Kit Carson (1809-1868) has long held a prominent place in the popular imagination of the American West. However, little is known about his family life thanks largely to Carson's own guardianship of his privacy. After almost four decades devoted to researching Kit Carson's personal life, Marc Simmons provides information here to further our understanding of Carson. Viewing Kit Carson's career as a husband and father sheds new light on the life choices he made. The changing economy of the 1840s made it increasingly difficult for a trapper and scout to support a growing family. Carson's years as an Indian agent in the 1850s provided him stability although he was never able to spend as much time with his family as any of them would have liked and he was never able to bring in a comfortable income. The Kit Carson Simmons portrays offers a welcome change from recent politicized interpretations of Carson's actions.

Studies of seventeenth-century New Mexico have largely overlooked the soldiers and frontier settlers who formed the backbone of the colony and laid the foundations of European society in a distant outpost of Spain's North American empire. This book, the final volume in the Coronado Historical Series, recognizes the career of Juan Dominguez de Mendoza, a soldier-colonist who was as instrumental as any governor or friar in shaping Hispano-Indian society in New Mexico. Dominguez de Mendoza served in New Mexico from age thirteen to fifty-eight as a stalwart defender of Spain's interests during the troubled decades before the 1680 Pueblo Revolt. Because of his successful career, the archives of Mexico and Spain provide extensive information on his activities. The documents translated in this volume reveal more cooperative relations between Spaniards and Pueblo Indians than previously understood.

Written by the foremost historian on New Mexico, this popular fourth-grade-level textbook introduces the young reader to New Mexicos past and present. When students finish reading this book, they will better understand how different cultures shaped the way we live today as well as know about major events and key people in New Mexicos development.

Simmons approaches history as a window to the past. That is, students come to understand they are part of a long flow of human events. This book surveys the experiences of first the Indians, then the Spanish, and finally those people who have come to New Mexico since it has been part of the United States.

Supplementing each of the eleven chapters are maps and photographs, about a third of them in color.

A separate teacher/student resource guide is complimentary with class sets of 20 or more books. The resource guide includes lesson plans keyed to the states instructional standards for social studies, student activities and exercises, as well as tests and answer keys. Copies are available for sale at $15.00 each when schools do not purchase 20 books or wish additional copies. Call 800-249-7737 or 505-277-4810 to order.

Reading level: grade 4.

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Written as a scrupulously accurate guidebook to the prairies and as an authoritative account of the early Santa Fe trade, "Commerce of the Prairies "has been a favorite of historians, ethnologists, naturalists, and collectors of Western Americana for generations. But Gregg's masterpiece is not for specialists alone: its vivid descriptions of desert mirages, wagon caravans, Indian alarms and attacks, buffalo hunts, and other early Western phenomena will delight all who wish to know the country as it was before the great herds of buffalo were slaughtered and the roving Indians confined to reservations, before the landscape was transformed by barbed wire, domestic cattle, plowed fields, and modern highways.

Josiah Gregg, a man of rare sensitivity and passionate science interest, joined a caravan of traders bound for Santa Fe in 1831 and almost immediately developed a fascination for the adventure-packed life of Santa Fe trader. And during the ten years that he engaged in the San Fe trade, Gregg took copious notes on the life and landscape of the American prairies and the Mexican plateau, later utilizing them in "Commerce of the Prairies."

This new edition faithfully follows the rare first edition, to and including the maps and illustrations. It will be welcomed both by readers familiar with the importance and interest of Gregg's work and by readers who have yet to discover its attraction.

When General Stephen Watts Kearny's Army of the West marched into Santa Fe, New Mexico, on August 18, 1846, Richard Smith Elliott, a young Missouri volunteer, was included in its ranks. In addition to Lieutenant Elliott's duties in the Laclede Rangers, he served as a regular correspondent to the St. Louis Reveille. An entertaining and educated observer, Elliott provided readers back home with an account of the grueling march over the famous Santa Fe Trail, the triumphant entry of the army into Santa Fe, the U.S. occupation of New Mexico, and the volunteers' eventual return to St. Louis.Noted southwestern scholars Mark L. Gardner and Marc Simmons present here, for the first time, all of Elliott's letters published in the Reveille under his nom-de-plume, John Brown, using passages from his autobiography for the same period to fill in a break resulting from a few missing letters. Also included are Elliott's literary sketches, drawn from his Mexican War experiences and the people he met and served with.

The peaceable Pueblo Indians seemed an unlikely people to rise emphatically and successfully against the Spanish Empire. For eighty-two years the Pueblos had lived under Spanish domination in the northern part of present-day New Mexico. The Spanish administration had been led not by Coronado's earlier vision of god but by a desire to convert the Indians to Christianity and eke a living from the country north of Mexico. The situation made conflict inevitable, with devastating results.

Robert Silverberg writes: "While the missionaries flogged and even hanged the Indians to save their souls, the civil authorities enslaved them, plundered the wealth of their cornfields, forced them to abide by incomprehensible Spanish laws." A long drought beginning in the 1660s and the accelerated raids of nomadic tribes contributed to the spontaneous revolt to the Pueblos in August 1680.

How the Pueblos maintained their independence for a dozen years in plain view of the ambitious Spaniards and how they finally expelled the Spanish is the exciting story of "The Pueblo Revolt." Robert Silverberg's descriptions yield a rich picture of the Pueblo culture.

"Occasionally a truly remarkable book appears-one that takes a topic in need of discussion, thoroughly researches it, and presents credible results in a fascinating and extremely well manner. Witchcraft in the Southwest is such a volume, and as such, is a must for all readers, be they scholars, students, or others. . . . The volume devotes equal time to Spanish and Indian supernaturalism along the Rio Grande. Opening with a succinct review of the meaning and evolution of witchcraft in Europe and Spain, Simmons establishes the existence of many similar beliefs among native inhabitants of the New World. Moving chronologically to Spanish colonization, the author vividly conveys Spanish reactions to Pueblo life and religion, the fears of witches and other supernatural forces that plagued Spanish colonists. . . . Emphasizing the beliefs and nature of witchcraft rather than the actual mechanics (which are secret), he follows Hispanic communities into the late 19th century. . . . Readers learn how witchcraft fits into the Pueblo world view and how it compares and contrasts with European and Spanish varieties in such areas as motivation, types, powers, beliefs and means of acquisition. . . . Simmons' study provides a needed overview and one that is carefully based on available ethnohistorical documents and credible anthropological data."-American Indian Quarterly A professional historian, author, editor, and translator, Marc Simmons has published numerous books and monographs on the Southwest as well as articles in more than twenty scholarly and popular journals.

When General Stephen Watts Kearny's Army of the West marched into Santa Fe, New Mexico, on August 18, 1846, Richard Smith Elliott, a young Missouri volunteer, was included in its ranks. In addition to Lieutenant Elliott's duties in the Laclede Rangers, he served as a regular correspondent to the St. Louis Reveille. An entertaining and educated observer, Elliott provided readers back home with an account of the grueling march over the famous Santa Fe Trail, the triumphant entry of the army into Santa Fe, the U.S. occupation of New Mexico, and the volunteers' eventual return to St. Louis. Noted southwestern scholars Mark L. Gardner and Marc Simmons present here, for the first time, all of Elliott's letters published in the Reveille under his nom-de-plume, John Brown, using passages from his autobiography for the same period to fill in a break resulting from a few missing letters. Also included are Elliott's literary sketches, drawn from his Mexican War experiences and the people he met and served with. The editors' introduction and comprehensive notes provide insight into Elliott's political, social, and literary milieu and into the historical background of the people and places he portrayed. Elliott's correspondence invokes the hopes and fears of the men, the drudgery and hardship of the long march to Santa Fe, and the comraderie of the troops. Including details of the resistance to U.S. occupation, the bloody Taos Revolt, and the military campaign that crushed the insurgents, Richard Smith Elliott's writings provide a fascinating firsthand account of the American Southwest during perhaps its most tumultuous period.

Volume 1 of" Kit Carson Days" shows Carson running away from his Missouri home at age fifteen in 1826. He joins a caravan headed toward Santa Fe and in the coming years shuttles between poverty and prosperity as a wrangler, teamster, and trapper. He lives all over the unplotted West, helping to open trails, harvesting fur, befriending mountain men, and fighting and trading with Indians. Carson's reputation grows after John C. Fremont engages him as guide in 1842. He proves indispensable to the Pathfinder in three expeditions and plays a part in the Bear Flag Rebellion. The first volume is an encyclopedia of activity in the West during the first part of the nineteenth century, bringing into play such figures as Ewing Young, William Ashley, Jim Bridger, Jedediah Smith, Thomas Fitzpatrick, Hugh Glass, John Colter, William Sublette, Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, William Bent, Stephen Kearny, President James K. Polk, John Sutter, and Nathaniel Wyeth. This revised edition includes vivid chapters on the mountain man, his character, habits, clothing, and equipment. Volume 2 begins with Carson carrying the news of the conquest of California across the country to Washington, D.C., stopping en route to see his wife in Taos, New Mexico. The older Carson consolidates his fame as a courier, scout, soldier, and Indian agent. Americans, avid for newfound gold, turn to him as an authority on trail lore, and the government recognizes his usefulness in dealing with "the Indian problem." Carson is seen against the larger background of incessant warfare in the Southwest after midcentury. He fights the Kiowas at Adobe Walls, chases the Apaches, and forces the Navajos into the Bosque Redondo. He fights in the Civil War and retires at fifty-eight--but dies two years later in 1868.

Gold had just been discovered in California at the close of the Mexican War when Kit Carson started east from Los Angeles with Dispatches. Going with him was Lieutenant George Douglas Brewerton, who describes their journey over the Old Spanish Trail. It was a torturous route across deserts and mountains requiring the kind of expert survival skills that made Kit Carson famous. The scout, who was carrying the news that would begin the rush for gold, went as far as Taos, where he was reunited with his wife. From there Brewerton joined a wagon train that labored over the Santa Fe Trail to Independence, Missouri. "Overland with Kit Carson" is a colorful and authentic account of encounters with Indians and white adventurers and of the hazards and hardships that accompanied anyone who undertook such a long journey in a sparsely populated country.

Author, photographer, historian, archeologist, and preservationist, Charles Fletcher Lummis stood tall in the affections of American Southwesterners at the turn of the 20th century. A flamboyant figure of enormous energy, he championed Indian rights and Hispanic culture, while introducing Easterners, through his many books, to the rich heritage of New Mexico, Arizona, and California. After years of fading from view, the large Lummis legacy is being rediscovered. His works are coming back into print and in 2006 the city of Los Angeles inaugurated an annual Lummis Day Festival. This little book can acquaint readers with a remarkable recorder of history and can help to reawaken interest in his efforts to preserve the distinctive cultures of the American Southwest. Additionally, this book contains, as its first chapter, the complete contents of the classic "Two Southwesterners: Charles Lummis & Amado Chaves" by Marc Simmons, originally published by San Marcos Press in 1968 and long unavailable until now. Marc Simmons, besides being an aficionado of the writings of Charles F. Lummis, is himself a historian and prolific author. In 1993 he was knighted by order of the King of Spain for his publications on Spanish colonial history of the Southwest. Among his most recent books are "New Mexico Mavericks," "Stalking Billy the Kid," and a new edition of "Southwestern Colonial Ironwork," all published by Sunstone Press.

Thomas Edward ("Black Jack") Ketchum (October 31, 1863-April 26, 1901) was executed for an attempt to hold up the C. & S. train between Des Moines and Folsom in the northeaster corner of New Mexico. His other daring deeds as a desperado were not considered by the court. Ketchum was to be made an example in an effort to prevent further robberies as well as to prove to the rest of the nation that New Mexico knew how to deal with outlaws like Black Jack. Actually the hanging proved nothing. Rustlers, robbers, and outlaws continued on their merry way. Looking back over Ketchum's misdeeds, which were many, his misplaced bravery outshone the more widely known Billy the Kid who never came within range of Ketchum for daring, nerve, and hard riding. Ketchum, whose career began as an humble horse thief, wrote his own ticket with tragic results. The truth about Ketchum reads like fiction and the author shows no signs of embellishment in his account. F. Stanley (Father Stanley Francis Louis Crocchiola) was a history buff whose curiosity and inner fire drew him to the study of people and places and events that had gone unnoticed until he saw them. It has been said that he wandered across the American Southwest like a Johnny Appleseed of history, planting seedlings in the form of booklets and leaving their later nurturing to others. "An easterner by birth but a southwesterner at heart, Father Stanley Francis Louis Crocchiola had as many vocations as names," says his biographer, Mary Jo Walker. "As a young man, he entered the Catholic priesthood and for nearly half a century served his church with great zeal in various capacities, attempting to balance the callings of teacher, pastor, historian and writer." With limited money or free time, he also managed to write and publish one hundred and seventy-seven books and booklets pertaining to his adopted region under his nom de plume, F. Stanley, The initial in that name does not stand for Father, as many have assumed, but for Francis, which Louis Crocchiola took, with the name Stanley, at the time of his ordination as Franciscan friar in 1938. All of F. Stanley's titles have now reached the status of expensive collector's items. This new edition in Sunstone's Southwest Heritage Series includes a new foreword by Marc Simmons, an excerpt from F. Stanley's biography by Mary Jo Walker, and a tribute to F. Stanley by Jack D. Rittenhouse (also from the biography).

Thomas E. Ketchum, better known as "Black Jack" Ketchum, at six foot two inches tall with dark skin and black hair and described as having a "wonderful physique," never became one of those folklore desperados whose violent and lawless ways were burnished with an illusive romance. If he is remembered at all, it is mostly for the peculiar circumstances which attended the curtailment of his earthly career. Yet, as a man who was noted in his own day, and who stood out above most others in his dubious profession, he is worthy of more than passing mention. He and his companions were among the boldest outlaws ever to ride the American Southwest, and almost the last of their line. Tom Ketchum and his small gang--one member was his brother Sam--were on the dodge in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona for less than four years and their career of banditry lasted for little more than two years. Tom, often confused with the earlier Black Jack Christian who was the first outlaw in New Mexico to carry the handle "Black Jack," was always the leader of their gang. In the end he paid dearly for his escapades. At his hanging in 1901 he declared, "Hurry up boys, I'm due in Hell for dinner." Jeff Burton was born in Nottinghamshire, England, in 1936. His interest in history, folklore, and myth began at an early age. His special field has been the study of law enforcement and outlawry in the American West.

The rock-ribbed hills surrounding Cerrillos, New Mexico, are honeycombed with mineshafts and it is these mines that have shaped the history of the town and of the district over which it presides. The Pueblo Indians for untold ages took out turquoise; the Spaniards in their turn found gold, silver and lead; and finally, the Anglo-Americans exploited all of these in addition to copper, zinc and coal. Mining gave life to Cerrillos and to neighboring towns such as Bonanza City, Carbonateville, Waldo and Madrid. And when the boom passed and the mines closed, that life ebbed away. Scattered over the hills and in the valleys everywhere are skeletal remains of mining activity: deserted buildings, black and foreboding entrances to shafts, broken tools and equipment, fallen timbers from the windlasses, gallows and hoist houses, tailing dumps and slag heaps. These offer silent testimony to the once prosperous past of the Cerrillos mining district and are an appeal for all students of history. MARC SIMMONS, the prominent author and historian, has received many awards for his research and writings on the American Southwest. He is known for his ability to record little-known episodes in New Mexico history and is also the author of NEW MEXICO MAVERICKS and YESTERDAY IN SANTA FE, both from Sunstone Press.

El Rancho de las Golondrinas (The Ranch of the Swallows), a Spanish Colonial living history museum located in La Cienega, just south of Santa Fe, New Mexico, has enchanted and educated visitors with its natural beauty, annual festivals, and special events since its establishment as a museum in 1972. Drawing from archival materials, contemporary research, and family records, Padilla reconstructs the early history of Las Golondrinas from its beginnings to its purchase by the Curtin family and its establishment by the Curtin-Paloheimo family as a museum dedicated to preserving the history and culture of Spanish Colonial New Mexico.

Historian Marc Simmons is already a favorite among scholars, students, Hispanophiles, and borderland enthusiasts for his careful, readable histories of the American Southwest. In the twelve essays collected in "Spanish Pathways," Simmonss topical, in-depth approach to New Mexicos colonial period is skillfully deployed. His original research and unique insights transform New Mexicos colonial history into an engaging story of real people and the real events that shaped their livesa true journey of discovery. Simmons finds in the commonplace moments of everyday life ways to place the reader fully within the realities of the past. Immersion in details permits us to understand the behavior and character of a people and the true tenor of their times: how the average person lived and played, how he or she made economic choices, how worship and religious concerns were integrated into daily life.

"Spanish Pathways" covers such topics as the Pueblo Revolt, New Mexico sheep and cattle ranching, Spanish irrigation practices, the settlement of Albuquerque, the smallpox epidemic of 1780-81, and the Feast of St. John. The society and economy of the upper Ro Grande were complex and richly textured, and the people who sustained themselves there became resilient and stoic, fashioning their own formulas for survival and forever impacting the directions taken by historys currents.

Almost without exception, the topics covered in this work have not been studied by other scholars. In that sense, "Spanish Pathways" makes a unique contribution.Rick Hendricks, coeditor of "The Journals of don Diego de Vargas."

This book chronicles the life and frontier career of Don Juan de Onate, the first colonizer of the old Spanish Borderlands. Born in Zacatecas, Mexico, in the mid-sixteenth century, Don Juan was the prominent son of an aristocratic silver-mining family.

In 1598, in his late forties, Onate led a formidable expedition of settlers, with wagons and livestock, on an epic march northward to the upper Rio Grade Valley of New Mexico. There he established the first European settlement west of the Mississippi, launching a significant chapter in early American history.

In his activities he displayed qualities typical of Spain's sixteenth-century men of action; in his career we find a summation of the motives, aspirations, intentions, strengths, and weaknesses of the Hispanic pioneers who settled the Borderlands.

When Nasario Garcia was a boy in Ojo del Padre, a village in the Rio Puerco Valley northwest of Albuquerque, he grew up the way rural New Mexicans had for generations. His parents built their own adobe house, raised their own food, hauled their water from the river, and brought up their children to respect the old ways. In this account of his boyhood Garcia writes unforgettably about his family's village life, telling story after story, all of them true, and fascinating everyone interested in New Mexico history and culture.

Volume 1 of "Kit Carson Days" shows Carson running away from his Missouri home at age fifteen in 1826. He joins a caravan headed toward Santa Fe and in the coming years shuttles between poverty and prosperity as a wrangler, teamster, and trapper. He lives all over the unplotted West, helping to open trails, harvesting fur, befriending mountain men, and fighting and trading with Indians. Carson's reputation grows after John C. Fremont engages him as guide in 1842. He proves indispensable to the Pathfinder in three expeditions and plays a part in the Bear Flag Rebellion. The first volume is an encyclopedia of activity in the West during the first part of the nineteenth century, bringing into play such figures as Ewing Young, William Ashley, Jim Bridger, Jedediah Smith, Thomas Fitzpatrick, Hugh Glass, John Colter, William Sublette, Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, William Bent, Stephen Kearny, President James K. Polk, John Sutter, and Nathaniel Wyeth. This revised edition includes vivid chapters on the mountain man, his character, habits, clothing, and equipment. Volume 2 begins with Carson carrying the news of the conquest of California across the country to Washington, D.C., stopping en route to see his wife in Taos, New Mexico. The older Carson consolidates his fame as a courier, scout, soldier, and Indian agent. Americans, avid for newfound gold, turn to him as an authority on trail lore, and the government recognizes his usefulness in dealing with "the Indian problem." Carson is seen against the larger background of incessant warfare in the Southwest after midcentury. He fights the Kiowas at Adobe Walls, chases the Apaches, and forces the Navajos into the Bosque Redondo. He fights in the Civil War and retires at fifty-eight--but dies two years later in 1868.

Originally published in 1963, Monte Walsh continues to delight readers as a Western classic and popular favorite. The novel explores the cowboy lives of Monte Walsh and Chet Rollins as they carouse, ride, and work at the Slash Y with Cal Brennan. As the West changes and their cowboy antics are challenged, the two must part ways to pursue new ways of life. Chet marries and goes on to become a successful merchant and then a politician, while Monte can only find solace in continuing the cowboy's way of life until the very end.

Britishers were not uncommon on the frontier of the American Southwest. Most of them, well-financed, came to acquire land and purchase cattle, intending to make their fortunes at ranching. But almost all were lured to America's Wild West as much by its romantic image as by the opportunity to grow rich. One of the younger members of that breed of Englishmen was Richard Baxter Townshend, hungry for adventure and prosperity, who landed at the foot of the Colorado Rockies in 1869, just four years after the end of the Civil War. Townshend, born in 1846, was then 23 years old and was captivated by cowboys and Indians. He would rub shoulders with innumerable examples of both during his time in Colorado and New Mexico. Over his years in the West he gained some seasoning and became a rancher and a successful merchant. Once when Townshend and his men were making a harrowing cattle drive, they narrowly missed having the valuable livestock stolen by Billy the Kid and his outlaw pals. Later in his life, back in England, Townshend pulled together his first book, "A Tenderfoot in Colorado." It was published in February 1923. The following April 23 he died at Oxford in his 77th year. The second volume, "The Tenderfoot in New Mexico," was completed by his wife Dorothea, using notes left by her husband. It saw publication at the end of 1923. It proved to be the most popular, with its descriptions of Townshend's experiences among the Pueblo and Navajo Indians, and his adventures on desert and mountain trails. Although Townshend gained a wide audience in his day among both Englishmen and Americans, by the mid 20th century he had slipped from public view. This reprinting of "The Tenderfoot in New Mexico" by Sunstone Press will serve to re-introduce him to a new generation of readers.

In New Mexico, during Lent and Holy Week each year, the Penitent Brotherhood enacts a primitive Passion Play, which in its traditional ritual of self-torture represents a curious survival of the Middle Ages. Much lurid journalism has been devoted to the Penitentes, but in this sympathetic account by Alice Corbin Henderson, an eye-witness, the ceremonies are presented in their true aspect, with the historic background and reason for the survival clearly indicated. From this it appears that the religious custom of self-inflicted penance was introduced into the Southwest as early as 1598 by the Franciscan priests who accompanied Don Juan de Onate and his soldiers and colonists on their way to the permanent settlement of the province of New Mexico-originally embracing all of our present Southwest. From that day the customs then inaugurated have been traditionally observed by the humble descendants of the "Conquistadores." Alice Corbin and William Penhallow Henderson lived in New Mexico and know its people and its colorful landscape intimately. The striking illustrations in black and white that appeared in the original 1937 edition are an integral part of the text of this new edition. Also included in this edition along with an introduction by Lynn Cline is "Alice Corbin, An Appreciation" from "New Mexico Quarterly Review" in 1949, an article by Marc Simmons from "The Santa Fe New Mexican," and a review of the book from "New Mexico Quarterly" at the time of publication of the original edition in 1937 by T. M. Pearce.

In the spring of 1883 Apache raiders massacred Judge McComas and his wife and kidnapped their six-year-old son, Charley, as the family traveled on a desolate road in southwestern New Mexico Territory, all victims of revenge sought by the Apaches for Gen. George Crook's campaign. At the time, the entire circumstances concerning this tragic incident had not been fully understood--or perhaps cared about. In Massacre on the Lordsburg Road, historian Marc Simmons brings to light one of the last massacres of the Indian wars, presenting exactly why and how the McComases met their end on that desolate road, the events that led up to it, and the public reactions that followed. The puzzlement of why a reputably wise and able man would lead his family into such a fatal predicament, the pursuit of the Apaches into Mexico by General Crook, and the ironic circumstances of Charley McComas's death at the hands of Crook's troops in a raid on the Apache camp, illustrates that past events were as complex and as human as those today.