Navajo version of the Trail of Tears, these aspects of his life are not dealt with in very great depth. In that way, this book, in my estimation, does what the author wishes to achieve: it rounds out the record, it shows an aspect of Carson's life not usually explored. But, also in my opinion, if coming new to learning of Carson, read some more of the record. He certainly is worthy of regard and respect for much of his life's work, but it cannot be overlooked that the Navajo and Apache of New Mexico and Arizona do not love this man. The story of Bosque Redondo is as heart wrenching as that of the Trail of Tears and Carson was the man who used the scorched earth tactics that resulted in the horror of that march and internment.
As, with all men who attain great renown, or at least most, Carson is not all good. On the other hand, he is not all bad. He is human. Do his errors, his faults, his foibles, outweigh his achievements and devotion to family and country? Depends on your viewpoint. But, whatever you decide, the story of life in New Mexico, the position and influence of women in its evolution and in the life of this man is interesting and worth the read.
October 23, 2012
Pretty awful. This is much more a history of Kit Carson's life than it is about the three wives. In part this is because information is so scant about any of them. But that might be a decent reason not to attempt a whole book about them. Also: Simmons is so intent on righting what he perceives as the wrongs of the "new Western history" that rightly portrayed white men as oftentimes racist conquerors of Indians, that he bends over backwards the other way to justify all of what Carson and his ilk might have done. He basically just worships Carson, which is pretty tiresome after a while.
And he also does not seem to feel all that bound by the evidence. He repeatedly asserts that someone "felt" this way or experienced some sort of emotion (love, joy, etc.) when he rarely has the actual evidence to prove these things. He seems intent on reading our own marital ideals backwards onto the past; even when people at that time might not have expected true love between marital partners, he is determined to say that it was there for Kit and his wives. The writing is also lousy; the passive voice is used by Simmons quite a bit (yes, that was a joke).
And he also does not seem to feel all that bound by the evidence. He repeatedly asserts that someone "felt" this way or experienced some sort of emotion (love, joy, etc.) when he rarely has the actual evidence to prove these things. He seems intent on reading our own marital ideals backwards onto the past; even when people at that time might not have expected true love between marital partners, he is determined to say that it was there for Kit and his wives. The writing is also lousy; the passive voice is used by Simmons quite a bit (yes, that was a joke).
October 9, 2012
The life of Kit Carson divided up by his wives. Most was written about Josepha Jamarillo. Carson comes across as a fairly humble man who happened to be at the cross roads of history. We see him go from trapper to Indian Scout, military man, (he was made a brevet general) Indian agent, loving father and husband.
Carson for the most part kept his life private, so it is a challenge to separate the dime novel Carson from the real man. He was an honorable man who did his duty and took that seriously. This book is able to show a bit more of his personal side.
Carson for the most part kept his life private, so it is a challenge to separate the dime novel Carson from the real man. He was an honorable man who did his duty and took that seriously. This book is able to show a bit more of his personal side.
February 19, 2012
Great info on Kit Carson and his family but not great writing.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews