Carson's notions about Indians softened over the years. He found himself more and more in their company as he grew older, and his attitude towards them became more respectful and humane. He urged the government to set aside lands called reservations for their use. As an Indian agent, he saw to it that those under his watch were treated with honesty and fairness and clothed and fed properly. The historian David Roberts believes his first marriage to an Arapaho woman named Singing Grass "softened the stern and pragmatic mountaineer's opportunism."