This is an archive of past discussions about Kit Carson. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
I am not an editor, just a reader, but I have some concerns regarding the tone of this article. I looked up Kit Carson when his name came up in passing and found this article. My concern is that, while there are sections that address Carson's controversial status, the article as a whole reads with a bias towards Carson as a sympathetic figure. While it's very unlikely that this was the intention, the controversy section looks like an afterthought to an outside reader. In addition, there are a few places in which the language used does not seem up to the usual encyclopedic quality and tone that I generally see in Wikipedia articles. For example, under the Indian fighter section, a passage reads: "In addition to furs and the company of free spirited, rugged mountain men, Carson sought action and adventure. He found what he was looking for in killing and scalping Indians." While Carson may have seen it as such, is it appropriate for an encyclopedia to refer to killing Indigenous people as an adventure? The language use also seems more literary than encyclopedic. The opening paragraph of the Indian Agent section contains similar language that feels out of place in an encyclopedic article; for example, "His duties were broad and insurmountable", "...the office would be perpetually underfunded."
As far as quality, there are a few places that could use a rewrite or copyediting pass, such as "The 1970 publication of Dee Brown's best-selling Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee opened the eyes of the reading public to the tragic history of Native Americans and the role of Kit Carson in the Navajo wars did not look good." and "To one group represented, the American Indian Movement, Kit Carson was responsible for the murder, or genocide of Native Americans. A subsequent history symposium, in 1993 in Taos, tried to enlighten and explain the frontiersman, to air various views."
I am the most concerned about potential bias in the wording of another passage, which reads
"Carson's view of the best future for the nomadic Indian evolved. By the late 1850s, he recommended, to make way for the increasing number of white settlers, they should give up hunting and become herders and farmers, be provided with missionaries to Christianize them, and move onto reserves in their homeland but distant from settlements with their bad influence of ardent spirits, disease, and unscrupulous Hispanos and Anglos. Carson predicted, "If permitted to remain as they are, before many years they will be utterly extinct."
If this entire paragraph is a quote or a paraphrase of Carson's words (which I suspect it is, given the quote at the end) then there are missing quotation marks or a stronger indication of paraphrasing, which would be a minor mistake. If not, however, it reads as strikingly biased against Indigenous peoples and should be removed or rephrased.
All this to say, I would like to ask that someone with more editing experience take a look at this article and its sources to confirm whether these concerns are in line with Wikipedia's editing and content practices. As I stated at the top, I am just a reader with only a passing familiarity with the editing rules, so if my concerns are off-base I would like to know. Apologies as well if this is difficult to read; I'm writing this on a mobile browser as I don't have access to a computer at the moment.
Thank you in advance,
JRose 2601:1C0:8301:AF00:94F7:A06:3635:C76E (talk) 01:12, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
Agreed, this needs a lot of work and much of it reads like a middle school report on Carson. I'm no subject matter expert, but perhaps someone more well versed could re-work it. -- MacAddct1984(talk | contribs)12:36, 19 May 2023 (UTC)
I agree that the wording is poorly chosen and the tone is inappropriate in many places, but perhaps for the opposite reasons suggested by JRose. I believe "He found what he was looking for in killing and scalping Indians" is intended to portray the man as callous and inhumane. It definitely doesn't glorify those actions. This line and others like it give the article the tone of an attempt to persuade opinions rather than presenting history without agenda. "Indian Killer" as a section title is another obvious example. I think the historical facts speak for themselves - any modern reader will consider many of Kit Carson's actions and beliefs to be heinous. We don't need juvenile reminders of how we're supposed to feel about it mixed into the Wikipedia article. 174.56.118.125 (talk) 04:29, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
The current era is replete with folks who insist upon viewing history and historical persons solely from their current and often "fashionable" perspective. Was Kit Carson a vicious Indian oppressing racist? A silly ignorant accusation at best. Might this article be improved? Of course it might well be. Should the article be bowdlerized to appease anyone offended by some events real or imagined in his life? Should the past be edited simply to please the passions of our current age of self-important outrage? I think not. Mark Lincoln (talk) 16:20, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
