Lewis Hector Garrard (15 June 1829 – 7 July 1887) was an American travel writer who wrote an enduring book, ''Wah-to-yah and the Taos Trail'', about his visit to the southwestern United States in 1846-1847.

Background

Garrard, christened Hector Lewis Garrard, was the son of a prominent family in

Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...

On 1 Sept 1846, Garrard, 17 years old, joined a caravan in Westport Landing, Missouri to travel along the

Santa Fe Trail The Santa Fe Trail was a 19th-century route through central North America that connected Franklin, Missouri, with Santa Fe, New Mexico. Pioneered in 1821 by William Becknell, who departed from the Boonslick region along the Missouri River, the ...

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

. He stopped off at

Bent's Fort Bent's Old Fort is a fort located in Otero County in southeastern Colorado, United States. A company owned by Charles Bent and William Bent and Ceran St. Vrain built the fort in 1833 to trade with Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho Plains Indians ...

for two months and continued on to

Taos Taos or TAOS may refer to: Places * Taos County, New Mexico, United States ** Taos, New Mexico, a city, the county seat of Taos County, New Mexico *** Taos art colony, an art colony founded in Taos, New Mexico ** Taos Pueblo, a Native American ...

with a company of

Mountain Men A mountain man is an explorer who lives in the wilderness and makes his living from hunting, fishing and trapping. Mountain men were most common in the North American Rocky Mountains from about 1810 through to the 1880s (with a peak population in ...

to avenge the death of

Charles Bent Charles Bent (November 11, 1799 – January 19, 1847) was an American businessman and politician who served as the first civilian United States governor of the New Mexico Territory, newly invaded and occupied by the United States during the Mex ...

in the

Taos Revolt The Taos Revolt was a popular insurrection in January 1847 by Hispano and Pueblo allies against the United States' occupation of present-day northern New Mexico during the Mexican–American War. Provisional governor Charles Bent and severa ...

. While in Taos, Garrard attended the trial of some of the Mexicans and

Pueblos Pueblo refers to the settlements of the Pueblo peoples, Native American tribes in the Southwestern United States, currently in New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas. The permanent communities, including some of the oldest continually occupied settleme ...

who had revolted against U.S. rule of New Mexico, newly captured in the

Mexican–American War The Mexican–American War (Spanish language, Spanish: ''guerra de Estados Unidos-México, guerra mexicano-estadounidense''), also known in the United States as the Mexican War, and in Mexico as the United States intervention in Mexico, ...

. Garrard wrote the only eye witness account of the trial and hanging of six convicted men. ''Wah-to-Yah'' is the only well-known book written by Garrard. It has won a secure place in the literature of the American West. Garrard returned home after his 10-month trip and apparently never visited the West again.

Wah-to-Yah and the Taos Trail

The full title of Garrard's book is ''Wah-to-yah and the Taos Trail: or Prairie and Scalp Dances, with a Look at Los Rancheros from Muleback and the Rocky Mountain Campfire''. The book is "fresh and vigorous" and contains in its pages authentic descriptions of "the Indian, the trader, the mountain man, their dress, and behavior and speech and the country and climate they lived in." The pages of the book contain a wealth of characters, including

Kit Carson Christopher Houston Carson (December 24, 1809 – May 23, 1868) was an American frontiersman, fur trapper, wilderness guide, Indian agent and United States Army, U.S. Army officer. He became an American frontier legend in his own lifetime ...

Jim Beckwourth James Pierson Beckwourth (April 26, 1798/1800 – October 20, 1866) was an American fur trapper, rancher, businessman, explorer, author and scout. Known as "Bloody Arm" because of his skill as a fighter, Beckwourth was of multiracial descent, b ...

Ceran St. Vrain Ceran St. Vrain, born Ceran de Hault de Lassus de Saint-Vrain (May 5, 1802 – October 28, 1870), was the son of a French aristocrat who emigrated to the Spanish Louisiana in the late 18th century; his mother was from St. Louis, where he was born ...

George Ruxton George Frederick Ruxton (24 July 1821 – 29 August 1848) was a British explorer and travel writer. He was a lieutenant in the British Army, received a medal for gallantry from Queen Isabella II of Spain, was a hunter and explorer and published ...

William Bent William Wells Bent (May 23, 1809 – May 19, 1869) was a merchant, frontier trader and rancher in the American West, with forts in Colorado. He also acted as a mediator among the Cheyenne Nation, other Native American tribes and the expanding U ...

, and others. The book contains an "anthropologically accurate" description of the

Cheyenne The Cheyenne ( ) are an Indigenous people of the Great Plains. The Cheyenne comprise two Native American tribes, the Só'taeo'o or Só'taétaneo'o (more commonly spelled as Suhtai or Sutaio) and the (also spelled Tsitsistas, The term for th ...

Indians. Garrard condemns the U.S. war against Mexico and hanging of the rebels in Taos as unjust. ''Wah-to-Yah'', the title, is the Indian name for the

Spanish Peaks The Spanish Peaks are a pair of prominent mountains located in southwestern Huerfano County, Colorado. The Comanche people call them Huajatolla ( ) or Wa-ha-toy-yah meaning "double mountain" The two peaks, East Spanish Peak at elevation and ...

in southern Colorado. The book is often compared with

Francis Parkman Francis Parkman Jr. (September 16, 1823 – November 8, 1893) was an American historian, best known as author of '' The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life'' and his monumental seven-volume '' France and England in North Ame ...

's, '' The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life''. Both are by young men visiting the West in 1846, but Garrard's account is "the fresher, the more revealing, the more engaging, the less labored."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Garrard, Lewis Hector 1829 births 1887 deaths American male non-fiction writers American travel writers History books about the American Old West Santa Fe Trail Writers from Cincinnati

Background

Wah-to-Yah and the Taos Trail

See also

References