Susan Shelby Magoffin was born on July 30, 1827, on a plantation near Danville, Kentucky to one of the wealthiest and most prominent families in the state. Her grandfather was the first governor of Kentucky and an American Revolutionary War hero, and several of her family members were pioneers in the American Midwest. At the age of eighteen years, Susan Shelby married forty-five-year-old Santa Fe trader Samuel Magoffin on November 25, 1845. The couple spent their honeymoon in New York before setting out on a trading expedition that would take more than two years to complete.
The newlyweds departed Independence, Missouri, the starting point of the Santa Fe Trail, on June 10, 1846, less than two months after the outbreak of the U.S.-Mexico War. Samuel provided his young and pregnant bride with many comforts for the journey, including a maid, a driver, a cook, two servant boys, books, a small tent house, and a private carriage lined with carpet. Magoffin started a travel diary to record her experiences on the expedition; her first entry was written the day they departed Missouri.
The Magoffins reached Bent’s Fort in Los Animas, New Mexico on July 27, 1846. Three days later, on her nineteenth birthday, Magoffin went into premature labor, and her first child did not survive. It is at this point in her journal that Magoffin begins to question for the first time the American cause in the war. She looked upon her bad luck as an omen, and while she gravely feared for her own soul, she also feared for the souls of the American soldiers she saw marching into war:
“I was free to meditate, on the follies and wickedness of man! . . . sinking himself to the level of beasts, waging warfare with his fellow man . . . and by his example teaching nothing good, striving for wealth, honour and fame to the ruining of his soul, and loosing a brighter crown in higher realms.”
They reached Santa Fe on August 31, where General Stephen W. Kearny’s army was stationed. There they met Samuel’s older brother, James Wiley Magoffin, a government agent President Polk had entrusted with the task of negotiating a peaceful occupation of New Mexico. Santa Fe had been in the U.S. army’s possession for just two weeks before Susan and Samuel’s arrival. Although James Magoffin had secretly negotiated with Mexican General Manuel Armijo for control of Santa Fe, Armijo continued to resist the U.S. army, and on August 15 he assembled an army of about 4,000 men outside of Santa Fe. Outnumbered and his army poorly-equipped, Armijo decided not to fight, and retreated three days later.
The Magoffins remained in Santa Fe for five months, enjoying General Kearny’s hospitality and the town’s many social functions. Susan also spent much of her time mastering the Spanish language, and observing the culture of the Mexican people, including their dress, food, and customs. As Magoffin slowly picked up on Spanish words and phrases, she included them in her journal, even referring to her husband frequently as “mi alma” (my soul). Although Susan was comfortable in Santa Fe, the Magoffins left for El Paso in October.
Throughout her journey, Susan continued to write detailed descriptions of the people and towns she visited, including comments on the food available, the quality of the water, the physical layout of houses, the routines and the social status of the people, and the wealth or poverty of the towns. grew increasingly more appreciative of Mexican culture.
As the war closed in on the Magoffins during their stay in El Paso in early 1847, the couple’s travels began to take a psychological toll on Susan, due to the constant threat of attack by Mexicans and Indians, as well as rumors of Samuel’s infidelity. When news arrived that Alexander Doniphan’s army had won the Battle of Sacramento River on February 28, the Magoffins departed El Paso for Chihuahua, which was now occupied by the U.S. army. Susan was horrified by the conditions in the town, bitterly criticizing the Missouri volunteers for vandalizing homes and polluting the drinking water.
Making the decision to return east, the Magoffins crossed northern Mexico, heading first to Saltillo, then Monterrey. Exhausted from the hardships she had experienced on the trail and disheartened by the news that James Magoffin had been murdered in Chihuahua, Susan was desperately homesick. Stricken with yellow fever, in Matamoros, she gave birth to a son there, who died soon afterward.
The Magoffins returned to Kentucky in 1848 to live in Lexington before permanently settling near Kirkwood, Missouri. Susan gave birth to a daughter in 1851, and a second daughter in 1855. But the hardships of their travels had destroyed Susan’s health. Susan Magoffin died at the age of twenty-eight on October 26, 1855. She was buried in Belle-Fontaine cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri.
Susan Magoffin was one of the first American women to travel along the Santa Fe Trail, and the first to leave a detailed written record of her experiences. She started a diary to keep herself busy on the journey, but it has since become a vital source for historians, offering a unique perspective of the Santa Fe Trail, some of the important events of the U.S. Mexico War, and descriptions of northern Mexican life and customs.
Bibliography
Magoffin, Susan Shelby. Down the Santa Fe Trail and into Mexico; the Diary of Susan Shelby Magoffin, 1846-1847.New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962.
Magoffin, Susan Shelby, and Stella Madeleine, Drumm. Down the Santa Fé Trail and into Mexico: the Diary of Susan Shelby Magoffin, 1846-1847 New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1988.
Scharff, Virginia. Twenty Thousand Roads: Women, Movement, and the West Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002.
Image Details
Title: Susan Shelby Magoffin
Date: ca.1845
Description: Portrait of Susan Shelby Magoffin, probably a daguerreotype, ca. 1845, courtesy of the Missouri State Historical Society.
