Carson hated Native Americans, especially those who had committed crimes such as rape, theft, and murder. He believed Native Americans could not be trusted, and should be punished. Mountain men often had to kill Native Americans to save their own lives. The young Carson's brutal and vicious notions about Native Americans is sometimes considered his greatest moral failing. Carson never killed Native American women and children though. He believed a brave man would never do this, and he scorned those men who did.
Carson's "Memoirs" are replete with stories about Native American encounters with the memoir writer. In January 1833, for example, warriors of the Crow tribe stole nine horse from Carson's camp. Carson and eleven other men found the Crow camp after dark, and quietly led the horses away. Those men who owned the horses wanted to return to their own camp at once. Although Carson and two other men had not lost any horses, these three wanted to punish the Crows. Carson and his men fired their guns into the Crow camp, killiing almost every Crow. Carson wrote in his "Memoirs": "During our pursuit for the lost animals, we suffered considerably but, the success of having recovered our horses and sending many a redskin to his long home, our sufferings were soon forgotten."
The Blackfoot nation was a hostile tribe, and posed an ever-present threat to Carson's safety. A Blackfoot warrior once injured Carson in the shoulder. This was the worst injury he received in his life. He hated the Blackfeet, and killed them at every opportunity. Historian David Roberts has written: "It was taken for granted that the Blackfeet were bad Indians; to shoot them whenever he could was a mountain man's instinct and duty." The Blackfeet did not like whites. They were convinced whites were trying to take over their hunting grounds. In addition, the Blackfeet wanted the valuable horses owned by the whites.
Carson had several encounters with the Blackfeet, but his last battle with the Blackfeet took place in spring 1838. He was traveling with about one hundred mountain men led by Jim Bridger. In Montana territory, the group found a teepee with three Native American corpses inside. These three had died of smallpox. Bridger wanted to move on, but Carson and the other young men wanted to kill the Blackfeet.
They found the Blackfoot village, and killed ten Blackfeet warriors. The Blackfeet found some safety in a pile of rocks, but were driven away. It is not known how many Blackfeet died in this incident. Historian David Roberts writes: "[I]f anything like pity filled Carson's breast as, in his twenty-ninth year, he beheld the ravaged camp of the Blackfeet, he did not bother to remember it." Carson wrote in his "Memoirs" that this battle was "the prettiest fight I ever saw."
Carson's notions about Native Americans softened over the years. He found himself more and more in their company as he grew older. His thoughts about Native Americans became more understanding and more humane. He urged the government to set aside lands called reservations for their use. As an Indian agent, he saw to it that those under his watch were treated with honesty, fairness, and clothed and fed properly. Historian David Roberts believes his first marriage to an Arapaho women named Singing Grass, "softened the stern and pragmatic mountaineer's opportunism."
In killing Native Americans, Carson was making America safe for settlers heading west to build their homes, farms, and villages. He had the approval of the United States government and its citizens. In addition, Senator Thomas Hart Benton, the United States Congress, and President James K. Polk had developed and were working under a concept called Manifest Destiny. This concept stated that it was the will of God that the United States push America's western boundary to the Pacific Ocean at all costs. Manifest Destiny spurred the movement of American settlers to the West.
Carson was married three times. His first two wives were Native Americans. His third wife was Mexican. He was the father of ten children. Carson never wrote about his first two marriages in his "Memoirs". He may have thought he would be known as a "squaw man". Such men were not welcomed by polite society.
In 1836, Carson met an Arapaho woman named Waanibe (Singing Grass) at a mountain man "rendezvous". This "rendezvous" was held along the Green River in Wyoming. Singing Grass was a lovely young woman. Many mountain men were in love with her. Carson was forced to fight a duel with a French trapper named Chouinard for Waanibe's hand in marriage. Carson won, but he had a very narrow escape. The French trapper's bullet singed his hair. The duel was one of the best known stories about Carson in the 19th century.
Carson married Singing Grass. She was a good wife. She tended to his needs, and went with him on his trapping trips. They had a daughter named Adaline (or Adeline). Singing Grass died after giving birth to Carson's second daughter. This child did not live long. In 1843, she fell into a kettle of boiling soap in Taos. Waanibe died about 1841.
Carson's life as a mountain man was too hard for a little girl. In 1852, he took Adaline to live with his sister Mary Ann Carson Rubey in Saint Louis, Missouri. Adaline was taught in a school for girls called a seminary. Carson brought her West when she was a teenager. She married and divorced. In 1858, she went to the California goldfields. Adaline died in 1860.
In 1841, Carson married a Cheyenne woman named Making-Out-Road. They were together only a short time. Making-Out-Road divorced him in the way of her people. She put Adaline and all Carson's property outside their tent. Making-Out-Road left Carson to travel with her people through the west. Historian David Lavender writes: "[Making-Out-Road] was spoiled. She had put most of the Cheyenne bachelors and half the white men at the fort in a slow burn, and they had showered her with gifts. Now that they were married she expected Kit to keep her in expensive foofaraw (finery). She ignored her household chores and neglected little Adaline ..."
About 1842, Carson met Josefa Jaramillo. She was the beautiful daughter of a wealthy Mexican couple living in Taos. Lewis Garrard wrote: "Her style of beauty was of the haunting, heartbreaking kind ... such as would lead a man with a glance in his eye, to risk his life for one smile." Carson wanted to marry her. He left the Presbyterian Church for the Catholic Church. Thirty-three-year old Carson married 14-year-old Josefa on February 6, 1843. They had eight children.
In 1842, Carson was returning from Missouri after depositing his daughter Adaline with relatives when met John C. Frémont aboard a steamboat on the Missouri River. Frémont was a United States Army officer in the Corps of Topographical Engineers. Carson had very little money at this time. Frémont hired Carson at $100 a month as a guide. Frémont wrote, "I was pleased with him and his manner of address at this first meeting. He was a man of medium height, broad-shouldered, and deep-chested, with a clear steady blue eye and frank speech and address; quiet and unassuming."
In 1842, Carson guided Frémont across the Oregon Trail to Wyoming. This was their first expedition into the West. The purpose of this expedition was to map and describe the Oregon Trail as far as South Pass, Wyoming. A guidebook and maps would be printed for settlers. Frémont praised Carson in his government reports. Because of that, Carson became well known across the United States. He became the hero of many cheap, popular books called dime novels.