Bent's Fort

Rating:
Summary: A Dated History of the Fur Trade
Review: David Lavender wrote Bent's Fort in 1954. His book has all of the virtues of a popular history written during that time period. The story is driven by bigger than life characters forging history in an exotic locale. The book was a fun read enjoyable in the same way as those big 1950's technicolor movies. Great on plot but a little weak on the history.

To the modern reader, the book is very dated. The Indians are "Red Savages" and the Mexicans are lazy and shiftless. Not surprisingly, the Anglo Fur Traders are heroes straight out of a Hollywood central casting. David Lavender writes with the easy racism that was common in the pre civil rights era. In the past fifty years, American historians have made great progress in the study of the West. We now have a much more nuanced understanding of how the West was really settled.

I would recommend this book to those who like the "lite" version of history. A fun read with plenty of good guys and bad guys. Something to read between the tomahawk throwing contest and working on the buffalo hide beer can holder. However, the serious reader should check out David Fridtj Halaas' "Halfbreed". There is no better an example of how much Western History writing has progressed in the past half century.

Rating:
Summary: A Dated History of the Fur Trade
Review: David Lavender wrote Bent's Fort in 1954. His book has all of the virtues of a popular history written during that time period. The story is driven by bigger than life characters forging history in an exotic locale. However, David Lavender's book also shares the weaknesses of a history written at that time. The Indians are "Red Savages" and the Mexicans are lazy and shiftless. Unfortunately, David Lavender writes with the easy racism that was common in the pre civil rights era.

This book is a must for anyone wanting to learn about the Fur Trade in the Southern Rockies. Most of the people who read this book will probably not be bothered by Lavender's thoughtless racism. However, I am waiting for a new history of Bents Fort. A history that is more nuanced and takes advantage of the tremendous advances made in the study of the American West during the last fifty years.

Rating:
Summary: Surprising
Review: Despite all we read, this is the first book that made me realize that there were two Old Wests. The first really starts with the fur trade; the second starts with the flood tide of white immigration. Somewhere along this continuum, Native Americans effectively disappear as economic units and as cultures. The focus of this book is on the first West, including its transition into the second.

This then is the story of the early west, when the first white emigration was necessarily in balance not only with the aboriginal inhabitants but also with the valid claims of Spain, Mexico, Great Britain and Russia. It is a story of intense competition, the story of a hugely successful commercial empire that really opened this vast section of the American West. It is the story of the Santa Fe Trail, the main route of commerce between St. Louis and Santa Fe, and the people who sought to control it. It is the story of men and women, of the lives and fortunes of those who developed and experienced this commercial thoroughfare.

As a history it is mesmerizing. As a yarn it is eye popping. As a series of events it is unbelievable. A critical part of the Nation's Manifest Destiny, it is the story of human endurance, of culture clash, war, survival, success and failure. But mostly it is the story of a very logical, continual development, a transition, one that will make you proud to be an American.

Rating:
Summary: History without the political correctness
Review: For a book written in 1954, I was surprised at the thoughtfulness and consideration given the Indians. Over and over Lavender brings to the fore the emotional lives of the Indians, he makes clear how these immigrant whites mixed with Indians and Mexicans in a rather ho-hum no-big-deal, she's-my-wife manner, and he skewers those whites in power who brought the Sand Creek Massacre about. However he does not shrink from portraying Indian lives as more Hobbesian than many of us, steeped as we have been for decades in the "noble savage" myth, would like to admit was true, and pulls no punches in using the language of the time. My! how horrible for our own history to be given to us straight and unfiltered. Essential for Coloradoans; the names of many of the people in this book are now forever attached to the creeks, mesas, rivers, and mountains around us. Difficult to imagine that the border of Mexico was the south bank of the Arkansas River until 1848. Bent's Fort was rebuilt in the 70's, it's just east of La Junta. I have liked everything Lavender has written so far - this is another excellent entry in the list.

Rating:
Summary: A must for Old west buffs
Review: I flew through Bent's Fort in a week after it was recommended to me by a friend. I wasn't all that interested in the topic but I decided to read a few chapters and give it a try. I instantly became hooked. Bent's fort gives the reader an inside look into the West BEFORE it became the stuff of lore (i.e. Lincoln County War, Pat Garrett, Custer, etc.). Lavender starts with the mountain men roaming the Missouri and Rockies and their relationship with the Plains indians. His knowledge of the Indians (specifically the Cheyenne tribe), really brings the sometimes forgotten native people, down to a personal level. Most of the book centers around the Bent family and its fort located in SE Colorado between 1820 - 1870. With the Bent's into trading, much is also written about St. Louis, Santa Fe, Taos and the Arkansas and Cimarron Rivers . What I really liked about the book is the personal level Lavender gets the Old west characters down to. It feels like you know William Bent, Kit Carson and Yellow Wolf. A great deal of the book also deals with Mexico and the trader's relationship with the country up to the Mexican War and after the US gained possession of the territory. One thing that really surprised me was the amount of small, sporadic fights that went on between the Indians, the Mexicans and the whites. Lavender writes about all the small skirmishes, what precipitated them, and how things cooled off into a peaceful state again. If you do plan to read Bent's Fort, I suggest you do so with an atlas handy. Lavender writes about hundreds of places in the Southwest and it's hard to get a gauge as to where the events occurred unless you have an atlas. Also, if you are reading this book for reference material, do not plan to cite dates of events. Because the Bent's did not keep journals, many of the years listed for when things happened are just educated guesses. It's fine for the reader but if you're working on a college paper, it could be a headache. I recommend this book to any history buff who wants to know what the West was like when it was first discovered by whites and how their relationships were with the Indians and Mexicans. Lavender also gives the reader a feeling on how it was to venture out to an unknown land and what chores were needed to do daily to survive. Just remember you atlas before starting!

Rating:
Summary: Engrossing
Review: One fantastic, engrossing book! Bent's Fort is in southeastern Colorado and this book gives the history of that area along with Taos and Sante Fe. Couldn't put the book down. The fort bordered what was then the United States and Mexico. We see how the Bent brothers establish a trading post along the Arkansas River in the 1830's and began a long career of not only in trading with the Indians and Mexicans, but also get involved in the uprising of hostilities between Mexico and the United States. The cultural descriptions of our Native Americans is very well done. It is a great read and as another reviewer said, it is as if the characters simply come alive and you feel as though you know them personally.