Who Discovered the South Pass?

WHO DISCOVERED THE SOUTH PASS?

Link to post: https://user.xmission.com/~drudy/mtman/html/crooks.html

This is a letter by a Ramsey Crooks from New York of 1856. The letter alludes to the integrity of a Col. John Fremont who Crooks sees as a potential President of the then confederacy. He first begins by a short doubt of his potential by from an article in the Detroit advertiser but quickly changes the mood to commend Fremont on his masculinity. He clearly views the role of President to be an ideal of stereotypical masculinity as he comments on the brawn and bravery of him discovering the American mountain land where he is “surrounded by savages and grizzly bears”; a quality that he says is rare in the US but he seems to believe shows good promise for future leadership skills. He seems to to and fro between his positives and negatives which is formally worded but informally structured. It’s almost as if he’s trying to play devil’s advocate with himself here and is just venting his opinions to a respected friend.

He goes on to not only disavow Fremont but also his endorsers by saying that others that had gone before him, the hunters and traders who many of which had gone through the South Pass long before the colonel. It was therefore not only an untrue claim of ‘discovery’ but also a meaningless one as an attention seeker for political and social status benefit, as he mentions that his party “must be pressed very hard when they had to drag in a circumstance so very unimportant as who discovered the 'South Pass.'”

It is after this point in the letter that Crooks gives a much clearer and decisive verdict on his feelings towards the Col. Fremont. He then enters a brief history lesson to back up his point regarding the true discovery of the South Pass. This is interesting considering the time as this information is surprisingly detailed given the time period. Archives of these kind of discoveries would largely be harder to come across than in today’s world. This does open up the possibility for Crooks to be stretching the truth, but given the detail of the various events spanning from 1810 to 1814, and given Crooks’ Esquire title assumes Crooks is more likely to be an intellectual pioneer.