Not Exactly the Santa Fe Trail

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"I have given you fair warning. You can keep your heads or lose 'em as you wish."

John Brown (Raymond Massey)

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If you have never seen "Santa Fe Trail," which made its debut 75 years ago today, I guess it is important to know something before you do see it.

The movie has nothing whatsoever to do with the real Santa Fe Trail, which was a 19th–century transportation route that ran from Franklin in western Missouri to Santa Fe in northern New Mexico.

Rather, it was a pretty basic account of the events surrounding John Brown's raid at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia) — about 800 miles east of Franklin — less than two years before the start of the Civil War.

(Well, I suppose a rather tenuous connection could made from the fact that the trail started in Missouri and the railroad that would replace the Santa Fe Trail as a commercial route couldn't be built until Brown was driven from neighboring Kansas, an event that was re–created in "Santa Fe Trail," but making that mental connection would require the viewer to know certain details about American history that were never explored in "Santa Fe Trail" and a garden–variety moviegoer in 1940 was no more likely to know than one in 2015.)

It wasn't entirely literal history, by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a rousing good story, and it had a great cast.

It had Errol Flynn in it so audiences knew it would have lots of action and romance.

It had Olivia de Havilland in it so audiences knew they would be treated to a top–notch performance from an actress who, although her movie career was only a few years old at the time, was already regarded as being an actress in the classical mold.

It had Raymond Massey, who had been established as a classical actor for at least a decade and lent some of his personal credibility to the role of John Brown — even though, as I say, the movie is not the definitive word on the history of either the mid–19th century or John Brown.

And it had Ronald Reagan. No one knew at the time, of course, that Reagan would be elected president 40 years later. In the role of George Armstrong Custer, Reagan had a bit of a rivalry with Flynn's character, Jeb Stuart, that supposedly went back to their days at West Point.

I've been a student of American history most of my life. I will readily concede that I am not an authority on military history or military school history, and I don't know enough about Custer's individual relationships with his fellow cadets to pass judgment — but I do know that Custer had one of the worst personal conduct records in the school's history and was nearly expelled several times. Many of his demerits were received for pulling tricks on classmates so such a rivalry would not be inconceivable.

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But Jeb Stuart must have been a stand–in for all those who were pranked by Custer. Stuart and Custer were never classmates. Stuart was born six years before Custer and graduated three years before Custer enrolled at West Point.

For that matter, Stuart was a West Point classmate of several people who had noteworthy military careers, according to the movie, but it played fast and loose with the facts, just as it did in its account of John Brown.

If you believed the movie, Stuart was a classmate of James Longstreet, George Pickett, Phil Sheridan and John Bell "Sam" Hood as well as Custer, but Stuart was a teenager when Longstreet and Pickett graduated from West Point, and Stuart, as I say, had been gone for three years when Custer enrolled there. Stuart was at West Point when Sheridan and Hood were there, but they graduated a year before he did. I have seen no evidence that Stuart knew either one.

Also, I have heard nothing of a romance between Stuart and the woman known as Kit Carson Holliday, the name of de Havilland's character. Stuart was married to a woman named Flora and was reportedly devoted to her until his death during the Civil War.

The only Kit Carsons I ever heard of were men. I can only assume that Kit Carson Holliday was entirely fictional.

Another inconvenient fact. When you look at pictures of John Brown in history books, he always has a long beard, but he didn't grow his beard until after he left Kansas. Nevertheless, in "Santa Fe Trail," he is portrayed with a long beard.

But Hollywood never let the facts get in the way of a good story. (Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?)

And, as I say, it was a good story.

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It just wasn't literal history.

So if you are a student and you want to write a paper about John Brown or any of the other famous folks who were portrayed in "Santa Fe Trail," I implore you — don't use this movie as one of your sources.

Watch it and enjoy it. It's very entertaining.

But please don't treat it as a reputable factual source.

The Roots of an American Family

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"When you clench your fist, no one can put anything in your hand, nor can your hand pick up anything."

Alex Haley
"Roots" (1976)

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On this day in 1976, the publishing world was changed by the publication of a once–in–a–generation kind of book ...

Alex Haley's "Roots."

There had been other books that had come before that had been about the black experience in America. And there were certainly books that came along later that spoke of it in greater detail.

But "Roots" seemed to be unique. Never before (to my knowledge, at least) had a novel told the story of a young black man — captured in 18th–century Africa and sold into slavery in the North American colonies — and his descendants, both slave and free, and the generational struggle to find their way back to their point of origin.

As it turned out, the story wasn't unique. Someone had told it — or something remarkably similar — before Haley did. But I'll get back to that in a minute.

Ostensibly, it was the tale of Haley's own family, his attempt to put a little meat on the bare–bones stories that he said had been handed down in his family from one generation to the next. Initially, it was presented to the public as nonfiction, but, ultimately, Haley had to acknowledge that parts of the story were fiction — if not borrowed fiction.

Haley reportedly said, "Roots is not just a saga of my family. It is the symbolic saga of a people."

In that respect, I suppose, it was really a writer's story — and that is the kind of thing that the writer in me has never been able to resist.

I think, too, that one of the things about it that attracted me was the similarity — in concept if not in actual writing style — to the works of James Michener, a writer I greatly admired.

Michener wrote books that told the stories of places through the generations that lived there. He did it so well, in fact, that my father, who taught religion and philosophy on the college level when I was growing up, used a book Michener wrote on the Middle East ("The Source") as a textbook.

In "Roots," the locales changed — and so did the people, for that matter — but the roots that linked them to one another went back hundreds of years and extended for thousands of miles. Even when you read the more modern stories of his descendants, you were always aware of Kunta Kinte and the influence he continued to have through the oral legacy he handed down to his daughter and was kept alive by succeeding generations.

It is important to remember, after all, that "Roots" wasn't a literal history — even though it was initially promoted as nonfiction. That, at least, is what is on the old paperback copy on my bookshelf — and that edition was printed in 1977.

Haley said it was his family's oral history that inspired the book, and that was logical. Because of the circumstances behind the arrival of most black people in America, there is little documentation that can prove where they were born, when they left their homes or what became of them after that.

Slaves wouldn't have been treated as people. They would have been treated as cargo. If one got sick and died while the ship was crossing the Atlantic, the body would have been thrown overboard, but it is doubtful that much note would have been made of it in the ship's log.

Haley apparently learned all he could and filled in the gaps based largely on educated guesses. Given the circumstances, what else could be done?

I remember reading the book as a teenager, and I found it enthralling. I couldn't pinpoint the sections where Haley had made educated guesses or where he wrote of documented events and/or conversations. I found the reading experience to be smooth and logical, seamless.

But it may not have been as original as it seemed.

Haley (who would have turned 90 last week if he was still living) originally claimed that the inspiration for the book and his own research had been the stories he had been told as a child.

But genealogists challenged his research, and so did a man named Harold Courlander, who published a book in 1967 called "The African." It was the story of an African who was captured by slave traders and brought to America, where he tried to hold on to his African heritage as much as possible.

If you ever read "Roots," you will recognize the premise.

In 1978, Courlander filed suit against Haley, whose dizzyingly best–selling book, by that time, had been turned into an extremely successful TV miniseries as well. Courlander alleged that Haley could not have written "Roots" without the material that had been lifted from "The African."

The parties settled the case five weeks after it was brought to court. The settlement included a financial payment and a statement that read "Alex Haley acknowledges and regrets that various materials from The African by Harold Courlander found their way into his book."

I have never read "The African." Perhaps, in the interest of fairness, I should. But I can say, from having read "Roots," that Haley's work was rich and rewarding — whether it was mostly fact or mostly fiction.

Whatever the truth may be, it was worth reading in 1976. It is still worth reading today.