Trails of the Pathfinders

by George Bird Grinnell

CHAPTER XIII
ZEBULON M. PIKE I

Side by side in fact—though by no means in popular estimation—with the heroic explorers, Lewis and Clark, stands Zebulon M. Pike, the young soldier, who first reached the sources of the Mississippi, later those of the Arkansas, and who was one of the first genuine Americans to see the Spanish City of the Holy Faith. Born in New Jersey in 1779, Pike entered the army in his father’s regiment about the year 1794. In July, 1805, a lieutenant, he was detailed, by order of General James Wilkinson, to explore the sources of the Mississippi. From this expedition he returned in 1806, and shortly afterward set out on an expedition up the Kansas River to the country of the Osages, and thence to the Kitkahahk village of the Pawnees, then on the Republican River. From here he went westward to the sources of the Arkansas River, in what is now Colorado. On this expedition he approached Santa Fé, was captured by the Spaniards, and escorted south through Mexico and what is now Texas to the Spanish-American boundary on the borders of the present State of Louisiana, where he was set free.

It would be perhaps difficult to point out, since Revolutionary times, a more heroic figure than that of Pike, or to name a man who did more for his country. It is chiefly as an explorer that we must now consider him, and must briefly tell the history of his journeyings for two years through that country which was then Louisiana; yet his subsequent and involuntary wanderings through Mexico and Texas cannot be separated from his earlier travels. Some time after his return from the Southwest, he wrote a book, which was issued four years before the journal of Lewis and Clark. In reviewing his life of exploration, we shall in large measure let him tell his own story.

On the 9th of August, 1805, with one sergeant, two corporals, and seventeen privates, Pike started from St. Louis up the Mississippi River in a keel boat seventy feet long and provisioned for four months. The water was swift, the way hard, and they had much foul weather, which held them back, and made their days and nights uncomfortable. Occasionally they saw fishing camps of Indians, and passed the farms of some Frenchmen, lately transferred without their knowledge or consent from allegiance to old France to citizenship in the new United States.

LIEUTENANT ZEBULON MONTGOMERY PIKE, MONUMENT AT COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO.

One of Pike’s especial duties was to conciliate the Indians he met, and, so far as possible, to arrange for peace between warring aboriginal tribes. On the 20th he came to a Sac village, where he had a talk with the Indians, who listened to him respectfully, and appeared to agree to what he said. Further along he met villages of the Reynards, or Foxes, showing that at this time the Sacs and Foxes were living separately, though allies.

The way was long, and progress, though often covering thirty or forty miles a day, was slow, owing to the windings of the river. Pike was now approaching that debatable land over which the Sioux and Sauteurs or Ojibwas were continually fighting backward and forward. He tells of meeting, September 1, Monsieur Dubuque, who told him that these tribes were then engaged in active hostilities, and, among other things, that a war party “composed of Sacs, Reynards, and Puants (Winnebagoes), of 200 warriors, had embarked on an expedition against the Sauteurs, but they had heard that the chief, having had an unfavorable dream, persuaded the party to return, and that I would meet them on my voyage.” This is interesting, as showing that at this time the Sacs and Foxes, who are of Algonquin stock, had allied themselves with the Winnebagoes of Siouan stock against people of the latter race.

Indians were abundant here, and were always on the lookout for enemies. The firing of guns by Pike’s party, who had landed to shoot wild pigeons, was the signal for some Indians in the neighborhood to rush to their canoes and hastily embark. Indeed, Pike was told that all the Indians had a dread of Americans, whom they believed to be very quarrelsome, very brave, and very much devoted to going to war; a reputation which had undoubtedly reached the savages through the English and French traders.

A little further along, the Ouisconsing River was reached, and they met the Fols Avoin Indians, the Menominees, a tribe still existing at Green Bay, Wisconsin. Further on he had a meeting with a number of Sioux and Pike reports the council: