For almost half a century, the Santa Fe Trail served as an avenue for both peaceful and violent exchange. Stephen G. Hyslop uses eyewitness accounts to explore the Santa Fe Trail's evolving role in the relationships among Americans, Mexicans, and Plains Indians. Hyslop concludes with the fateful episode that made the Santa Fe Trail an avenue for America's largest historical ambitions-the occupation of New Mexico in the summer of 1846. "Hyslop shows in his meticulously researched and adroitly written history...his apt visualization of the Santa Fe Trail." Dallas Morning News Stephen G. Hyslop, an independent scholar, served as editor of a 23-volume series on American Indians for Time-Life Books.