Kit Carson Quotes

4 Sourced Quotes

An oft-repeated anecdote is that which relates of an army officer, somewhat of a hero-worshiper, who, upon meeting Carson, exclaimed, effusively: "So this is the great Kit Carson, who has made so many Indians run!" "Yes," drawled Carson, "sometimes I run after them but most times they war runnin' after me."

Kit Carson
Owing to the strength of this [the Navajo] tribe which numbered then not less than sixty or seventy thousand (60 or 70,000) souls embracing as it did some of those Indians who now call themselves 'Apaches' but who still speak the same language, and who are so alike, and to the fact that they inhabit a country equal to one-third of the whole Territory; that this section was a 'Terra Incognita' and that there is no portion of the American Continent so well adapted by nature for the peculiar style of warfare adopted by the Indians, it is not at all surprising that the many powerful campaigns made against them by the Spanish Government were entirely barren of results as to their subjugation.

Kit Carson
Well, I'll tell ye. I war down on the plains, an' the Comanches got after me. Thar war 'bout five hundred of 'em, an' they chased me. We run an' we run, an' my hoss war killed an' I clum a sort o' butte. Thar war a leetle split or cañon in it, an' I run up this. One big red rascal kep' right on my heels; my gun war busted, but I had my knife. The split narrered an' narrered, an got smaller an' smaller, an' suddenly it pinched out; an' thar I war, at the end. So I turned, with my knife, an' when he come on I struck at him. But the walls o' the split war so near together that I hit the rock, an' busted my knife squar' off at the hilt. When he seed that he give a big yell, for my scalp, an' at me he jumped.... then the Injun killed me.

Kit Carson
Particular care should be taken that every promise made to them [the Navajo and Mescalero Apache] should be observed to the letter. In this way I am confident that in a few years they would equal if not excel our peaceful and industrious Pueblos, and be a source of wealth to the Territory, instead of being as heretofore its dread and impoverishers.

Kit Carson