The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 53, July 1949 - April, 1950 Page: 499

Book Reviews

confusion which is found in the archaelogy of the Eastern United
States. More such meticulous excavations and conscientious re-
cordings and interpretation will bring us nearer to the solution
of the problems of historical sequences and affiliations of the
cultures north of Mexico.
W. C. HOLDEN
Texas Technological College
At the End of the Santa Fe Trail. By Sister Blandina Segale.
Milwaukee (The Bruce Publishing Company), 1948. Pp.
xii+298. $3.00.
Sister Blandina, in her absorbing Diary of everyday experi-
ences with life on the frontier, has none of the cold formality so
frequently associated with history. It is a remarkably graphic
picture of men and women, earnest homeseekers, unscrupulous
desperados, Indians driven to despair by white men's ruthless-
ness; patient and suffering Mexican pioneers of the Southwest
meekly accepting the new order with fatalistic indifference.
Among this motley crowd, this worker of Christian charity moves
unobtrusively, helping, encouraging, teaching by word and deed.
Her sincerity commanded respect in a raw frontier where moral
restraint was almost non-existent.
Here is the record of life as it ebbed and flowed in the uncon-
quered West. For twenty-one years Sister Blandina labored in
Trinidad, Santa Fe, and Albuquerque. When she first came, the
railroad line was still under construction and ended twenty-four
stagecoach hours from Trinidad. In her Diary, meant for her
sister only, she found time to set down with the vividness and
informality of a candid camera her experiences and her reactions
to the striking environment into which her mission of charity
had brought her.
A pioneer couple was murdered during her first Easter week
in the West. A posse blamed four Mexicans and hanged them
because they refused to confess the crime. "Two days later the
real murderers were captured and confessed the crime," wrote
the amazed Sister of Charity and added, "They were outlawed
Americansl" The chief of the Utes took to the warpath that
spring and Sister Blandina notes in her Diary, "Poor Indians!
Will they ever understand that the conquerors claim the land?"

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