Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)One wonders how this book was deemed worthy of publication by a reputable press. Although there are some good sections, there is much outdated information and misinformation. The author apparently has no awareness of the Santa Fe Trail Association and the many relevant articles that have appeared in Wagon Tracks during the last 24 years. For example, Barile states, p. 36, that the number of men accompanying William Becknell to Santa Fe in 1821 is "a mystery," which would be no mystery had she read Pedro Ignacio Gallego's diary in Wagon Tracks (November 1992). Also, the author seems not to have consulted Louise Barry's Beginning of the West, which is filled with material from primary sources about the early history of the Trail. She appears unable to judge between the best and the worst of secondary sources about the Trail.
The volume includes a wide variety of material (much of the text about general Missouri history and folklore is good, as are some biographies, while the details about the Trail are weak), some with little or no relation to the Trail, and repeats myths and misinformation. There is confusion about which Indian tribes were located along the Trail. William Becknell did not traverse Raton Pass (pp. 81, 87), as any serious student would know. Most of the wagons used on the Trail were not Conestogas. There are errors that any good proofreader should have caught. There are some stories with no foundation in fact. The members of wagon trains did not escape tornadoes by digging ditches and driving the wagons into them, "then chain the wagons together for greater protection" (p. 94). One wonders how someone with so little understanding of Trail history could get such erroneous information published.
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