63 pages • 2 hours read
Hampton SidesBlood and Thunder
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2006A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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Christopher “Kit” Carson
As the “protagonist” of Blood and Thunder, Kit Carson was a character whose paradoxes paralleled the complexity of his times. Nothing was black and white, and lines of mortality and identity were constantly blurred. An illiterate man, Carson often fell under the thrall of men he perceived as more educated. He committed atrocities on their behalf that he didn’t commit when under his own devices.
While many historians consider Carson first and foremost an Indian fighter, Sides argues that “Carson did not hate Indians” (34). In many ways Carson’s personality and way of life were shaped by the Indians more than by Anglo-American society. He was illiterate but spoke at least six Indian languages; he even married to two Indian women. Despite all this, he would go on to be perhaps the single most influential figure in the destruction of Indian culture in the Southwest.
Carson was both incredibly violent and incredibly kind. He mutilated the body of an Indian he respected; he gave a friend the last sips of water in his canteen. He spent most of his life in the wild but was a devoted family man who loved his children dearly. He was both the enthusiast who exposed the greatness of the West to the rest of the country and the West’s destroyer. In his twilight years, he attempted to make things right, but the damage was done.
Carson’s character arc resembles that of a Greek tragic hero. He made his mistakes because he cannot act in any way. All he could do was live with the aftermath.
Stephen Watts Kearny
In his 50s, Stephen Watts Kearny, the commander of the Army of the West, was older than many of the other characters in Blood and Thunder. He had more discipline and restraint than those he led and worked with, perhaps due to this experience. It was indicative of the respect he commanded that his power struggle with John Fremont ended with Fremont leaving in disgrace, court-martialed on three counts.
Notably among the Anglo-American characters, Kearny dedicated himself to a vision of equality in the West. He treated both Mexicans and Indians with as much respect as possible, preferring not to view them as enemies. He conceptualized an end plan that incorporated all these groups into the United States. Kearny was ahead of his time in this regard; while attention the law of the West at that time was still very much “blood and thunder.”
Kearny’s unusual empathy is highlighted several times, particularly in relation to horses (he was an avid rider and equestrian). Kearny embodied the American optimism of the time: The conflict in the West could be solved, he believed, through understanding and elbow grease. Despite his best efforts, the problem was too complex for one man to solve.
Narbona
Narbona was perhaps the closest thing the Navajo had to a unifying leader. Born in 1766 and already an old man during the events of Blood and Thunder, Narbona had wisdom earned from long decades of combat with the New Mexicans and other Indian tribes. Narbona was in the twilight of his life, the natural world decaying around him as he waited to meet the white man. As Narbona faded, so did the traditional Navajo way of life. He was present for the end of Navajo culture as it was, independent of American interference.
Well respected inside and outside of his tribe and generous to a fault, Narbona in some ways mirrored Kearny. Both were of an older generation that was weary of war; both made every effort to maintain peace, even as the situation escalated. Narbona stood as an emblem of resistance to the Americans, but his style was pro-diplomacy, rather than pro-war (unlike his son-in-law, Manuelito). Unfortunately, he was killed accidentally in an argument between hotheaded young men. His death and mutilation ended the possibility of peace between the Americans and Navajo.
James Henry Carleton
Perhaps more than any other character in Blood and Thunder, James Carleton illustrates one of Sides’s critical themes: Goodwill and senseless cruelty can coexist in a single person. A West Pointer and Army man through and through, Carleton was anti-slavery and had been obsessed with Indian culture since he was young, but notably, he made no effort to learn about it from the Indians themselves. With a misplaced, racist sense of benevolence common to many white people of the 19th century, Carleton believed the Indians needed to uprooted and civilized for their own good.
A powerful combination of efficiency, brutality, and micromanagement propelled Carleton to success as an Indian agent. Encountering hostility, and feeling an all-too-human frustration, Carleton soon encouraged his lieutenant, Kit Carson, to use any means necessary to force the Indians onto his reservation he’d created at Bosque Redondo. Seeing his life’s work fail as calamity after calamity struck the farm, Carleton—the man responsible for more suffering to the Navajo people than any other—worked tirelessly to save its inhabitants.
“You must pardon me, for suggesting all these details,” he wrote one beleaguered officer, “but my anxiety is so great. Every idea which comes into my mind I will send to you and believe that you will enter into the spirit that animates me for the good of the Indians” (496).
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