Jedediah Smith

Jedediah Strong Smith (January 6, 1799 – May 27, 1831) is a hunter, trapper, fur trader, trailblazer, author, cartographer and explorer of the Rocky Mountains, the American West Coast and the Southwest during the 19th century.

Nearly forgotten by historians almost a century after his death, Smith has been rediscovered as an American hero who was the first white man to travel overland from the Salt Lake frontier, the Colorado River, the Mojave Desert, and finally into California.

Smith is the first United States citizen to explore and eastwardly cross the Sierra Nevada and the treacherous Great Basin.

Smith also is the first American to travel up the California coast to reach the Oregon Country.

Not only is he the first to do this, but he and Robert Stuart discover the South Pass.

This path becomes the main route used by pioneers to travel to the Oregon Country.

Surviving three massacres and one bear mauling, Jedediah Smith's explorations and documented discoveries are highly significant in opening the American West to expansion by white settlers and cattlemen.

Smith buys two African American slaves in St. Louis to tend his house and holds contemporary views that American Indians are inferior to whites.

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