David Sievert Lavender (February 4, 1910 – April 26, 2003) was an American historian and writer who was one of the most prolific chroniclers of the American West. He published more than 40 books, including two novels, several children's books, and a memoir. Unlike his two prominent contemporaries, Bernard DeVoto and Wallace Stegner, Lavender was not an academic. Much of his writing was influenced by his first-hand practical knowledge of the American West and the historical realities and locations depicted in his books—in the mines, on the trails, in the mountains, and on the rivers. Lavender was a two-time nominee for the Pulitzer Prize, and was widely admired by scholars for his accuracy and objectivity.
In 1954, Lavender published Bent's Fort, an historic landmark of the American West on the upper Arkansas River in present-day southeastern Colorado. Built by Charles and William Bent, Bent's Fort was a massive private fort that stood until 1849 as the center of trade with the Indians of the central plains. Lavender's history of these men and their role in opening up the southwestern region of North America has been compared to the works of eminent historians such as Francis Parkman and William H. Prescott.
In 1958, Lavender wrote The Trail to Santa Fe, about Zebulon Pike and his exploration of the American Southwest in present-day Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico. The book captures the turbulent adventures of the explorers, traders, and fighters who opened up this new country, and the hardships they faced during their westward expansion into uncharted land along the Santa Fe Trail, which ran from Independence, Missouri, to Santa Fe.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Lavender wrote a series of histories of the American West, including Red Mountain in 1963, Westward Vision: The Story of the Oregon Trail in 1963, The Rockies in 1968 (Harper & Row), and The American West in 1969.
In the 1980s, Lavender expanded his focus as an historian, writing about the Pacific Northwest in Fort Vancouver (1981), Wyoming in Fort Laramie (1984), Utah and Arizona in Colorado River Country (1982) and River Runners of the Grand Canyon (1985), California in California: A Place, a People, a Dream (1986) and California: Land of New Beginnings (1987), and Colorado in The Telluride Story (1987). He also produced general histories of the American West in Overland Migrations (1981), Colorado River Country (1982), The Great West (1985), The Way to the Western Sea (1988), and the American Heritage History of the West (1988).
In 1992, Lavender published Let Me Be Free: The Nez Percé Tragedy (1992), the tragic story of the Nez Percé Indians' flight from their homeland to Canada to escape the United States cavalry. The clash between European-Americans and the American Indians was a subject Lavender covered in many of his previous works. In 1990, on his 80th birthday, Lavender married his third wife, Muriel Sharkey, whom he first got to know on a river trip through the Grand Canyon.