Down the Santa Fe Trail and into Mexico: The Diary of Susan Shelby Magoffin, 1846-1847

By Susan Magoffin, edited by Stella Drumm

As young newly wed, Susan joined her husband on a trading expedition from the United States across Kansas and down through New Mexico and on into Mexico, eventually ending up at Matamoros on the Gulf Coast. Only eighteen years old and married to a man 27 years older than Susan and a veteran of these long, arduous journeys, Susan accompanied her new husband Samuel with a teenager's glee and enthusiasm and optimism.
Through her diary we get a picture of life on the trail. And of what life was like for Americans in that area during the conflict between Mexico and the USA that came to be called the Mexican-American war. Her husband's brother James was heavily involved in the behind-the-scenes diplomatic maneuverings common to such occasions and Susan mentions him and his activities in her diary often.
Also, it is clear from how she writes of Samuel that she is completely smitten with him but as we near the end of the diary which covered a span of about fifteen months, although she still calls him "mi alma," which means my soul, she does admit that, "...this thing of marrying is not what it is cracked up to be."
When they reached the Gulf Coast they sailed back to America. But Susan's health, after contracting yellow fever and possibly malaria, had been so compromised by the disease and rigors of the trip that she died eight years later in 1855, her youth and vigor destroyed. Oddly, her husband remarried a cousin of hers who was also named Susan Shelby.
Susan was one of the first Anglo American women to make this trek and her observations are full of details overlooked by male chroniclers, including info about shopping, housekeeping, servants, clothing, food and recipes, the stuff of every day life. Susan and Samuel traveled in style, with servants and in their own carriage and with all the comforts money could provide, but still Susan reported on a lot of domestic details and also gives many interesting impressions of the locals she encounters. Once they entered New Mexico, though, her diary reflects the fear and uncertainty of travelling in a foreign land during a time of war. Often they sit on the brink of disaster, fearing imminent massacre by enraged locals. But American successes in the war keep the locals from turning against the travelers and they reach the end of their journey safely. Although Susan had one miscarriage and later another baby died soon after being born.

This was a pretty interesting book to read. I especially enjoyed her accounts of life on the trail and her descriptions of the locals and their customs. What I didn't really enjoy were her lapses into religious fervour and her descriptions of the ongoing confrontation between Mexico and the USA. I just skimmed those parts to get to the good stuff. It's too bad things didn't turn out better for Susan, losing two babies and contracting illnesses that may have ruined her health. As a true life account, her diary has a candor not often found in these types of journals. For the most part, I enjoyed reading it.