Even the scout and Indian fighter Kit Carson, who had a strong stomach when it came to killing Indians, may have turned a little, conscience-wise, after taking part in the “perfect butchery” at the Sacramento River in 1846. This turning, if it occurred, didn’t prevent him from effecting the dreadful removal of the Navaho and the Mescalero Apache from their homelands in the 1860s. Kit invariably did what his superiors told him to do, whether he liked it or not; but, in these last instances, it is clear that he didn’t like what he had been ordered to do. He was nearing the end of his life, and, by this time, knew as much about Indians as any Westerner—more, certainly, than any of his superiors knew. It may be that he finally came to understand what a tragic undertaking these removals were—in fact they were slow massacres, people dying and dying as they struggled to keep up in what the Navaho call the Long Walk. Kit Carson Did Kit Carson wonder, at the end, if the whole enterprise of exploration and settlement, in which he had been perhaps the preeminent guide, or, at least, the guide who lasted the longest, had been worth it?
What do You think about Oh What A Slaughter (2005)?
