Which Way to the Wild West? Read Free Page A

supposed to be dead.
    Beckwourth: I am not dead, as you see.

    James Beckwourth spent another six years with the Crows, becoming a high-ranking chief. And all the while, stories about Beckwourth and other mountain men continued to excite Americans about new opportunities in the West.
    Step 10: Stumble to Santa Fe
    T his interest in the West gave a nineteen-year-old named David Meriwether what seemed like a good idea. He would set up a trading route connecting American towns in Missouri with settlements in northern Mexico, hundreds of miles to the southwest.
    â€œI had learned from the Indians that there was a good country from Missouri to the Mexican settlements for a road,” Meriwether said. The key would be to find a route that wagons could use to transport goods back and forth. In June 1820, Meriwether set out to find the route.
    Traveling with him was an African American teenager named Alfred. (Was Alfred his friend? His slave? Both? Meriwether doesn’t say.) The problem was, Mexico was Spanish territory, and Spanish leaders didn’t allow Americans on their land. Soon after crossing into Mexico, Meriwether and Alfred were arrested by Spanish soldiers.
    The soldiers forced the Americans to march through the scorching desert toward the town of Santa Fe. Meriwether’s feet were soon sliced open by rocks and cactus needles. “This was the most miserable
day of my life,” he remembered, “for I felt as though I would as soon die as live.”
    Unable to bear the pain of another step, Meriwether dropped to the sand and refused to move. A Spanish soldier raised his sword over Meriwether’s head.
    â€œDavy, get up and come along or they will kill you,” Alfred urged.
    â€œLet them kill me; I will not walk another step farther.”
    David Meriwether Alfred
    Alfred somehow talked the soldiers into letting Meriwether ride a mule. When they finally arrived in Santa Fe, the Americans were thrown into separate flea-filled jail cells. Meriwether was starving by now, so when a guard finally brought in some food he was thrilled—until he tasted it. “About night my jailor came with a small earthen
bowl with boiled frijoles, or red beans,” he said “I found it so strongly seasoned with pepper that I could not eat it.”
    Boy, when things go wrong … . Anyway, after swearing to go back to American territory and stay there, Meriwether and Alfred were let out of jail.
    â€œI never expected to see you again,” Alfred said when they met in the street outside the prison. They quickly headed back to Missouri.
    Just a year later, in 1821, Mexicans kicked out the Spanish rulers and declared themselves independent. This changed everything, because Mexican leaders welcomed American travelers and traders. And the route that Alfred and Meriwether had traveled soon became a busy trading route known as the Santa Fe Trail.
    Even without angry soldiers to deal with, this was a dangerous eight-hundred-mile trip. One of the first groups to travel the trail found this out when they decided to take a shortcut through the Cimarron Desert. They soon ran out of water and were close to dying of thirst when they saw a buffalo walking toward them. They shot the animal, cut it open—and shouted with joy to find its stomach filled with water. The men gulped down the warm liquid and got back on the trail to Santa Fe.
    What’s that you say? You like the idea of moving west, but you don’t feel like wrestling grizzly bears or drinking buffalo puke? Then you might consider settling on a plot of fertile land in the northern region of Mexico called Tejas.
    Step 11: Move to Texas
    W hen Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821, the new nation looked like this:

    Look at that large area in northern Mexico marked Tejas, or Texas, as Americans called it. Very few people lived there, and the Mexican government was looking for settlers. So they were pleased when a twenty-nine-year-old man