Luke that article is a "good" start, but needs to be cross referenced. I'd also look at Ruxton - the book "Ruxton of the Rockies" is the one I would recommend. He has several first person descriptions of the local women. Take a look at the Rancho de Las Golondrinas site for info
www.golondrinas.org/Also here's a list of some SW RMFT era books and other info as well
- see #15 for a decent albeit some what dated article on SW clothes and gear - some of these are available on line via Google books, Archive.org, and here
www.xmission.com/~drudy/amm.html1 ) "This Reckless Breed of Men: The Trappers and Fur Traders of the Southwest" Cleland, Robert
2 ) "Wah-toyah and the Taos Trail" Garrard, Lewis.
3 ) "Ruxton of the Rockies" edited by Leroy Hafen
a partial online version is here "WILD LIFE IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS" by George Frederick Ruxton
user.xmission.com/~drudy/mtman/html/ruxton.html - both of these have some excellent descriptions of women and women's wear.
4 ) "The Personal Narrative of James O. Pattie of Kentucky" J. O Pattie
5 ) "Bent's Fort" Lavender, David
6 ) "Mountain Men and Fur Traders of the Far West" Hafen, Leroy
7 ) "The Taos Trappers" Webber, David J. .
8 ) "Antoine Robidoux and Fort Uncompahgre" Reyher, Ken
9 ) "Old Bill Williams Mountain Man" Favour, Alpheus
10) "The Fur Trappers and Traders of the Far Southwest" edited by LeRoy R. Hafen
11) "Uncle Dick Wootton: The Pioneer Frontiersman of the Rocky Mountain Region"
12) "The Taos Trappers: The Fur Trade in the Far Southwest, 1540-1846" David J. Weber
13) "Kit Carson and His Three Wives: A Family History" Marc Simmons (Marc is the foremost New Mexico historian and has written seerla books of interest - he also has some online essays here:
www.sfaol.com/history/simmons.html 14) "Commerce of the Prairies" Josiah Gregg - First published in 1844, it remains the standard account of Trail life by an actual participant - it's available on line at
www.kancoll.org/books/gregg/index.html#contents2 15) "Book of Buckskinning 4" Cathy Baumann - a bit dated, but still a valuable read
16) "The Independent Women of Hispanic New Mexico, 1821-1846" Janet Lecompte
The Western Historical Quarterly Vol. 12, No. 1 (Jan., 1981), pp. 17-35 Published by: Western Historical Quarterly, Utah State University
Article Stable URL:
www.jstor.org/stable/96916417) "El Gringo: or, New Mexico and her people" 1857
books.google.com/books/download/El_Gringo.pdf?id=k7tFAAAAIAAJ&hl=en&capid=AFLRE7230wvaSg9-2vx8orwR8_J6f4GJTDQExZK3-5ynNREzVOr5XqbUYihx3FFWvJneXCTxVU8i4kueIzOtX0zfPjQXpHCLIw&continue=http://books.google.com/books/download/El_Gringo.pdf%3Fid%3Dk7tFAAAAIAAJ%26output%3Dpdf%26hl%3Den18) "Adventures in the Santa Fe Trade, 1844-1847" Webb, James J. , ed. by Ralph P. Bieber. Glendale: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1931
Here's some info courtesy of mi amigo and fellow southwesterner Sean Kyle..(he lives in Lubbock, TX and I live in Durango, CO)
"Here's a couple more Southwest citations with my (Sean's) own comments. Some of these you can find through Amazon or other sources, but most you'll have to get through a library."
_________________________ ________
Author: McGaw, William C. (William Cochran), 1914-
Title: Savage scene; the life and times of James Kirker, frontier king.
Subject(s): Kirker, James, 1793-1852 or 3.
Indians of North America Southwest, New History.
Southwest, New History.
--Great read, but some of the info is slightly dated.
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Author: Smith, Ralph Adam.
Title: Borderlander : the life of James Kirker, 1793-1852 / Ralph Adam Smith.
Subject(s): Kirker, James, 1793-1852 or 3.
--Smith did this book in 1999. He's a great researcher, but not as good a story teller as McGaw. He did an extensive search of the Mexican records on Kirker and the scalp trade. Ralph coined one of my favorite words in this book 'Querquerismo'. That's a buck and a quarter word, ain't it?
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Author: Hobbs, James, b. 1819.
Title: Wild life in the Far West / James Hobbs.
Subject(s): Hobbs, James, b. 1819.
--Great read but of questionable validity. Smith thinks Hobbs is at best stories told to someone else by Gabriel (Hiram) Allen (Gabe originally went west with Ashley and Henry). It's evident from many of Hobb's descriptions of Kirker's battles with the Apache that he' never been in the country. He describes pine forests adjoining lakes in areas that are actually Chihuahuan desert and salt playas. He also pretty much puts himself into the role that Kirker played in Doniphan's campaign in the Mexican War and never mentions Kirker being there. I look at this book as wetern oral history, the kind of stuff you'd hear across the campfire.
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Author: Yount, George Calvert, 1794-1865.
Title: George C. Yount and his chronicles of the West, comprising extracts from his "Memoirs" and from the Orange Clark "Narrative." Edited by Charles L. Camp.
Subject(s): Frontier and pioneer life Southwest, New.
--An interesting book that overlaps much of Pattie, but strangely never mentions him by name. I think it's more realistic than Pattie's book.
_________________________ _______________
Author: Batman, Richard.
Title: James Pattie’s West : the dream and the reality / by Richard Batman.
American ecclesiastes
Subject(s): Pattie, James O. (James Ohio), 1804?-1850?
--A modern take on James Pattie's journal. I think he really pegged Pattie's character and did a good job making sense out of the fiction and reality in Pattie's acount.
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Author: Simmons, Marc.
Title: The Little Lion of the Southwest ; a life of Manuel Antonio Chaves / Marc Simmons.
Subject(s): Chaves, Manuel Antonio, 1818-1889.
New Mexico History.
--One of the Hispanic sides to the SW fur trade. If you believe all the stuff you hear about the New Mexicans being wimps, read this book. Marc Simmons is a great author and this book has recently been reprinted. Now, if I could just find a copy of his book 'The Fighting Settlers of Seboyetta."
might also do a search for re-enactor groups from Texas (War of Independence) and New Mexico (colonial and Mexican War) - most will have a list of sutlers.
womens-fashion.lovetoknow.com/Traditional_Mexican_Clothing_for_Women -the site has links to suppliers of both finished clothes and patterns.
Here's a bit of info on James Kirker -
"The most historically significant of the Gila mountain men was a contemporary of Pattie's named James Kirker (1793 - 1853). Kirker arrived at the Gila trapper's headquarters, the Santa Rita copper mines, in 1826, and he stayed for a decade at least, trapping the Gila streams and acting as a guard, scout and manager of the mines. By his own account he was "highly successful" as a trapper. According to William C. McGaw, author of the Kirker biography, Savage Scene, Kirker was once gone off in the wilderness, hunting and trapping, for 18 months! As late as 1837, when beaver were of little economic consequence due to their scarcity, Kirker emerged from the Gila Wilderness with over 1,000 beaver pelts, only to lose the entirety to an Indian raid.
But Kirker would be of minor historical interest had his career ended with beaver trapping. Instead, following the Apache uprising in 1837, Kirker turned to a more lucrative pursuit: scalp hunting. Hiring out to the Mexican government at $200 per scalp, Kirker led vigilantes of 50 to 100 men, many of them Shawnee and Delaware Indians, on punitive expeditions against the Apaches. The scourge lasted a half dozen years and ranged over the wilderness, from Taos to Santa Rita to Chihuahua City. The toll of Apache dead eventually exceeded 500; the scalps hung in gruesome display in the Ciudad Chihuahua square. One of Kirker's recruits, James Hobbs, wrote: "We would fight certain tribes . . . for the fun of the thing, and for common humanity, even if we were not rewarded for every scalp."
Kirker's life truly was a "savage scene," yet he survived it all - the wilderness trapping, the Indian wars, the Mexican American War (1846) where he served as a scout - to die of natural causes in 1853. Further, he left a multitude of descendants, a number of whom still carry the Kirker name and work in the Santa Rita mines." (Santa Rita is in Grant County, in the Silver City metro area)
www.southernnewmexico.com/Articles/People/MountainmenoftheGila.html and some of the Americans did go "native" at least to a point - here's how Kirker was described by one of Doniphan's Missouri Regiment in 1846:
"Fringed buckskin shirt and breeches, heavy broad Mexican hat, huge spurs, all embellished and ornamented with Mexican finery......In addition to a Hawkens rifle elegantly mounted and ornamented with silver inlaid on the stock, he was armed with a choice assortment of pistols and Mexican daggers........."
Some info on the Old Spanish Trail (a series of trails - originally a group of Indian routes - that connected northern New Mexico and California):
the Spanish had been traveling and trading along the Old Spanish Trail between, since 1598 or so. Some of the well-documented Spanish expeditions that led from Santa Fe to central Utah, along the eastern branch of the trail include:
Juan Maria Antonio de Rivera in 1765 the Dominquez-Escalante party of 1776 Manuel Mestas in 1805 the Arze-Garcia party of 1813. (BTW - That eastern branch happens to run along El Rio de las Animas Perdidas, aka the River of Lost Souls aka the Animas River, which just happens to run along the valley floor about a 200 ft in front of my house, 15 miles south of Durango, Co.. - here's a map of the Old Spanish Trail
www.oldspanishtrail.org/assets/maps/map_osnht _cke_lg.jpg
After 1821, when trade with the Americans became "legal", fur-trapping parties pushed west from New Mexico, following the Gila and Colorado rivers south of the Trail into what is now Arizona, while others used the Spanish route northwest from Santa Fe to trap the Green River in eastern Utah. Some of those fur trappers/traders : Antoine Robidoux (who built forts on the north Branch), Ewing Young, Etienne Provost, William Wolfskill, George Yount, Jose Martin, Jedediah Smith, Kit Carson, and Ceran St. Vrain. Info about the Old Spanish Trail and the southern country would have spread north via those SW trappers, some of whom had worked north, by the time of Ogden's journal entry in 1826. Also the Utes had been trading Spanish goods northward along the Green River route, to the Snakes and Bannocks, in southern Idaho and Wyoming, since at least 1765, long before either the Brits or Americans had entered the area - it was one of the main routes for horses in particular as well as slaves.
As for the South West being flat, arid plains - far from it - the Gila and other rivers start/run thorugh the Mogollon country (pronounced more or less Muggy owen), which straddles the border of central Arizona and New Mexico. In Northern Arizona you have the San Francisco peaks country. In Northern New Mexico and Colorado are the Rockies of course. Much of the area trapped is high up country, plateaus, interspersed with small mountain ranges to the south and west of Taos, and to the North is the Rockies, interspersed with high plateaus and valleys. The area I live just north of the Colorado/New Mexico border is at 6500-7000 ft ASL. Rolling hills covered with pinyon and juniper. About Thirty miles north is the La Platas and the San Juans, with peaks reaching to 14,000 ft.
and FWI - cigarillo papers were also available in the SW not just corn husks...
