Kit Carson and the Indians

Often portrayed by past historians as the greatest guide and Indian fighter in the West, Kit Carson (1809–68) has become in recent years a historical pariah—a brutal murderer who betrayed the Navajos, an unwitting dupe of American expansion, and a racist. Many historians now question both his reputation and his place in the pantheon of American heroes. In Kit Carson and the Indians, Tom Dunlay urges us to reconsider Carson yet again. To Dunlay, Carson was simply a man of the nineteenth century whose racial views and actions were much like those of his contemporaries.

Tom Dunlay (1944–2003) was a freelance writer and historian. He is the author of Wolves for the Blue Soldiers: Indian Scouts and Auxiliaries with the United States Army, 1860–90 (Nebraska 1982).