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Inez Olivares
Christopher “Kit” Carson, known to many in the novel as “Cristobal,” was an important fur trapper, explorer, and member of the United States army. In both the Civil War and the Mexican-American War, Carson led American campaigns against indigenous tribes, participating in several massacres and cutting off resources to the Navajo, Apache, and Comanche tribes. In Death Comes for the Archbishop, Carson is portrayed as a wise, sensitive, empathetic man; Latour notes that “the most reliable map” of the American West exists only in Carson’s brain. Though Latour and Carson are lifelong friends, and Carson is one of Latour’s most important advisors, Latour’s late-stage conversation with Manuelito forces him to reconsider the role Kit Carson took in the United States’ war against indigenous peoples.
Kit Carson Quotes in Death Comes for the Archbishop
The Death Comes for the Archbishop quotes below are all either spoken by Kit Carson or refer to Kit Carson. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Book 9: Chapter 4
Quotes
There is always something charming in the idea of greatness returning to simplicity—the queen making hay among the country girls—but how much more endearing was the belief that They, after so many centuries of history and glory, should return to play Their first parts, in the persons of a humble Mexican family, the lowliest of the lowly, the poorest of the poor,—in a wilderness at the end of the world, where the angels could scarcely find Them!
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Book 9: Chapter 7
Quotes
It was [Latour’s] own misguided friend, Kit Carson, who finally subdued the last unconquered remnant of that people; who followed them into the depths of the Canyon de Chelly, whither they had fled from their grazing plains and pine forests to make their last stand […] This canyon had always before proved impenetrable to white troops. The Navajos believed it could not be taken. They believed that their old gods dwelt in the fastnesses of that canyon; like their Shiprock, it was an inviolate place, the very heart and center of their life.
Carson followed them down into the hidden world between those towering walls of red sandstone, spoiled their stores, destroyed their deep-sheltered corn-fields, cut down the terraced peach orchards so dear to them. When they saw all that was sacred to them laid waste, the Navajos lost heart. They did not surrender; they simply ceased to fight.
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Kit Carson Quotes in Death Comes for the Archbishop
The Death Comes for the Archbishop quotes below are all either spoken by Kit Carson or refer to Kit Carson. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Book 9: Chapter 4
Quotes
There is always something charming in the idea of greatness returning to simplicity—the queen making hay among the country girls—but how much more endearing was the belief that They, after so many centuries of history and glory, should return to play Their first parts, in the persons of a humble Mexican family, the lowliest of the lowly, the poorest of the poor,—in a wilderness at the end of the world, where the angels could scarcely find Them!
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Explanation and Analysis:
Book 9: Chapter 7
Quotes
It was [Latour’s] own misguided friend, Kit Carson, who finally subdued the last unconquered remnant of that people; who followed them into the depths of the Canyon de Chelly, whither they had fled from their grazing plains and pine forests to make their last stand […] This canyon had always before proved impenetrable to white troops. The Navajos believed it could not be taken. They believed that their old gods dwelt in the fastnesses of that canyon; like their Shiprock, it was an inviolate place, the very heart and center of their life.
Carson followed them down into the hidden world between those towering walls of red sandstone, spoiled their stores, destroyed their deep-sheltered corn-fields, cut down the terraced peach orchards so dear to them. When they saw all that was sacred to them laid waste, the Navajos lost heart. They did not surrender; they simply ceased to fight.
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Explanation and Analysis:
