1963
First Published
3.71
Average Rating
424
Number of Pages
“In one very real sense,” David Lavender writes, “the story of the Oregon Trail begins with Columbus.” This opening suggests the panoramic sweep of his history of that famous trail. In chiseled, colorful prose, Lavender illustrates the “westward vision” that impelled the early explorers of the American interior looking for a northwest passage and send fur trappers into the region charted by Lewis and Clark. For the emigrants following the trappers’ routes, that vision gradually grew into a sense of a manifest American destiny. Lavender describes the efforts of emigration societies, of missionaries like Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, and of early pioneer settlers like Hall Jackson Kelley, Jason Lee, and Thomas Jefferson Farnham, as well as the routes they took to the “Promised Land.” He concludes by recounting the first large-scale emigrations of 1843–45, which steeled the U. S. government for war with Mexico and agreements with Britain over the Oregon boundary.
Avg Rating
3.71
Number of Ratings
31
5 STARS
26%
4 STARS
29%
3 STARS
35%
2 STARS
10%
1 STARS
0%
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Author
David Lavender
Author · 21 books
David Sievert Lavender was a well-known historian of the Western United States, nominated twice for the Pulitzer Prize, who is best remembered by many for his River Runners of the Grand Canyon. Lavender spent most of his life in Ojai, California. An articulate and deeply knowledgeable speaker on the political and social history of the American West, he often spoke at the annual Telluride Film Festival.
