Several years ago, after discovering a set of ruts for the Oregon Trail in Kansas, I became fascinated by the 19th century avenue of migration west and ran across the same quandary. How did that affect their decision to fight a war of independence from the British crown? You can’t understand that important question about the origins of our country if you don’t ask it. Like him, many of the constitutional founders were heavily invested in lands on the western frontier. For example, we rarely hear that George Washington was not only the largest landholder in America (with roughly 60,000 acres under his control) but the nation’s wealthiest individual. We teach history almost as myth, a form of promotion for our democracy. How is it that you decided to follow the 2,000 mile Oregon Trail in a covered wagon?Īs a writer and a historian, I have always been fascinated about the versions of our past that we teach our children-right on through college-as opposed to the harder and more complex truths that are really there. Buck talks about George Washington's important role in establishing mules in the United States and how mules powered his and our western migration. Buck mixed his narrative of the journey with long sections on the history of the trail, covered wagons and the importance of the mule in American history. In 2011, Buck and his brother Nicholas spent four months crossing the original Oregon Trail, the first wagon travelers to make an unassisted crossing in a century.
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