FEATURED POST

     A fair number of individuals wrote about their experiences on the Santa Fe Trail in the first half of the 19th century, and some also wrote about traveling El Camino Real south from Santa Fe into Mexico. But Susan Shelby Magoffin's book is unique in several respects.

     First, she was one of the few women to make the journey. Additionally, she was educated and a highly descriptive writer. Also, she went with her husband and other merchants. But perhaps most important, they traveled just as the United States was wresting control of New Mexico from the Republic of Mexico, and she had first-hand observations of some of the permutations of the war with Mexico.