The Oregon Trail

When I selected this book to read among a collection of excess books at a friend’s house last summer, I expected this to be like the other books in that series this was published over half a century ago and has a great deal of historical value. Of course, I also came into this book expecting it would be like the game I grew up with of the same title, about an emigrant to Oregon who gets a nice wagon and some oxen, gets a bit of intestinal problems along the way, hunts a bit, sees a lot of fortresses, and ends up running out of money and having to take a ride down the Columbia and Willamette Rivers just to make it to the settlement. That expectation, at least, was not fulfilled, in that this book never reaches Oregon at all, although in fairness it does spend at least some time on the Oregon Trail.

In that sense, this book is a bit of a tease. It is slightly more than 300 pages of 19th century travel writing [2] that are not without interest to a historian, but that do not necessarily pass muster with the social standards of the present time. A great deal of the writing, which is written in florid mid-Victorian prose, is going to offend many readers, whether one is dealing with the author’s apparent fascination with buxom young women (I’m not criticizing this interest, per se, but rather noting it), and his very racist commentaries about Mexicans and indigenous peoples. That is even without getting into his hostility towards the migrants to Oregon and California themselves (not likely to make him very popular among their descendents in the Pacific Northwest), as well as the Mormons. Then, on top of this, the author makes light of the extreme wastefulness of the time in hunting buffaloes, which contributed to their near extinction, in that he comments on how he and the other hunters of his party would kill buffalo that were almost entirely harmless to him merely to cut off their tongues for meat, rather than loading up on yummy bison burgers. These are enough reasons why this book runs afoul of modern sensibilities.

That said, when taken on its own merits, apart from its somewhat deceptive title, this is a book that has a lot to offer. It is far more interested in human relationships than in mere natural descriptions, though its descriptions of flora and fauna are excellent as well, especially when it comes to rivers or the Black Hills. Where this book really shines, though, is in its vivid word pictures of colorful characters like the intuitive hunter Henry Chatilion, who in the course of this book’s events has to bury a beloved Indian squaw and hunt for some ungrateful bosses, while making a new friend and even passing himself off as a cultured and debonair gentleman in St. Louis at the end, after they have come full circle through the Great Plains. Another well-drawn character portrait is that of Tete Rouge, a somewhat foppish thief recovering from brain fever and trying to make it home, despite a noticeable lack of work ethic and moral character, who survives mainly because of entertainment value. Ultimately, this is not a story about striking it out into the great unknown to seek a new life far from home, but about having an adventure and then returning to the comforts of home a wiser and more reflective sort of person, enriched by the experience. It is certainly a different Oregon Trail story than most people would have, though, even if it makes a worthy book on its own terms, also including some intriguing commentary about the Mexican-American War.

In April 1846 Francis Parkman, a 23 year old Harvard Law graduate from Boston, left Fort Leavenworth (now Kansas) with his "friend and relative" Quincy Adams Shaw on "a tour of curiosity and amusement to the Rocky Mountains".

They had a small "French cart" known as a "mule killer", a team of mules, a tent, and a "miscellaneous assortment of boxes and barrels", some horses and guides and companions familiar with the territory they would be travelling through.

Although he was the scion of a family of wealth and standing, and although he had entered Harvard at 16 and graduated with honors and had already taken the Grand Tour of Europe, he was no tenderfoot. He had always lived from time to time on the 3,000 acres of wilderness his maternal grandfather owned near Medford Massachusetts; and he was at home around the campfire in the woods.

This experience would become invaluable. In the next five months Parkman and Shaw and their companions would sit around a hundred campfires as they traveled several thousand miles over the great High Plains using the rivers as their highway. They went up the Platte and crossed what is now Nebraska to North Platte where the river divides into to two extensive river systems - the North Platte which drains most of southeastern Wyoming - and the South Platte which drains the area of Wyoming around Cheyenne and virtually all of northeastern Colorado - Fort Collins, Denver, and Colorado Springs almost south to present day La Junta .

Having gone up the North Platte as far as Ft. Laramie Parkman left the party and lived with the Ogallala Sioux for more than six weeks, traveling with them to the Black Hills of South Dakota and thence back to Ft. Laramie from whence the party went down the South Platte as far as La Junta where they met the Arkansas River flowing east and north and up which they traveled back to Ft. Leavenworth and then down the Missouri and the Mississippi to St. Louis; and then it was overland back to Boston where they arrived on or about the first of October 1946. It turned out to be much more than a trip of "curiosity and amusement". They were lucky to get back alive and unharmed. (There were hostile Indians. There were surly and dangerous travelers. They were thrown from their horses more than once. Parkman was so sick part of time he could hardly sit his horse.)

Much more than "amusement" would meet the on the trip. They would meet the first immigrants to Oregon along the real Oregon Trail. (Not impressive, he writes.) They would meet the wagons of the Mormons westering from Nauvoo. (They were okay.) The would meet Mountain Men, trappers, mule skinners, soldiers (a "motley lot") on their way with General Kearny to the War with Mexico which had just been declared. The would meet factors, frontier storekeepers in Ft. Laramie and Bent's Fort east of La Junta on the Arkansas. And above Parkman would meet and live with the Indians - the Ogallala Sioux. He would live with them for more than six weeks, traveling, camping and hunting the buffalo; and his written descriptions would preserve for posterity their life, customs and appearance before they were affected by the white man's ways and alcohol and eventually penned up on their many Reservations This is not to say that they appeared to him as "noble savages". Not at all. He had little use for them and would write

"For the most part a civilized white man can discover very few points of sympathy between his own nature and that of an Indian. With every disposition to do justice in their good qualities, he must be conscious that an impassable gulf goes between him and his red brethren Nay, so alien to himself do they appear that, after breathing the air of the prairie for a few months or weeks, he begins to look upon them as a troublesome and dangerous species of wild beast."

When he got back to Boston in early October 1846 he turned to his extensive journals and, with his memory refreshed, wrote up his experiences. The results were published the next year (1847) under the name "The Oregon Trail" and these experiences are now available to us with the same sense of "being there" and the same freshness that must have existed when he first put pen to paper 165 years ago. The book is a masterful verbal documentary on the Great Plains, their weather - for example the smell and quiet just before the sky blackens and the wind picks up and the thunderstorm breaks with indescribable violence, It's about the Indians and the way they lived, about the flowers in springtime on the Great Prairie, about the oppressive heat of summer, the flies and the mosquitoes, about the antelope and the prairie dog villages, the rivers, the hills and far away buttes, the long horizons, the big sky and the sense of great space. Had Ken Burns, the great documentary filmmaker, lived at that time we would see in his filmed documentary exactly the same things that Parkman saw and described so accurately in his book. Then there is Parkman's description of the buffalo hunt: Remember the great scenes of the buffalo hunt in Dances With Wolves? (It won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1990.) They are right out of Parkman's Chapter on The Buffalo Hunt. Same for the movie's scenes of the Sioux Camp where Lt Dunbar first meets the Sioux You don't have to read the book to see the world of 165 years ago. You can go to the movie. But the book covers more ground and is the more preferable.

If I were to find any fault or faults with the book it would first be the fact that there is certain "sameness" in its many chapters. The next one is often much like the one you just read. So you can skip some. But, then it all comes with the territory. That's what the Great Prairie is - a lot of "sameness" for a thousand miles. Next I would fault the title. It's not about The Oregon Trail. The trail is at best a minor part of the book. The book is truly the account of a journey. It's really about how things were on the Great Plains in 1846.

Parkman went on to become one of the most prominent American historians of the 19th century, writing particularly about the French in America. However, in this book and without any authorial or scrivener's pretense Parkman has written a beautiful readable even lyrical - but accurate - account of how things were there and then. You don't have to read it in a hurry. Take your time. Go to your computer and dial up a map and follow where they are - or were - with their cart and mules. Think about it. Look up some pictures. This is not a book for speed or controversy. It is not a book about problems or politics. It is a beautifully written book about our America, about our history, our people, our experience and about travel and our country and it sets the standard by which all other similar books should be compared. It is an American Elegy

Francis Parkman was one of the most prestigious early historians in America. He gave a first hand account of his experiences in the frontier along the Oregon Trail. He went on a long excursion in the 1840's and carefully chronicled his observations of the myriad of people that he met along the way.

Parkman was a talented story teller who used vivid and descriptive language to paint a picture of the frontier for his readers. The work is brilliant from a literary standpoint. He was a clear communicator who described every facet of his visit in rich detail.

Parkman's descriptions were not without some cultural bias. He displayed a Manifest Destiny mentality that was common in that era. His descriptions of Native American communities could be somewhat insulting at times according to modern standards. However, his viewpoints capture mainstream ideas of the time that show the mindset of many Americans of European heritage. The reader should realize that the clash of civilizations made quite an impact and people were coming to grips with cultures very foreign to the one that most white Americans were familiar with.

This particular edition of this classic book was greatly enhanced by the beautiful artwork of Thomas Hart Benton. There were a number of magnificent illustrated scenes in the book and the pictures gave the reader visual aids that enhanced the understanding of the sights of the frontier. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and most heartily recommend it. It is a classic work by a great historian.

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.

Francis Parkman lived from 1823 to 1893. The Oregon Trail, an account of his travels in 1846, was his first published book. Parkman's journey would have been much easier to follow if the book had a map tracing his route.

My reading edition of The Oregon Trail is that in The Library of America volume [53] containing both The Oregon Trail and Parkman's The Conspiracy of Pontiac; but since I haven't yet read the book on Pontiac, I'm placing my review under the present volume. The Library of America edition of The Oregon Trail (TLA.OT) is of Parkman's 1849 first edition published by George P. Putnam, with a correction of the title, restoring it to Parkman's intention. The book was revised and reprinted several times, the last edition, illustrated by Frederick Remington, in 1892.

The year 1846 is also the year of the Donner Party's attempt to reach California. In chapter 10 of the Oregon Trail, Parkman mentions them, although not by name. He has stopped at a place he calls Richard's trading-house (TLA.OT: 118) near Fort Laramie. A group of emigrants on their way to California are there, and Parkman is introduced to a Colonel R----- who is the emigrants' erstwhile leader.

"Fearful was the fate that months after overtook some of the members of that party. General Kearny, on his late return from California, brought in the account how they were interrupted by the deep snows among the mountains, and maddened by cold and hunger, fed upon each other's flesh!" (TLA.OT:121)

If Parkman actually talked with or recalled the face of anyone from the Donner Party, he doesn't mention it, and the above quotation is all he says of them. The Colonel R------ is William Henry Russell (1802-1873). The Donner Party was, in fact, part of the Russell Party before going off on its own via the Hastings Cut-Off after crossing the Continental Divide through the South Pass. At the time Parkman is speaking with him, Russell has been deposed as leader, but the Donner Party has not yet split off. "His men, he [Russell] said, had mutinied and deposed him; but still he exercised over them the influence of a superior mind; in all but the name he was yet their chief." (TLA.OT:121) Lilburn Boggs eventually took over leadership of the Russell Party (see, for example, Ethan Rarick's Deparate Passage: The Donner Party's Perilous Journey West, page 51), but Parkman does not mention Boggs. This narrative of Parkman's experiences on the Oregon Trail can then be read as concurrent (up to a time) with the tragic experiences of the Donner Party.

California emigrants took the Oregon Trail until after crossing the Continental Divide through the South Pass, and so spent part of their journey with emigrants to Oregon; but Parkman was not on the Oregon Trail as an emigrant at all. In fact, he doesn't appear to have even reached the Continental Divide. The book has no map of his travels, and he's not always clear, but he seems to have gotten only as far on the Oregon Trail as Fort Laramie. While there he learns of an upcoming gathering of "Dahcotah" Indians, waging war against the Snake Indians. An "Ogillallah" chief, called the Whirlwind, has lost a son in battle, and he is determined to "chastise the Snakes". Parkman learns that the gathering will take place "at 'La Bonte's Camp,' on the Platte. Here their warlike rites were to be celebrated with more than ordinary solemnity, and a thousand warriors, as it was said, were to set out for the enemy's country." (TLA.OT: 110-11) Parkman is overjoyed.

"I was greatly rejoiced to hear of it. I had come into the country almost exclusively with a view of observing the Indian character. Having from childhood felt a curiosity on this subject, and having failed completely to gratify it by reading, I resolved to have recourse to observation. I wished to satisfy myself with regard to the position of the Indians among the races of men; the vices and the virtues that have sprung from their innate character and from their modes of life, their government, their superstitions, and their domestic situation. To accomplish my purpose it was necessary to live in the midst of them, and become, as it were, one of them. I proposed to join a village, and make myself an inmate of one of their lodges; and henceforward this narrative, so far as I am concerned, will be chiefly a record of the progress of this design, apparently so easy of accomplishment, and the unexpected impediments that opposed it." (TLA.OT:111)

So Parkman resolves to be at 'La Bonte's Camp' for the upcoming Dahcotah rendezvous. Several chapters cover his journey there and his adventures with the Dahcotah, including a buffalo hunt and time spent in the Black Hills. He and his companions eventually return to Fort Laramie and from there head south, down to Bent's Fort on the Santa Fe Trail. They hunt buffalo along the Arkansas river, and journey east towards Fort Leavenworth and civilization, essentially completing their circuit.

"We had met with signal good fortune. Although for five months we had been traveling with an insufficient force through a country where were were at any moment liable to depredation, not a single animal had been stolen from us. And our only loss had been one old mule bitten to death by a rattlesnake. Three weeks after we reached the frontier [by which he means the western edge of the United States as it stood in the midst of the Mexican War of 1846], the Pawnees and the Camanches [sic] began a regular series of hostilities on the Arkansas trail, killing men and driving off horses. They attacked, without exception, every party, large or small, that passed during the next six months." (TLA.OT: 337)

In a day when "historians" make comment on the long dead or events from the confines of their apartments, Francis Parkman is the person who actually experienced the history he wrote about. There is no political correctness in Parkman and he describes savages, French, frontiersmen and Mormons exactly as they were without apology.

This work is a masterpiece everyone should read and be a guidebook to modern historians who spend more time working a political end and getting in the way of history rather than letting history tell it's truthful tale.

Parkman is not just the historian or recorder of events. He is the bard of Sioux myth, the geologist, biologist and countless other things describing flora, fauna and weather. He is complete in having that air of Boston social elite in beginning his journey and returning from the plains an American having tasted, smelled and breathed the savage world and revealed the eastern thoughts on how that world would evolve for the next 60 years.

Parkman is remarkable and the best compliment for this book is to recommend that readers search for other Parkman histories to read as they are real.

I am currently in his wonderful Montecalm and Wolfe series on the history of Canada which actually created America. If you have children, share Parkman's history with them as he will make it come alive for them.

As you can see by all of the lengthy reviews, Francis Parkman invokes a great deal of thought and emotion in his histories which transfers to the reader.

On April 28, 1846, Francis Parkman, who had already decided that he was going to write the history of the settling of America, and Quincy Adams Shaw set forth from St. Louis up the Missouri River for a "tour of curiosity and amusement to the Rocky Mountains." They traveled some 1700 miles, meeting trappers, gamblers, woodsmen, soldiers and Indians and Parkman eventually spent three weeks hunting buffalo with a band of Oglala Sioux. The following year he published this travelogue which remains one of the great books ever produced by an American and embarked him on a career as one of Americaís first great historians.
On their trip, they were accompanied by Henry Chatillon, a hunter & guide, and Deslauriers, a muleteer. Parkman, in a passage which nicely illustrates his mastery of descriptive technique, sketches them as follows:
Deslauriers was a Canadian, with all the characteristics of the true Jean Baptiste. Neither fatigue,
exposure, nor hard labor could ever impair his cheerfulness and gayety, or his politeness to his
bourgeois; and when night came, he would sit down by the fire, smoke his pipe, and tell stories
with the utmost contentment. The prairie was his element. Henry Chatillon was of a different
stamp. When we were at St. Louis, several gentleman of the Fur Company had kindly offered to
procure for us a hunter and guide suited for our purposes, and on coming one afternoon to the
office, we found there a tall and exceedingly well-dressed man, with a face so open and frank that it
attracted our notice at once. We were surprised at being told that that it was he who wished to
guide us to the mountains. He was born in a little French town near St. Louis, and from the age of
fifteen years had been constantly in the neighborhood of the Rocky Mountains, employed for the
most part by the company, to supply their forts with buffalo meat. As a hunter, he had but one
rival in the whole region, a man named Simoneau, with whom, to the honor of both of them, he
was on the terms of closest friendship. He had arrived at St. Louis the day before, from the
mountains, where he had been for four years; and he now asked only to go and spend a day with
his mother, before setting out on another expedition. His age was about thirty; and he was six feet
high, and very powerfully and gracefully moulded. The prairies had been his school; he could
neither read nor write, but he had a natural refinement and delicacy of mind, such as is rare even in
women. His manly face was a mirror of uprightness, simplicity, and kindness of heart; he had,
moreover, a keen perception of character, and a tact that would preserve him from flagrant error in
any society. Henry had not the restless energy of an Anglo-American. He was content to take
things as he found them; and his chief fault arose from an excess of easy generosity, not conducive
to thriving in the world. Yet it was commonly remarked of him, that whatever he might choose to
do with what belonged to himself, the property of others was always safe in his hands. His bravery
was as much celebrated in the mountains as his skill in hunting; but it is characteristic of him that in
a country where the rifle is the chief arbiter between man and man, he was very seldom involved in
quarrels. Once or twice, indeed, his quiet good nature had been mistaken and presumed upon, but
the consequences of the error were such, that no one was ever known to repeat it. No better
evidence of the intrepidity of his temper could be asked, than the common report that he had killed
more than thirty grizzly bears. He was a proof of what unaided nature will sometimes do. I have
never, in the city or in the wilderness, met a better man than my true-hearted friend, Henry
Chatillon."
Any man would consider his life well spent if he could inspire that portrait. But lest you think he's too pedantic, he also writes with great humor, to wit:
Whiskey, by the way, circulates more freely in Westport than is altogether safe in a place where
every man carries a loaded pistol in his pocket.
or try this remark on setting out from Fort Leavenworth:
Thus we bade a long adieu to bed and board, and the principles of Blackstoneís commentaries.
Parkman's later work, The French and English in North America, was one of the first works published by the Library of America and it was the first great work of history produced by an American. It is also epic in length, numbering some 2000 pages or so. For a little easier introduction to his work, try The Oregon Trail.
GRADE: A

Before his death in the early 1890's, Francis Parkman would be hailed by many as North America's greatest historian. One of his first major works, The Oregon Trail, illustrates why. Written in 1847, the book chronicles an extensive journey undertaken by the youthful Parkman and his loyal friend Quincy Shaw the previous spring and summer. Parkman's express purpose was to see the "real" American West and live among "real" American Indians before their way of life passed forever. A vigorous young man, possessed of a keen intellect and observant eye, and already blessed with a rare and masterful prose style, Parkman chronicles his journey from St. Louis into the heart of the largely "unknown" American Plains. Peopled then by only a few white traders, trappers and ruffians slowly pushing their way into the domain of the Pawnee, Comanche, Arapaho, Dakota, "Shienne", Snakes and Crows, the West was a truly wild and dangerous place - and Parkman revels in it, providing meticulous descriptions of the landscape, people, and struggle for life and lifeways that would soon be no more.

Along the way Parkman introduces you to the men of Fort Laramie (established and maintained by traders long before soldiers came to the territory), lives amongst a Dakota band, hunts buffalo, weathers awe-inspiring Plains' thunderstorms and periods of drought, explores the Black Hills, the Rocky Mountains, and New Mexico. His journey takes him up the Missouri River, the Platte, the Arkansas and more. And far more than describe fascinating places and events, Parkman charms with full renderings of the characters he meets along the way: redoubtable hunter and guide Henry Chatillion, muleteer and cook Delorier, the dolorous Raymond and Reynal, jester Tete Rouge, hundreds of loathesome "pioneers", Indians Mene-Seela, Smoke, Whirlwind, Hail Storm, Big Crow and more. All characters worthy of Mark Twain. We are also made witness to Parkman and Shaw's slow transformation from adventurous young Bostonian scholars to worthy "plainsmen".

Even before finishing his college studies, Parkman declared that his ambition was to chronicle the "struggle for the continent". He achieved his goal in glorious measure. Parkman's works on the founding of "New France", LaSalle's explorations, the French/Indian Wars, Pontiac's conspiracy, Montcalm and Wolfe, etc., remain standards today, rich source material for authors from DeVoto to Eckert.

His brilliance lies in the fact that Parkman was no "arm chair" historian. His research was not limited to books and papers found in libraries from Boston to London and Paris. He personally visited nearly every town, battlefield, and waterway he wrote about. Parkman was also deeply committed to understanding the effects of the English/French/American struggles for the continent on the hundreds of North American tribes that were caught in the middle. To wit, the "Oregon Trail" trip to the Plains of the 1840s was designed to assist the historian's mind in understanding what was lost by eastern tribes decimated during the wars and land-lust of the preceding century. Even then Parkman foresaw a similar misfortune for western tribes: loss of free roaming on their ancestral lands; extinction of the buffalo; the ravaging effects of disease, whiskey and other evils of white contact. But Parkman was no romantic. He refers to the various tribes and some individuals (both white and red) as "savages", revealing a touch of his mid-1800s Bostonian elitism, yet by no means can Parkman be considered a closed-minded misanthrope. His life's work, starting with The Oregon Trail, reveals far too much sensitivity and fairness of thought for that label to stick. Read this, then dive into Parkman's later work on the history of Canada and early America. It is astonishingly good stuff!

Francis Parkman lived the Oregon Trail, slept it, ate it, marveled at it, and wrote an excellent memoir that leaves one with the feel of sand in your boots and the smell of buffalo roasting on the fire.
As a young man, Parkman went out west in 1846 to discover the American Indian. Setting out from Independence, Mo., Parkman proceeded to Ft. Larime (Wyoming), spent many weeks with a band of Indians as they hunted buffalo and secured life's necessities for the coming season, and returned to "the settlements" via Bent's Fort (Colorado) and the upper Santa Fe Trail. (Making this wonderful book misnamed since he was only on about the first 1/3 of the Oregon Trail and never crossed the Rockies).
What Parkman has left us is a wonderfully descriptive first person account of overland travel in the rugged west and the life of the Indian (as viewed by an outsider).
The strength of this book is in the details. Parkman has a keen eye whether it is turned towards imposing landscapes, Indian village life and travel, or buffalo hunting. This book has a gritty feel that paints the grandeur of western vistas as well as the hard reality of subsistence life (both Indian and white traveler) lived outdoors in a frequently unforgiving land.
Parkman's voice does have a 19th century feel. Modern readers will find he over-introduces new subjects (ie, "since, reader, we are telling of a buffalo hunt, now is a good time to acquaint you with the manner in which buffalo are brought to ground.") and the book does not have the flow associated with more contemporary writing. His attitudes towards Indians reflect the majority view of that time period and he was certainly at times a gratuitous hunter.
But the book's descriptive power, as well as the fascinating telling of life among the Indians and on the plains makes this well worth the time. This is a first person account that speaks of authenticity and gave me a feel for "what it must have been like." A good read.

This is a lively, energetic and realistic account of life in the 1846 American West. Parkman's "Oregon Trail" is considered a timeless, historical masterpiece and rightfully so. Only twenty three years old, he and his friend Quincy Adams Shaw went west "on a tour of curiosity and amusement to the Rocky Mountains". Stopping off at Fort Laramie, we acquire a taste of what life was like there in those early days of overland emigrants, trappers, traders, Indians and "ruffians". He then spends time with the Sioux, observing and describing their behavior, culture and customs while in the Laramie Mountains and Valley, and the foothills of the Medicine Bow Mountains. From here, Parkman and Shaw travel down the front range of Colorado to Pueblo, Bent's Fort and back to St. Louis via the Arkansas River. Being a very descriptive writer, we gain an insightful and vivid look as to geographical landforms and the characters who lived in those days. Excellent.

Parkman's travelogue on the Great Plains is a major work of life among the Native Americans. His descriptions are honest and capture a society that was fading even while he was writing. The book had a major impact on the way that non-westerners saw the Great Plains. This was both good and bad. Parkman wrote through the lens of a Boston aristocrat and was full of prejudices against those who did not meet his standards. This was dangerous in that many who read about the "backwardness" of the Native Americans used this as justification for "civilizing" them. Although this was probably not Parkman's intention, it was a consequence of his writing. In addition, he promoted the hunting of buffalo for sport, which led to the decimation of the buffalo heards on the Plains.

Another major issue with this book is that, in spite of its title, it is not about the Oregon Trail. Parkman went no further than the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains and he did all in his power to dissociate himself from the pioneers moving along the Oregon Trail. If you are looking for a history of the trail, this book will not satisfy your needs.

However, in spite of the misleading title and the prejudices that surface throughout the book, it is still a fine piece of writing that opens up a world that has been lost to today's readers. Read it and enjoy your travels into another time and place.

Ordered one week ago and item has not shipped. When ordered, it showed plenty "In-Stock" but received email stating otherwise two days later and it would not ship for a few weeks. I would have ordered another brand from a different source, had I known this. This is not a product rating because..... I DO NOT hAvE it.

Living at the main jumping-off point of the Oregon, Santa Fe and California Trails, and having traveled frequently throughout the great plains and Rocky Mountains, I thought this book would be a good read. I wasn't disappointed.
The book chronicles the author's trip along the Oregon Trail in the Spring and Summer of 1846. He begins by joining a group of fellow adventurers at Westport, Missouri, in present day Kansas City. Together they embark for Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. From there they head out to the plains, visiting Fort Laramie in Wyoming and the Black Hills of South Dakota. While in this general vicinity, the author joins a band of Indians and lives with them for a prolonged period, richly detailing the living conditions and customs of a Plains tribe at this time. He accompanies the tribe on a hunting trip to the Black Hills where he details this pristine area before the onrush of white encroachers after Custer's 1873 expedition.
The title of the book is somewhat misleading in that the author doesn't travel the entire Oregon Trail. In fact he only traverses about 1/3 of the trail, for he returns to Fort Laramie after his stay with the Indians where he regroups with his party before heading to Bent's Fort in Colorado. The country in between these two forts is vividly illustrated by his pen as is the fort itself upon his arrival.
At the fort his party is joined by a jester of sorts, a mentally ill volunteer soldier who had been left behind by his unit on their way to fight in the Mexican War which had begun just prior to the author's trip. He gives a colorful description of this man and his odd attributes during their return trip to civilization.
The party follows the Arkansas River through Kansas on their way back to Westport. Along the way they meet Indians and groups of soldiers marhing along the Santa Fe Trail toward action in Mexico and California. They also partake in hunting buffalo and of this experience the author does an exceptional job of putting the reader at the scene of the hunt. While this makes for exciting reading, it is also sad when one reflects that actions such as those of this party would later lead to the near extinction of the bufalo as well as the irradication of the plains' Indians lifestyle.
Having been on the plains, I felt that the author did a good job of describing the varying weather there, from the oppresive heat to the violent storms. I found it interesting that whenever one of these storms should arrive, the author and his companions would seek shelter below trees, contrary to what we are taught today. But then again, being caught out on the open plains with no adequate shelter when one of these tempests arose, I suppose one can see the reasoning in their actions.
This book was a quick read and I found it very educational. It was fun to see the plains through the eyes of someone who had been there when they were still little touched by civilization. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the period, as well as to those who are studying the history of the nation's development or thinking of traveling in this part of the country.

I have read and enjoyed all of Parkman's historical works concerning the French and Indian Wars. I did not find "The Oregon Trail" to be nearly so engaging as his other books. Obviously, the book is a valuable first-person account of the great plains during the mid-1840s. Most especially Parkman's observations of the Indians among whom he spent a good deal of time. That being said, I found the account to be somewhat tedious and redundant and would only recommend it to someone with a particular interest in the plains Indians or the westward expansion of that period. I listened to the unabridged Audible Audio version of the book.

This is an excellent book giving the reader a first person view of the Frontier in the 1840s. The details make the reader feel as if they were living the adventure themselves.

If you are looking for a book that tells of a journey on the Oregon Trail, this is NOT the book for you. A better for the book title might have been "A Summer On The Frontier: Life Among The Indians and Explorers." The author follows the Oregon Trail until he reaches Fort Laramie, and then spends the rest of his time among the indians who inhabited the plains and badlands at the time.

If you are looking for vivid picture of life among the indians, buffaloes, and explorers, this IS the book for you!

if you do not bring modern prejudgement to the read and take it for what it is: An 1840s first person account of a horse back trip to the Rockys and back with a month or so spent living with the then untamed Ogallals, you should enjoy this read as much as i did. You get the sense that the author is not some distant, stuck up historical figure but rather that he is alive and speaking and joking directly with the reader across a 160 some year chasm. A little reading on the Francis Parkman will enhance the experience.

The Oregon Trail by Francis Parkman is an account which further enforces the history of the Oregon Trail we had learned about in [U.S. History] class. The book portrays what it must have been like to travel on the Trail, never knowing what the next day would bring. The buffalo hunting which took place throughout the book became monotonous and boring after the first exciting few, but other than that repetitiveness, the journey was well depicted. I especially enjoyed Parkman's in-depth descriptions given to the reader of the people he meets on his journey and his observations on their actions as well. His vivid imagery of scenes from nature such as animals, prairie landscapes, and the weather, place the reader right next to Parkman in his adventuresome expedition. There are some dull, repetitive points in the observations made by the author, but aside from that his autobiographical telling of his journey is unforgettable.

The Oregon Trail is an undeniable classic -- although overrated compared to other books written about the same time about the same subject. Parkman is a priggish, Boston snob who complains his way across the West. He despises the pioneers crossing the plains and has no interest in them -- a startling lack of consciousness for a historian. The Indians and the mountain men fare little better. A better, more generous book by a young man in the west is Wah-to-Yah and the Taos Trail by Lewis H. Garrard.

Smallchief

The Oregon Trail still stands as a classic of American literature and of a rapidly vanishing past. Written as an account of a summer he spent traveling the Oregon Trail, Parkman captures the details of communal Native American life with no sentimentality, just hard reality. Even though written in 1846, Parkman is amazingly precise in his estimation of the vanishing frontier and Native American way of life. At times, he is rather callous toward the Native Americans, but this also reflects his times and environment. Highly recommended.

THIS PARTICULAR EDITION HAD A TYPE SET (PRINT) THAT WAS SO SMALL AS TO BE UNREADABLE (EVEN WITH READING GLASSES) IT WAS RETURNED. HOPEFULLY MY ACCOUNT HAS BEEN CREDITED AS I HAVE RECEIVED NOTICE THAT IT WAS RETURNED - BUT HAVE RECEIVED NO NOTIFICATION THAT MY ACCOUNT WAS CREDITED FOR THE RETURN.

As a young college student, Francis Parkman, the later noted historian of the early West, goes to the land of the Lakotas and experiences their life. This is a personal history of the travels of the author through the lands of the Lakota before the great American westward expansion. Tales of Indian life and their "wars" with each other. Also tells first hand of the author's maturation in this environment. Should be required reading for any "lover of the wild west" because "This Was The It Was".

Excellent prose, very descriptive of the time and place before civilization crowded real wilderness out...It was a simpler, more straightforward time...a great place to escape to when the complexities of modern life bewilder and confuse...Highly recommended!