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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
An account of a Boston man visiting the prairies and Rocky Mountains of North America in the 19th Century because he wanted to meet some Native Americans. He spends several weeks with bands of Dakotas, and shoots buffalo bulls willy-nilly, leaving them to rot.
