Outlaws in the Big Trees: More Sontag & Evans in RDR2

A brief note: When I was “taking a break” from this project over the winter holidays, I began looking at possible historical influences on Red Dead Redemption 2. While many of these sources, like Albert Bierstadt, appear almost as cameos in the game, the story of John Sontag and Chris Evans is its foundation. The other influences I’ve identified here shape RDR2‘s retelling of that story, building on characters and themes, but it’s Sontag and Evans who are the most indispensable.
I originally published what follows as one essay in the section on various literary influences. I’ve also now separated it into two pieces for a better reading experience. I’m also placing it at the top of the Table of Contents, as I think it makes the most sense to consider the rest of the allusions with Sontag and Evans in mind (if only I’d known!).

Naturally, many of the people surrounding John Sontag and Chris Evans inspired characters in RDR2 as well.

Robbers v. Robber Baron

Ironically, one of the most important people in Evans and Sontag’s story never met the men, maybe never even spoke about them. He didn’t have to. Collis P. Huntington built the world that the bandits rebelled against and that broke them. He was one of the “Big Four” — the robber barons who owned the Southern Pacific Railroad and used their wealth to exercise undue political power. He and Leviticus Cornwall looked alike.

No doubt several powerful men of the Gilded Age helped inspire Cornwall’s character, but his resemblance to Collis P. Huntington goes beyond the physical. Both the historical figure and the character were obscenely wealthy and earned themselves ugly reputations. One precise aspect of Huntington’s character would have drawn the writers of RDR2 to him, however, even if it’s one that didn’t make it into the game: his duality. While Huntington’s business practices were suspect, he was, to a notable degree, antiracist. He gave money to African American churches, schools, and colleges. Beyond that,

Though it was politically unwise, Huntington ordered his companies to give equal employment and pay to black workers, and he publicly opposed the exclusions of black and other non-white children from public schools, as well as other “Jim Crow” restrictions then being enacted in the South and elsewhere. In newspaper columns and public speeches in the West, Huntington praised the Chinese for their culture and industry, and condemned state and federal discrimination against American Indians and Chinese, Filipino, and Japanese immigrants.

Rice, quoted in “Collis Potter Huntington.”

This is decidedly not an aspect of Cornwall’s character. However, given the game’s thematic interest in duality, it’s very possibly why the writers began considering Huntington’s character. Even the map makes the parallel apparent: Huntington was the driving force behind the Southern Pacific expanding to New Orleans and beyond (Galloway), which may have been a factor in Rockstar’s decision to include that particular city. Annesburg is also clearly influenced by Huntington’s life. Although he eventually acquires power over the town, Cornwall didn’t found Annesburg or initially own the coal mine (see “Mining Company Letter to Cornwall”). In a similar way, when Huntington founded Huntington, West Virginia, there was already a permanent settlement there. (The nearby town of Milton, West Virginia, probably also caught the writers’ eye.) Finally, Huntington died of heart disease, and Dutch shoots Cornwall in the heart.

The Poet Who Inspired Evelyn Miller

Naturally, there’s a link to literature in Evans and Sontag’s story. Dutch’s idol, Evelyn Miller, is loosely based on a writer who defended the duo: Joaquin Miller. His work, like George Lippard‘s, was more notable for its popular appeal than its literary merit. He was a celebrity in his day, but like Evans himself, he’s mostly forgotten. The opening to a biography of Miller by his editor makes it clear why RDR2‘s writers found him intriguing: “Joaquin Miller, the Poet of the Sierras, had a dual personality. He was not hooked up properly. His life represented an extreme form of dualism” (Wagner 9). Dualism is one of the game’s core thematic concerns.

But it’s not just that: Miller painted a powerfully romantic and enduring vision of the outlaws. In an essay for the San Francisco Examiner, he wrote that he met with Evans at the General Grant Tree — a giant sequoia — in what’s now Kings Canyon National Park (Smith 242). (You can see Miller’s full story here.) All of “The American Inferno, Burnt Out,” which is the strand of missions focusing on Evelyn Miller, takes place in Tall Trees. The name “Tall Trees” is a play on the name of Calaveras Big Trees State Park. Big Trees is home to giant sequoias, while Tall Trees is home to their close relative, redwoods (confirmed by game filenames). Nor is that the only connection that Evans had to the giant trees of California. For a time, he and his family lived in a home they called Redwood Ranch, which is now in Sequoia National Park (401).

The parallels continue: Evelyn tries to help the Lakota; Joaquin attempted to defend various Native American tribes in his writings (for instance, Shadows of Shasta) — although his attitudes were often just a different sort of racism. Joaquin asked to be cremated at his home in California (Wagner 298); Evelyn asked to be cremated at his home, which is in RDR2’s version of California.

Miller was called “the Byron of the Rockies,” and Smith mentions that he once visited Lord Byron’s grave (Smith 236). This may have been what got the writers thinking about Byron, who is another of the most important pieces in the collage that makes up Dutch Van der Linde’s character. Byron is so strongly associated with Milton’s Satan that he would naturally bring Paradise Lost to mind, which is one of the most important influences on RDR2.

Despite all that, Evelyn’s gentle, introspective, earnest personality doesn’t at all square with Joaquin’s, who was brash, a braggart, and a fabulist — the story about meeting with Evans wasn’t true, although they met years later. Another writer who inspired Evelyn’s character is the Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau. Evelyn’s in-game writing is more similar to Thoreau’s than Joaquin Miller’s. Thoreau mentions the writer John Evelyn in his most famous work, Walden, which is presumably part of where Miller gets his first name — it was also Eva Evans’s full name, and she was as important in the telling of her father’s story as anyone. Thoreau wrote Walden living in a cabin near a pond, just as Evelyn writes America while living in a cabin by Aurora Basin. Like many of the creatives who inspired RDR2, Thoreau died of tuberculosis.

More Allusions to Evans and Sontag in RDR and RDR2

• Although John Sontag clearly had more impact on Arthur and Hosea’s actual characters, John Marston is probably at least partly named after him.
• Evans was released from prison in 1911, the same year in which Red Dead Redemption is set.
• Wallace Smith’s biography of Evans is called Prodigal Sons, which is an allusion to the Biblical myth. Red Dead Redemption alludes to the same myth with the mission title “The Prodigal Son Returns (To Yale).” The mission features a professor, which was also Smith’s job. Dutch appears in the mission, and it ends at Manzanita Post. Manzanita Post is named for one of Evans and Sontag’s (and later Evans and Morrell’s) hideouts, Camp Manzanita (Smith 258; 365-367). Camp Manzanita was located “three hundred feet from the road which led to Evans’ Redwood Ranch” (261). Manzanita Post is also situated among the redwoods.
• Evans requested that when he died, a hollow be made in a sequoia on Redwood Ranch and his body be laid to rest inside (32-33). Obviously this is rather a lot to ask, and the request wasn’t fulfilled.Perhaps this is why Dutch dies in Tall Trees. It’s interesting that in camp dialog in RDR2, Hosea, Lenny, and Arthur discuss how they’d like to be buried, and each of them ends up getting their wish. Even Micah gets his wish about how he’d like his death honored: “no fuss” (“Old Friends”). It’s one of the game’s few kindnesses.
• Smith claims that people from the Yokuts tribes helped Evans and Morrell while they were on the run. In the Afterword, Secrest points out that this is highly unlikely (445). However, Smith’s claim may have been part of the inspiration for Dutch’s association with Native American tribes and individuals in both Redemption games.
• For a time, Evans worked on a steamboat called the Bessie Brady on Owens Lake (Smith 26). The Bessie Brady transported silver from the Cerro Gordo Mines (Millspaugh), which may have given the writers the idea for the ferry robbery — especially since steamboat robberies don’t seem to have been nearly as common as train, bank, and stage robberies. Although certainly not identical, Arthur’s drawing of the ferry Dutch and Micah plan to rob looks somewhat similar to artist William McKeever’s painting of the Bessie Brady. The other ship that worked Owens Lake was the Molly Stevens, pinning another layer of allusive meaning to the text: Hosea’s wife was Bessie, and Dutch’s lover is Molly.

• Wallace Station and Wallace Overlook are named for author Wallace Smith. Both are in the portion of the map that represents California, the history of which Smith studied. Fort Wallace is probably partially named for him, too, as well as being named for the historical Fort Wallace.
• Smith notes that Evans is “probably the only well-known outlaw in history whose favorite authors were Swinburne, Scott, Shakespeare, Huxley, Darwin, and Spencer” (74). That’s why Dutch usually has a book in his hand at camp, and among the few possessions the gang managed to escape with is his library.
• In Smith’s suspiciously fateful version of events, Sontag and Evans met by chance, and a mutual acquaintance asked Evans to tell Sontag about the Mussel Slough tragedy of 1880, in which settlers died in a clash with railroad agents. One of the men killed in the fight was Archibald McGregor, who may be Archibald MacGregor’s namesake. “Mc” is just an abbreviation of “Mac” (Notaro). McGregor, like the Gray Family with whom MacGregor is associated, was Scottish. Smith incorrectly claims that McGregor was “detailed to guard the marshal” (58). RDR2‘s MacGregor is also a sort of sidekick to a lawman. Given that the spelling isn’t an exact match, it still may be a coincidence.
• On a trip home to Minnesota, John Sontag wanted to get revenge on people who had bullied him when he was a child. His mother tried to stop him with a Bible verse: “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, I will repay!” (Smith 93). A corruption of this verse is carved into the barrel of Micah Bell’s gun. (This entire story seems to me to be an invention of Eva’s.)
• One of Evans and Sontags’ associates was a saloon owner suspected of both laundering money for them, and of supplying guns for Contant’s attempted prison break. His name was Josiah “Si” Loverin (Smith 384). His name may have inspired Josiah Trelawny’s, since, like Trelawny, he was both with the gang and not. (I identified the source of Trelawny’s last name and appearance here.)
• Sontag was Catholic. As he lay dying, he took confession, which Eva said seemed to bring him some comfort (“At Rest in Prison”). This may have had some influence on Arthur’s last meeting with Sister Calderon, although her character is more directly influenced by St. Agnes’ Stand.
• Joaquin Miller had a daughter named Maud Miller with the poet Minnie Myrtle Miller (Ward). One of the people in the Artists, Writers, & Poets cigarette card sets — which Evelyn Miller is also included in — is the poet Maud Delancey. Delancey and Miller and the drawings themselves are similar in appearance (although the former is more beautiful to modern tastes).

(I mirrored the picture of Delancey for ease of comparison.) Note the angle from which the sitter is portrayed, the shadow on the right side of the face, the direction of the gaze, the dark wavy hair, the style of the collar, and the simple, round piece of jewelry each woman wears on her neck.

• No one has been able to discover what became of George Contant. The last known mention of him has him living in San Francisco (Affolter). In camp dialog, Micah mocks his brother for living in that same city. No doubt this is a fuck-you to Micah from the writers, albeit one they probably never expected anyone to notice.
• Jack London’s The Star Rover is partly based on Ed Morrell’s experiences in prison. London’s more well-known novel The Call of the Wild is alluded to RDR2.
• Although this is merely a coincidence, important innovations in farming equipment were made in the San Joaquin Valley when Evans was doing legitimate work there. He knew “most of the men” who worked on developing an improved combine, which may have included a certain leading figure by the name of Daniel Houser (Smith 38).

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