A Different View of Kit Carson

The Navajo experience was tragic…

Kit Carson is remembered as one of the premiere frontiersmen of the West. But Navajo and some Apache think of him differently. In 1863, while serving as a lieutenant colonel, Carson was ordered to subdue the Indians and force them on to reservation lands in eastern New Mexico. Carson had to take extreme measures—burning homes, confiscating livestock, etc.—so that the Indians could not go to ground. They finally surrendered, but hundreds died on the Carson-led forced march to the reservation.