3 Questions

with Alice Anne Thompson

On Wednesday, at the St. Francis Auditorium, author and historian Alice Anne Thompson presents excerpts from her upcoming book, The Women of the Santa Fe Trail, and speaks about the women who braved the treacherous 900-mile path.

Who were the people who traveled the trail from Missouri to SF, since so few women were included?
Most of the people who traveled to Santa Fe were single men who went on a lark, like for spring break. Some of them were actually English college students. They were just going out there to see the Indians before they all died off, or to see New Mexico and see what pure Hispanic culture was like before it was contaminated by Americans. These were young, very wealthy snips. When they got out there, they were very ethnocentric and almost misogynistic. They were very contemptuous of what they saw. They were all male; they were all around 18. What did they know about life?

In your book, American Caravan, you write about the life of your great-great aunt, Sr. Mary Alphonsa Thompson, who followed the trail. What were her reasons for making the journey?
My father's side of the family is very English. But they were one of the few families who remained Catholic after the Revolutionary War, so they didn't get their heads chopped off. Four of the girls in the family joined a Catholic convent founded by two of my other great-great aunts, the Sisters of Loretto. I guess the reason they joined was, they would rather live in a beautiful abbey with tapestries, stained glass, paintings and beautiful songs than be married to a farmer and have 14 kids and die.

What do you see as the legacy of the women of the Santa Fe Trail?
I don't know what they did, but they all lived into their 80s, while everyone else in Victorian America didn't make it through their 40s. They were beautifully educated women. The most tenacious and resilient women. They had to pick themselves back up and carry on, fix lunches in the morning, put on four little pairs of mittens and comb hair and put in ribbons. They had to just pull themselves together. And every single woman I know has had to do the same thing. The women in my book were chosen not because they shaped history, but because they reflect it and in many cases inspired it.

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