Howard Roberts Lamar

The Far Southwest traces the history of New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona from 1846 to 1912. Lamar analyzes the evolution of American political and economic systems to show, in particular, their impact on the racial and ethnic groups already present in the Southwest in 1846. In describing how American government and institutions such as the two-party system, trial by jury, and free schools were established in the Far Southwest, Lamar also puts into perspective both the local territorial history and the relationship between the region and the nation, particularly as regards issues of land tenure and church-state relations.

More than two hundred experts in history, geography, religion, and other disciplines furnish information on concepts, people, and developments that have shaped Western life and history from the colonial era to the space age.

The New Encyclopedia of the American West includes thousands of entries arranged alphabetically, from Ansel Adams and adobe architecture to Zion National Park and Zuni Indians; hundreds of illustrations and maps; full coverage of all aspects of the West, including history, topography, famous people, places, and events; contributions by such authorities as Leonard J. Arrington on Mormonism, Anne Butler on prisons and prostitutes, John Mack Faragher on the fur trade, California, and television and radio westerns, and Ron Tyler on western prints; articles on 191 artists and writers, 47 gunslingers and outlaws, 58 Indian tribes and 70 Indian leaders, 61 cities and towns, 67 mountain men and explorers, 43 ghost towns, 72 forts and missions, and much more; and extensive cross-references and a full index.

Like the cowboy, the frontier trader has been so wrapped in myth that our understanding of who he was and what he did is largely shaped by stereotype : the Indian trader, for example--gunrunner, trader in slaves, and corruptor of the noble red man--or the mountain man, variously seen as romantic wilderness hero or degenerate white savage. Examining these and other myths, Lamar shows that early trade was, on the contrary, one of the first and most successful ways red men and white communicated, that traders were not snakes in America's western Eden but participants in a vigorous if exploitative trade system already in existence for generations, and that until the Rocky Mountain fur trade bypassed the Indian, tribal ways deteriorated little and both Indian and trader found their "twilight civilization" an attractive, profitable--and exciting--way of life. The trader had to know and tolerate two worlds whereas the farmer who came after had no need of the Indian. His life meant adventure, often danger, but the trader, a hunter with strong mercantile instincts, played a larger role than myth allows. As Lamar makes clear, his transition from lone scavenger to merchant-developer represents in microcosm the history of the frontier. This essay was originally presented in April 1976 at Texas A&M University as part of a symposium, "The American Frontier Reexamined," one of several Centennial Academic Assemblies held in honor of the university's hundredth year.