Review of "Wagons West: The Epic Story of America's Overland Trails" by Frank McLynn

A long and grindingly detailed account of the wagon-driving pioneers who colonised California and Oregon in the years before the Gold Rush. The book had its merits - it was great for reading last thing at night, because it invariably put me (and Ruth, if I read it out loud to her) to sleep very quickly. 

For the most part the stories of the individual wagon trains seem to follow a common pattern. Lots about what provisions the pioneers took. Stories about how they got into trouble, mainly through stupidity. The miserable privations that the pioneer women experienced, with huge amounts of women's labour needed to keep the men in the style to which they quickly became accustomed. Mainly good relations with the native Americans, who were kind and helpful to the pioneers, and who received little recognition or kindness in recompense. "Attack by Indians" was what the pioneers worried about most, but in so far as some of them died it was a result of stupid behaviour (children sitting on wagon yokes and so on). The book isn't really in line with anti colonial sensibilities; it details how the pioneers were motivated by the possibility of cheap land, but doesn't reflect much on how it came about that there was all that land that "didn't belong to anyone" there.

I skipped some of the middle of the book, coming back to the final chapter about the Mormon wagon trains, which was weirdly fascinating. The book ends just before the gold rush, which transformed California, its population and the trail. I hadn't really been aware that both California and Oregon, the destination of the land-hungry pioneers, were both outside the control of the United States at the time of the trails - Oregon was not really under anyone's control but was part of a dispute with the British, and California was part of Mexico until after 1848.