Samuel Bowles (2) (1826–1878)

ACROSS THE CONTINENT: A Summer's Journey to the Rocky Mountains, The Mormons, and the Pacific States, with Speaker Colfax. By: SAMUEL BOWLES 1866 (1st print 1865, same copy/text)

Publisher: Samuel Bowles & Company, Springfield, Mass. Hurd & Houghton, N.Y. Brown cloth boards, 7.62” x 5.25” with a blind stamped border and gilt lettering with decoration on spine. 452 pp, xx, ending with 6 pages of publisher's catalogue. Front advertisement verso bottom is ink stamped, “Arizona Historical Society #28262.

Following front advertisement is a large 15.5" X 18.5" hand colored fold-out map of the United States west of Illinois, dated 1865. It's engraved by J.H. Goldthwait, printed in New York by G.W. & C.B. Colton & Co, and notes the subject travel route, the Oregon Trail, the proposed path for the Pacific Railroad, primary stage coach routes, and the Sante Fe Trail to name a few. Mining towns and frontier fortifications are labeled. Any Native American reference is conspicuously absent. An enlarged scale blowup of northern California is illustrated in lower right corner.

This is a narrative journey across the Western United States in the summer of 1865 during reconstruction, shortly after the Civil War. Bowels, editor of the Springfield Republican (a popular newspaper in New England) was joined by Schuyler Colfax, Speaker of the House of Representatives, soon to be Vice President under Ulysses Grant, and included a contingent of American politicians. The 452 pages comprise 32 separate letters of correspondence plus 7 supplementary papers from various authors covering topics ranging from the Mormons to the Yosemite (by Whitney), gold & silver mining, the Chinese, cost of goods, and social life of every location.

Letter VII page 70 “The Indian Question” is bloody arrogance compelling extermination:
“The red man of reality is not the red man of poetry, romance, or philanthropy. He is false and barbaric, cunning, and cowardly, attacking only when all advantage is with him, horrible in cruelty, the terror of women and children, impenetrable to nearly every motive but fear, impossible to regenerate and civilize…”… (mehr)

These are the articles sent home by Samuel Bowles in 1865, when he traveled as a journalist across the American continent with Speaker Colfax. Bowles was determined to give a realistic view of the newest states, their potentials and their peoples. They traveled by stage, coach and steamboat. The writing style is a bit flowery at times, but not annoyingly so. The author's views are interesting, ranging from speaking of women as men's equals to believing that if there is no other way to solve the "Indian problem" they should just be exterminated! A good view into the way many men thought in those days. There are some dry chapters about the mining and commerce, for he was writing to encourage people to settle in the west and invest, but wisely; and there are some very interesting chapters on the people such as the Mormons and the Chinese populations.… (mehr)