and whatever they might have seemed on board the boat, they made a very striking and picturesque feature in the forest landscape.

3

Westport was full of Indians, whose little shaggy ponies were tied by dozens, along the houses and fences. Sacs and Foxes, with shaved heads and painted faces, Shawanoes and Delawares, fluttering in calico frocks and turbans, Wyandots dressed like white men, and a few wretched Kanzas wrapped in old blankets, were strolling about the streets, or lounging in and out of the shops and houses.

...

The emigrants, . . were encamped on the prairie. about eight or ten miles distant, to the number of a thousand or more, and new parties were constantly passing out from Independence to join them. They were in great confusion, holding meetings, passing resolutions, and drawing up regulations, but unable to unite in the choice of leaders to conduct them across the prairie. Being at leisure one day, I rode over to Independence. The town was crowded. A multitude of shops had sprung up to furnish the emigrants and Santa Fé traders with necessaries for their journey; and there was an incessant hammering and banging from a dozen blacksmiths' sheds, where the heavy wagons were being repaired, and the horses and oxen shod. The streets were thronged with men, horses and mules. While I was in the town, a train of emigrant wagons from Illinois passed through to join the camp on the prairie, and stopped in the principal street. A multitude of healthy children's faces were peeping out from under the covers of the wagons. Here and there a buxom damsel was seated on horseback, holding over her sunburnt face an old umbrella or a parasol, once gaudy enough but now miserably faded. The men, very sober-looking countrymen, stood about their oxen; and as I passed I noticed three old fellows, who, with their long whips in

3 Now four or five miles from Kansas City, Missouri.

their hands, were zealously discussing the doctrine of regeneration. The emigrants, however, are not all of this stamp. Among them are some of the vilest outcasts in the country. I have often perplexed myself to divine the various motives that give impulse to this migration; but whatever they may be, whether an insane hope of a better condition in life, or a desire of shaking off restraints of law and society, or mere restlessness, certain it is that multitudes bitterly repent the journey, and, after they have reached the land of promise, are happy enough to escape from it. . . .

The great medley of Oregon and California emigrants at their camps around Independence had heard reports that several additional parties were on the point of setting out from St. Joseph farther to the northward. The prevailing impression was that these were Mormons, twenty-three hundred in number; and a great alarm was excited in consequence. The people of Illinois and Missouri, who composed by far the greater part of the emigrants, have never been on the best terms with the “Latter Day Saints"; and it is notorious throughout the country how much blood has been spilt in their feuds, even far within the limits of the settlements. No one could predict what would be the result, when large, armed bodies of these fanatics should encounter the most impetuous and reckless of their old enemies on the broad prairie, far beyond the reach of law or military force. The women and children at Independence raised a great outcry; the men themselves were seriously alarmed; and, as I learned, they sent to Colonel Kearney, requesting an escort of dragoons as far as the Platte. This was refused; and, as the sequel proved, there was no occasion for it. The St. Joseph emigrants

4 The settlements of the Mormons had been broken up in Missouri by 1840, and in Illinois in 1844-46. The headquarters of the Mormons remained at Council Bluffs till, in 1847, their exploring parties reached Salt Lake and selected it as the site of a permanent settlement.

66

were as good Christians and as zealous Mormon-haters as the rest; and the very few families of the Saints' who passed out this season by the route of the Platte remained behind until the great tide of emigration had gone by, standing in quite as much awe of the "gentiles" as the latter did of them. .

...

We were now at the end of our solitary journeyings along the St. Joseph trail. On the evening of the twentythird of May we encamped near its junction with the old legitimate trail of the Oregon emigrants. . . . As we lay around the fire after supper, a low and distant sound, strange enough amid the loneliness of the prairies, reached our ears, peals of laughter, and the faint voices of men and women. For eight days we had not encountered a human being, and this singular warning of their vicinity had an effect extremely impressive.

About dark a sallow-faced fellow descended the hill on horseback, and splashing through the pool, rode up to the tents. He was enveloped in a huge cloak, and his broad felt hat was weeping about his ears with the drizzling moisture of the evening. Another followed, a stout, squarebuilt, intelligent-looking man, who announced himself as leader of an emigrant party, encamped a mile in advance of

us.

These were the first emigrants that we had overtaken, although we had found abundant and melancholy traces of their progress throughout the course of the journey. Sometimes we passed the grave of one who had sickened and died on the way. The earth was usually torn up and covered thickly with wolf tracks. Some had escaped this violation. One morning, a piece of plank, standing upright on the summit of a grassy hill, attracted our notice, and riding up to it, we found the following words very roughly traced upon it, apparently with a red-hot piece of iron:

MARY ELLIS

DIED MAY 7TH, 1845

AGED TWO MONTHS

Such tokens were of common occurrence.

We were late in breaking up our camp on the following morning, and scarcely had we ridden a mile, when we saw, far in advance of us, drawn against the horizon, a line of objects stretching at regular intervals along the level edge of the prairie. An intervening swell soon hid them from sight, until ascending it a quarter of an hour after, we saw close before us the emigrant caravan, with its heavy white wagons, creeping on in slow procession, and a large drove of cattle following behind. Half-a-dozen yellowvisaged Missourians, mounted on horseback, were cursing and shouting among them, their lank, angular proportions enveloped in brown homespun, evidently cut and adjusted by the hands of a domestic female tailor. As we approached they called out to us: "How are ye, boys? Are ye for Oregon or California?"

As we pushed rapidly by the wagons, children's faces. were thrust out from the white coverings to look at us; while the care-worn, thin-featured matron, or the buxom girl seated in front, suspended the knitting on which most of them were engaged to stare at us with wondering curiosity. By the side of each wagon stalked the proprietor, urging on his patient oxen, who shouldered heavily along, inch by inch, on their interminable journey. It was easy to see that fear and dissension prevailed among them; some of the men - but these, with one exception, were bachelors looked wistfully upon us as we rode lightly and swiftly by, and then impatiently at their own lumbering wagons and heavy-gaited oxen. Others were unwilling to advance at all, until the party they had left behind should have rejoined them. Many were murmuring against the leader they had chosen, and wished to depose him; and this discontent was fomented by some ambitious spirits who had hopes of succeeding in his place. The women were divided between regrets for the homes they had left and fear of the deserts and savages before them.

We soon left them far behind, and hoped that we had

taken a final leave; but our companions' wagon stuck so long in a muddy ditch that before it was extricated the van of the emigrant caravan appeared again, descending a ridge close at hand. Wagon after wagon plunged through the mud; and as it was nearly noon, and the place promised shade and water, we saw with satisfaction that they were resolved to encamp. Soon the wagons were wheeled into a circle; the cattle were grazing over the meadow, and the men with sour, sullen faces, were looking about for wood and water. They seemed to meet but indifferent success. As we left the ground, I saw a tall, slouching fellow with the nasal accent of "down east" contemplating the contents of his tin cup, which he had just filled with water. "Look here, you," said he;" it's chock-full of animals!" The cup as he held it out, exhibited in fact an extraordinary variety and profusion of animal and vegetable life.

Riding up the little hill, and looking back on the meadow, we could easily see that all was not right in the camp of the emigrants. The men were crowded together and an angry discussion seemed to be going forward.

Francis Parkman: The Oregon Trail, pp. 1-6, 36, 5154. Little, Brown and Co., New York, 1893.

QUESTIONS

What were the difficulties of navigating the Missouri? What evidences of the Santa Fé trade and the Oregon migration could be seen in the passage up the Missouri? What was the general character of the Oregon emigrants? How did they attempt to organize for the passage of the Plains? Compare the account with Gregg's story of the organization of a Santa Fé caravan. What was the feeling between the Oregon emigrants and the Mormons? Describe an emigrant caravan. How did it make camp?