A journey to the Far West by the American ornithologist and animal painter John James Audubon (1843)

Abstract

The article analyzes the evidence of the stay in 1843 in the Far West of North America of the famous American naturalist, ornithologist and animal painter John James Audubon (1785–1851) on both sides of the Atlantic. The purpose of Audubon and his assistants’ difficult journey was to collect specimens of fauna and flora, tо draw sketches of animals for their further preparation of a work on mammals of the vast prairie region located on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. Published in 1897, the journals about this trip to a remote frontier zone, are an interesting testimony of the era. However, they have not yet attracted the attention of domestic researchers. The journals describe nature, including such major rivers as the Missouri, Yellowstone and their numerous tributaries, as well as the daily life of Indians and still a few white trappers, inhabitants of fur trading posts, and military forts. The journals are an important source for using it in interdisciplinary studies of the history of the American Far West in the mid-1840s., where the wave of civilization of white settlers, primarily of Anglo-Saxon origin, has not yet reached in all its might. This wave was just beginning to gain strength, which later adversely affected the nature of the region and its indigenous inhabitants.