Commerce of the Prairies, Vol. 2 (Classic Reprint): Or the Journal of a Santa Fe Trader; During Eight Expeditions Across the Great Western Prairies; ... Years in Northern Mexico (Classic Reprint) - Softcover

Josiah Gregg

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1330507177 ISBN 13: 9781330507179

Publisher: Forgotten Books, 2018

Synopsis

Explore the gritty world of 1830s commerce along the Santa Fe Trail in this richly detailed travelogue. This eye-opening account follows Josiah Gregg as he traverses the Great Western Prairies, across northern Mexico, and through giant trade routes that linked markets, mines, and communities.

From bustling Mexican towns to remote outposts, the narrative blends everyday life, economic the- s, and the hardships of long journeys with vivid scenes of architecture, culture, and the people who shaped a transforming frontier.

• Authentic scenes of mining districts, public works, and city life in Chihuahua and nearby regions.


• Practical insight into the Santa Fe trade, caravan dynamics, and cross-border commerce in the era.


• Observations on social customs, religion, governance, and daily life of both traders and locals.


• Geographic touring notes, routes, distances, and the landscapes that defined the journey.

Ideal for readers of 19th‑century American frontier history and readers who enjoy a vivid, on‑the‑ground portrait of a formative period.

About this title

About the Author

-->Josiah Gregg--> is best known to American history and literature for his now classic work on the West, Commerce of the Prairies. A Santa F' trader, a keen observer, a man of intellectual curiosity?Gregg, with his knowledge of the pathways across the central plains, of the Mexicans and their settlements, and of the Plains Indians, brought to American literature what is generally considered to be the first important, and even now the definitive, work on the plains as they were during the eighteen thirties.

Reared in the sheer democracy of the early nineteenth century border settlements in Missouri? ?myself cradled and educated upon the Indian border? ? Josiah Gregg, as a young man, spent almost a decade in the Santa F' trade and made eight trips across the plains with his goods. This story in its scrupulous detail appears in Commerce of the Prairies, but of his subsequent life very little has been known. In this book, and in a companion volume to fellow, compiled from the hitherto unknown diary, and from letters, many of them little known, which Maurice Garland Fulton most fortunately procured from Gregg's own descendants, is published for the first time an account of Gregg's career until his death in 1850.this first book chronicles the period from Gregg's retirement from the Santa F' trade in 1840 through his experiences in the East, on the plains, in Texas, and with the army in the Mexican War to the very eve of the Battle of Buena Vista, in 1847.

Maurice Garland Fulton's enthusiastic and enlightened editing of the diary and letters, and the cogent biographical essay provided as a historical introduction to the books by Paul Horgan, bring into print what may well prove to be one of the paramount discoveries in Western Americana in this decade. This book, and its second part to follow, appear as volumes in The American Exploration and Travel Series, a series devoted to accounts of explorers, traders, and travelers, who have provided some of the most romantic and fascinating chapters in the history of the American domain.

Edition details

• Publisher: Forgotten Books
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1330507177
• ISBN 13: 9781330507179
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 372