The book shows that the establishment of the Santa Fe Trail was not really so much pioneers wanted to go west and set up new lives, but it was really an economic thing, involving men who decided that there was a good profit to be made in taking goods along the trail and then selling them in Santa Fe. Eventually there became other places along the trail to sell goods.
There were major dangers on the trail, of course, including weather and attacks from various Native American groups, but neither danger was able to stop the flow of merchants, and some settlers, out to the west.
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