Christopher Houston "Kit" Carson (December 24, 1809 – May 23, 1868) is an American frontiersman and Indian fighter.
Carson leaves home in rural present-day Missouri at age 16 and becomes a mountain man and trapper in the West.
Carson explores the west to California, and north through the Rocky Mountains.
He lives among and marries into the Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes.
He is hired by John C. Fremont as a guide, and leads 'the Pathfinder' through much of California, Oregon and the Great Basin area.
He achieves national fame through Fremont's accounts of his expeditions.
He becomes the hero of many dime novels.
Carson is a courier and scout during the Mexican-American war from 1846 to 1848, celebrated for his rescue mission after the Battle of San Pasqual and his coast-to-coast journey from California to deliver news of the war to the U.S. government in Washington, D.C..
In the 1850s, he is the Agent to the Ute and Jicarilla Apaches.
In the Civil War he leads a regiment of mostly Hispanic volunteers at the Battle of Valverde in 1862.
He leads armies to pacify the Navajo, Mescalero Apache, and the Kiowa and Comanche Indians.
He is vilified for his conquest of the Navajo and their forced transfer to Bosque Redondo where many of them die.
Breveted a general, he is probably the only American to reach such a high military rank without being able to read or write, although he can sign his name.
Kit Carson's alliterative name, adventurous life, and participation in a large number of historical events has made him a favorite subject of novelists, historians, and biographers.
