Editing Kit Carson (section)

== Expeditions with Frémont (1842–1848) ==
[[File:J c fremont.jpg|thumb|left|alt=John Charles Frémont|[[John Charles Frémont]], photographer and date unknown]]

In April 1842, Carson went back to his childhood home in Missouri to put his daughter Adaline in the care of relatives.<ref name="Roberts 99-101" /> On the return trip, Carson met [[John C. Frémont]] aboard a steamboat on the [[Missouri River]]. Frémont was a [[US Army]] officer in the [[Corps of Topographical Engineers]] who was about to lead an expedition into the West. After a brief conversation, Frémont hired Carson as a guide at $100 a month, the best-paying job of Carson's life.<ref>Roberts 123</ref> Frémont wrote, "I was pleased with him and his manner of address at this first meeting. He was a man of medium height, broad-shouldered, and deep-chested, with a clear steady blue eye and frank speech and address; quiet and unassuming."<ref>Roberts 102–103</ref>

=== First expedition, 1842 ===
In 1842, Carson guided Frémont across the [[Oregon Trail]] to [[South Pass, Wyoming]]. It was their first expedition into the West together. The purpose of this expedition was to map and describe the Oregon Trail as far as South Pass. A guidebook, maps, and other paraphernalia would be printed for westward-bound migrants and settlers. After the five-month trouble-free mission was accomplished, Frémont wrote his government reports, which made Carson's name known across the United States, and spurred a migration of settlers westward to Oregon via the Oregon Trail.<ref>Sides 50–53</ref>

=== Second expedition, 1843 ===
In 1843, Carson agreed to join Frémont's second expedition. Carson guided Frémont across part of the Oregon Trail to the [[Columbia River]] in Oregon. The purpose of the expedition was to map and describe the Oregon Trail from South Pass, Wyoming, to the Columbia River. They also made a side-trip to [[Great Salt Lake]] in [[Utah]], using a rubber raft to navigate the waters.<ref>Roberts 130</ref> On the way to California, the party suffered from bad weather in the [[Sierra Nevada (U.S.)|Sierra Nevada Mountains]] but was saved by Carson's good judgment and his skills as a guide; they found American settlers who fed them. The expedition then headed to California, which was illegal and dangerous because California was Mexican territory. The Mexican government ordered Frémont to leave. Frémont finally went back to Washington, D.C. The government liked his reports but ignored his illegal trip into Mexico. Frémont was made a captain. The newspapers nicknamed him "The Pathfinder".<ref>Sides 59–61</ref>

During the expedition, Frémont trekked into the [[Mojave Desert]]. His party met a Mexican man and boy, who both told Carson that Native Americans had [[ambush]]ed their party of travelers. The male travelers were killed; the women travelers were staked to the ground, sexually mutilated, and killed. The murderers then stole the Mexican's 30 horses. Carson and a mountain man friend, [[Alexis Godey]], went after the murderers. After two days they found them, rushed into their camp, and killed and scalped two of the murderers. The stolen horses were recovered and returned to the Mexican man and boy. That deed brought Carson even greater fame and confirmed his [[Social status|status]] as a western hero in the eyes of the American people.<ref>Sides 62–64</ref>

=== Third expedition, 1845 ===
In 1845, Carson guided Frémont on their third expedition (Frémont made a fourth, but without Carson).<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=http://www.historynet.com/kit-carson-the-legendary-frontiersman-remains-an-american-hero.htm|title=Kit Carson: The Legendary Frontiersman Remains an American Hero|last=Reidhead|first=S.J.|date=June 12, 2006|website=HistoryNet.com|access-date=October 8, 2017}}</ref> From Westport Landing, Missouri, they crossed the Rockies, passed the Great Salt Lake, and down the Humboldt River to the Sierra Nevada of California and Oregon. Frémont made scientific plans and included artist Edward Kern in his corps, but from the outset the expedition appeared to be political in nature. Frémont may have been working under secret government orders, since US [[President Polk]] wanted [[Alta California]] for the United States. Once in California, Frémont started to rouse the American settlers into a patriotic fervor. The Mexican general José Castro at Monterey ordered him to leave. On Gavilán Mountain, Frémont erected a makeshift fort and raised the US flag in defiance, before departing north. The party moved into the Sacramento River Valley past Mount Shasta, surveying into Oregon, fighting Indians along the way,<ref>{{cite journal |title=Kit Carson |journal=Rough and Ready Annual |date=1847 |pages=153–158 |url=https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=rCITAAAAYAAJ&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA152 |access-date=September 10, 2020}}</ref> and camped near [[Klamath Lake]]. Near here, a messenger from Washington, D.C., caught up with Frémont and made it clear that Polk wanted California.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Spence |first1=Mary |title=The Expeditions of John Charles Fremont Volume 2 |date=1973 |publisher=University of Illinois Press |location=Urbana, Illinois |isbn=0-252-00416-7 |pages=passim |url=https://archive.org/details/expeditionsofjoh02fr/page/n5/mode/2up |access-date=September 10, 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Hyslop |first1=Stephen |title=Contest for California |date=2012 |publisher=Arthur H. Clark Company |location=Norman, Oklahoma |isbn=978-0-87062-411-7 |pages=319–368}}</ref>

On March 30, 1846, while traveling north along the Sacramento Valley, Frémont's party met Americans who said that a group of Native Americans was planning to attack settlers. Frémont's party set about searching for Native Americans. On April 5, 1846, Frémont's party spotted a [[Wintu]] village and launched an unprovoked attack, killing 120 to 300 men, women, and children, and displacing many more in what is known as the [[Sacramento River massacre]].<ref>{{cite book|title= An American Genocide |last1= Madley |first1= Benjamin |year= 2016 |page=chapter 2|publisher= Yale University Press}}</ref>
<ref>{{citation |jstor=26932596|title=Ishi and the California Indian Genocide as Developmental Mass Violence|last1=Hitchcock|first1=Robert K.|last2=Flowerday|first2=Charles|journal=Humboldt Journal of Social Relations|year=2020|volume=1 |issue=42|pages=69–85|doi=10.55671/0160-4341.1130 |s2cid=229227250 |doi-access=free}}</ref> Carson, later stated that "It was a perfect butchery."<ref>{{cite book|title= Kit Carson's Own Story of His Life, As dictated to Col. And Mrs. D.C. Peters about 1856-1857, and never before published. |last1= Carson |first1= Kit |year= 1924|pages=69–70|publisher= Santa Fe New Mexican Publishing |location= Taos, NM}}</ref>

At Klamath Lake, in southern Oregon, Frémont's party was hit in a revenge attack by 15 to 20 Indians on the night of May 9, 1846. Two or three men in camp were killed. The attackers fled after a brief struggle. Carson, angry that his friends had been killed, took an ax to a dead Indian and, according to Frémont, "knocked his head to pieces".<ref>Sides 78–81</ref> In retaliation for the attack, a few days later, Frémont's party massacred a village of Klamath people along the Williamson River in what was called the [[Klamath Lake massacre]].<ref name=Couture>Amy Couture. {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20170816105914/http://archive.ijpr.org/Feature.asp?FeatureID=1705 ''Captain John C. Fremont Clashes With Klamath Indians'']}}, Jefferson Public Radio, 2011.</ref> The entire village was razed and at least 14 people were killed. There was no evidence that the village in question had anything to do with the previous attack.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Dunlay |first1=Tom |title=Kit Carson & the Indians |date=2000 |publisher=University of Nebraska Press |location=Lincoln, Nebraska |isbn=0-8032-1715-3 |pages=115–119}}</ref>

=== Bear Flag Revolt ===
In June 1846, Frémont and Carson participated in a California uprising against Mexico, the [[Bear Flag Revolt]].<ref name=":0" /> Mexico ordered all Americans to leave California. American settlers in California wanted to be free of the Mexican government and declared California an independent [[republic]]. The American rebels found the courage to oppose Mexico because they had Frémont, who had written an oath of [[allegiance]], and his troops behind them. Frémont and his men were able to give some protection to the Americans. He ordered Carson to kill an old Mexican man, [[José de los Reyes Berreyesa]], and his two adult nephews, who had been captured when they stepped ashore at [[San Francisco Bay]] to prevent them from notifying Mexico about the uprising.<ref>{{cite journal|jstor=25613577|title=Kit Carson in California: With Extracts from His Own Story|first=Charles L.|last=Camp|date=May 1, 2018|journal=California Historical Society Quarterly|volume=1|issue=2|pages=111–151|doi=10.2307/25613577|hdl=2027/uc1.b4505284|hdl-access=free}}</ref>

Frémont worked hard to win California for the United States, for a time fashioning himself as its military governor until he was replaced by General [[Stephen W. Kearny]], who outranked him.<ref>Sherman, W.T., Memoirs</ref>

From 1846 to 1848, Carson served as courier traveling three times from California to the East and back. Frémont wrote, "This was a service of great trust and honor... and great danger also." In 1846, dispatched with military records for the [[Secretary of War]] in Washington, D.C., Carson took the Gila Trail, but was met on the trail by General Kearny, who ordered him to hand his dispatches to others bound east, and return to California as his much-needed guide. In early 1847, Carson was ordered east from California again with more dispatches for Washington, D.C., where he arrived by June. Returning to California via a short visit with his family in Taos, he followed the [[Old Spanish Trail (trade route)|Old Spanish Trail]] to Los Angeles. He was dispatched a third time as government courier leaving Los Angeles in May 1848 via the Old Spanish Trail and reached Washington, D.C., with important military messages, which included an official report of the discovery of gold in California.<ref name="Remley" />

Newspapers reported on Carson's travels with some exaggeration, including that he had been killed by [[Plains Indians]] in July 1848.<ref>{{cite news |title=Washington Union |issue=July 28, 1848}}</ref> Lt. George Brewerton accompanied Carson on part of this trip and published in ''Harper's Magazine'' (1853) an account that added to his now-growing celebrity status.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Brewerton |first1=George |title=Overland with Kit Carson, A Narrative of the Old Spanish Trail in 1848 |date=1993 |publisher=University of Nebraska Press |location=Lincoln, Nebraska |isbn=0-8032-6113-6 |pages=xvi–xxi}}</ref> In 1848, as his fame grew, a Baltimore hat maker offered a "Kit Carson Cap", "after the unique style of the domestic one worn by that daring pioneer".<ref>{{cite news |title=Baltimore Sun |date=August 12, 1848}}</ref> A new steamboat, named the ''Kit Carson'', was built for the Mississippi-Ohio river trade, "with qualities of great speed".<ref>{{cite news |title=Boon's Lick Times |date=20 August 1848}}</ref> At the St. Louis Jockey Club, one could bet on a horse "as swift as the wind", named "Kit Carson".<ref>{{cite news |title=New York Daily Herald |date=November 9, 1848}}</ref>