Classic Travel Guide
This work has long been in demand by the historian and collector of overland travel to California and the Oregon country. It was indispensible for the emigrant trains departing from Independence, MO, and other jumpoffs.
At the time this was originally written, the Mexican-American War had just been over and the emigrants simply wanted to pass through peacefully and safely.
The only real Indian trouble was rustling, stampeding, and petty thievery, and solitary travel was quite dangerous.
Compare with the situation twenty years later when the Lakota Souix had become horse warriors and the threat of Indian war was quite certain. See Mountain Scouting for a later situation with open confrontation and contention for the northern plains and the Rockies.
