Collections Spotlight:
Hello, and welcome to the first blog post from The Carson House & Museum! We're thrilled to use this space to share updates, highlight various topics, and keep our followers engaged as we move forward. A primary focus of our blog will be "Collection Highlights," where we’ll feature individual items from the museum’s collection and provide more detail about each piece’s historical importance and its connections to the museum, the region, and the Carson family. Each item is chosen for its intriguing story, unique background, or special relevance, helping visitors understand its place within the museum's collection.
In August 2024, with generous support from the LOR Foundation, we acquired PastPerfect, a specialized software for managing museum collections. This digital catalog allows us to document items’ origins, conditions, and significance, making it easier to care for our collections and share them with the public through exhibits, research, and online content.
We encourage you to check back regularly for new posts and to explore our collection to learn more about the remarkable items we house. To begin exploring, please visit https://kitcarsonhouse.catalogaccess.com/home, or go to our website, click on “Collection,” and then “Explore.” We hope you enjoy browsing our collection!
Kit Carson’s Writing Desk (Cat. Number: 1.4.0.97)
As a follow-up to the spring newsletter article on Kit Carson’s desk, there are some additional interesting notes excerpted from Chapter 5 of Tom Dunlay’s book Kit Carson & The Indians (Lincoln & London: University of Nebraska Press, All rights reserved, 2000). Suggested reading.
Carson began his duties as Indian Agent for the Muache Utes, the Jicarilla Apaches, and Taos Pueblo in March of 1854 until resigning in 1861. He would conduct business out of his home, which required the tribes to travel to Taos. The lack of an official headquarters was only one aspect of what Kit came to recognize as a thoroughly unsatisfactory situation for the agent, the Indians, and the government.
Although fluent in many languages of the frontier, Kit Carson was illiterate and unable to read or write. His duties as Indian Agent required record keeping, written requests for supplies and regular written reports to his supervisor, New Mexico Territorial Governor Meriwether. Carson hired John Mostin to assume the responsibility of transcribing these documents. The position of Indian Agent did not allow for the hiring of a clerk, but did fund an interpreter. Carson, fully able to communicate with the tribes in their native languages, hired Mostin in the guise of interpreter to perform clerical duties.
Carson’s job was in transition from the colonial and early republican position of an Indian agent as a diplomat representing his government among more or less sovereign tribes to the developing one of an agent as an administrator who actually exercised control over Indians and directed them on the road to “civilization”. Kit’s powers and budget were limited, but he was nonetheless expected to prevent conflict as far as possible, to persuade the Indians to submit to the government’s will, and to solve any problems arising from contact between Indians and settlers. As the duties of an Indian agent were in transition, so was United States Indian policy.
With a largely Hispanic and Indian population and separated from the East by hundreds of miles of Great Plains, traversed only by horse or wagon, New Mexico Territory stood low on the list of the nation’s priorities, except as a possible route to the Pacific Coast.
Copies of Tom Dunlay's Kit Carson & The Indians are available for purchase in our museum gift shop