The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 58, July 1954 - April, 1955 Page: 570

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

sion" to make room for a needy widow and her children; who
could hurl at his enemies the bitterest words of sarcasm and
address his friends and family with the gentlest words. Here is set
forth the Houston who could rise from the gutter to the presi-
dency of a republic, who could play the politician so deftly and
then, as a statesman, fighting to the end go down so magnificently
with the great cause of unionism, prompted by a prophetic vision
to believe that history would vindicate his course.
This biography, the most nearly definitive that has yet ap-
peared, suggests that Sam Houston must be numbered with the
great.
RUPERT N. RICHARDSON
Hardin-Simmons University
Antoine Robidoux, 1794-186o. A Biography of a Western Adven-
turer. By William Swilling Wallace. Early California Series,
XIV. Los Angeles (Glen Dawson), 1953- Pp. 59 $5.00o.
Antoine Robidoux, one of the mountain men, came of a French
Canadian stock that for several generations had traded for furs,
and one reasonably well at the occupation. St. Louis was his first
basis of operations; the business connections of his older asso-
ciates drew his attention to the Santa Fe trade. Before his active
career was done with he had journeyed to the Pacific Coast on
trading missions, and beginning with the year 1825, so Mr. Wal-
lace concludes, had begun a regular exploitation of the fur-bear-
ing valleys north and west of Santa Fe and Taos. Robidoux is
credited with being "one of the first penetrators" of the Inter-
montane Corridor. He established two forts in this broad area,
one on the banks of the Gunnison, a short distance below the
mouth of the Uncompahgre River, in western Colorado, and the
other near the forks of the Uinta River in northeastern Utah.
With careful craftsmanship Mr. Wallace has identified the sites
of these two forts, and has given them as close a position in time
(with regard to the dates of founding) as is possible with the
scanty extant documentation. And he has brought these estab-
lishments into one focus, relating them to the three Spanish sites
(Santa Fe, Taos, and Santa Rita) on the south, and on the north,
to Henry's post (18o9-10) and Kootenai House on the Colum-
bia River (1807). He concludes, "The Gunnison fort was prob-

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