Lieutenant Zebulon Montgomery Pike was a tired man as he entered his modest quarters at Fort Bellefontaine, located a few miles up the Missouri River from St. Louis.
The army post, the first military structure to be built in the newly acquired Louisiana Territory, had only been activated the previous year, and Pike considered himself lucky that he had been able to bring his family with him when he was assigned there nine months previously.
The date was April 30, 1806, and Lieutenant Pike had just returned from an exploration of the upper Mississippi River, under orders of James Wilkinson, the governor of Louisiana Territory and the ranking general of the United States army. His mission, in addition to performing a general survey of the region, was to acquire suitable sites for the construction of army posts and government trading houses from the local Indians. A secondary goal, if time permitted, was to locate the source of the Mississippi.
When Pike left St. Louis on August 9, 1805, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were somewhere on the upper Missouri River trying to find a water route to the Pacific Ocean. It was a time of great exploration for the United States and its curious president. Indeed, Thomas Jefferson wanted to discover everything he could about the vast Louisiana Territory that he had only recently purchased from the French for a mere three cents an acre.
Pike’s mission was mostly successful, although he failed to find the exact source of the Mississippi. He did, however, obtain from the Indians a large tract of land surrounding the Falls of St. Anthony which eventually became the site of Fort Snelling, and later, Minneapolis-St. Paul.
Pike was hoping for a long, well-deserved rest when he arrived home from his upper Mississippi River explorations. As events turned out, however, he was able to spend precious little time with his wife and small daughter before he was pegged by General Wilkinson for another important assignment. Within two and a half months of his return, the young lieutenant left Fort Bellefontaine once again, this time on a mission far more dangerous and meaningful than his previous one.
The Governor was an Enigma
If anything, James Wilkinson, the new governor of Louisiana, was an enigma. A long-time army officer who was also highly successful as a merchant in the private sector, Wilkinson had within the last few years become a close friend and confidant of Aaron Burr, Thomas Jefferson’s first vice-president.
Of late, Burr had championed a course of destiny for some of the new western states that would alienate them from the central government and possibly even lead them to form their own confederation.
Now, the one-time popular, former vice-president was much maligned across the nation, even to the point of being burned in effigy on numerous town squares.
Wilkinson, at the time he issued orders to Pike for his second mission, was Burr’s enthusiastic disciple – and a willing advocate of his scheme to separate some of the western states from the Union, as well as to “liberate” distant Spanish colonies in the far Southwest.
But, as bizarre as this elaborate proposal sounded, it was old hat to Wilkinson who had, himself, secretly attempted to orchestrate a similar scenario almost twenty years earlier.
As governor of Louisiana and army commander, Wilkinson was now in a perfect position to further Burr’s plans. He would dispatch Lieutenant Pike on a combination exploring and spying mission to the distant Southwest, that region still owned by Spain and encompassing much of present-day Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado.
Pike would not only learn the lay of the land and collect data about the various Indian tribes, flora, and fauna, but at the same time, he would gather intelligence about the “settlements of New Mexico” in the event information of this nature might be needed in furthering Burr’s scheme.
Of course, since it could be dangerous to Wilkinson’s career if these espionage activities were ever made public, the alleged primary purpose of the mission was defined to be the return to its village of an Osage Indian deputation that had recently visited Washington D. C.
It was also hoped that Pike could establish a permanent peace between the Osages and their neighbors, the Kansas.
General Wilkinson’s orders to Lieutenant Pike were dated June 24, 1806, and were later complemented with a few additional instructions on July 12.
In addition to the fifty-one Osages whom he would transport to their home villages, Pike was accompanied by twenty-one soldiers, including Lieutenant James B. Wilkinson, the general’s son. An interpreter and Dr. John H. Robinson, who would serve as the party’s physician, completed the expedition’s roster.
Two large river boats were outfitted, each carrying portions of the supplies and equipment. On July 15, 1806, the two vessels and their human cargo pushed off from the pier at Fort Bellefontaine, as Pike’s wife and infant daughter waved a tearful goodbye.
Wilkinson’s orders called for the expedition to proceed up the Missouri River to the mouth of the Osage River. The party would then go up that stream until they came upon the Grand Osage villages, situated near the present-day border between Missouri and Kansas.
There, the Osage group would be left. A circuitous overland trek across Kansas would then bring Pike and his men to the northern bank of the Arkansas River. If circumstances permitted, the group was to split into two parts.
One, with Lieutenant Wilkinson at the helm, was to descend the Arkansas River to its confluence with the Mississippi at Arkansas Post.
The other party, under Pike’s command, was to explore the Arkansas to its headwaters (in the area of today’s Canon City, Colorado) as well as to make an attempt to locate the headwaters of the Red River (Pike had erroneously been led to believe from a study of Baron Alexander von Humboldt’s map that the Red’s source was located in the highlands near Taos, New Mexico, when in reality it begins far to the east in the Texas Panhandle).
Then, Pike and his command were to descend the Red River to Fort Claiborne at Natchitoches, at the time the nation’s westernmost army post, there to await further orders from General Wilkinson.
Myth of the Great American Desert
It was while on this mission that Pike observed climatic conditions on the southern Great Plains compelling him to write in his journal that the region was “parched and dried up for eight months in the year, [and] not a speck of vegetable matter existed.”
These harsh remarks were augmented by the prediction that because of the severe climate and uncompromising geography of the region, American settlers would “be constrained to limit their extent on the west, to the borders of the Missouri and Mississippi, while they leave the prairies incapable of cultivation to the wandering and uncivilized aborigines of the country.”
Thus, with these words, later published in Pike’s official record of the expedition, the young explorer created the “Great American Desert” myth which discouraged American immigration across the Great Plains for years.
Soon after Pike and his entourage left the Pawnee villages situated along the Republican River near the present-day Kansas-Nebraska border, they picked up a portion of what a few years later became the Santa Fe Trail. At this point, as ordered, Lieutenant Wilkinson and his small command left Pike and the others and proceeded down the Arkansas River for Arkansas Post.
Pike’s group turned west and followed the river upstream. Along the way, they spotted enormous numbers of bison and other wildlife, causing Pike to write that “I believe that there are buffalo, elk, and deer sufficient on the banks of the Arkansas alone, if used without waste, to feed all the savages in the United States territory [for] one century.”
Crossing the future Colorado-Kansas border, the exploring party arrived in the vicinity of present-day Pueblo, Colorado, on November 23, 1806. Unbeknown to Pike, his infant child, whom he had never seen, died back home at Fort Bellefontaine on the same day.
A Frigid Time in the Rockies
The weather was now turning frigid, and Pike ordered his men to build a small, makeshift stockade for protection from both the elements and marauding Indians.
When the structure was completed, Pike, Dr. Robinson, and two privates left camp and hiked to a huge mountain that appeared to be located only a few miles northward. They were gone from camp for six days, but the summit of the mountain was eventually reached.
From there, another peak, even higher, was spied. The freezing weather and lack of adequate supplies prohibited a serious attempt at climbing this second mountain, although years later, it would be named Pike’s Peak in honor of the young explorer.
The men of the expedition were now literally about to freeze to death. Temperatures hovered between nine above zero and seventeen below. To make matters worse, no one had packed traditional winter clothing when they had left Missouri.
“I wore myself cotton overalls, for I had not calculated on being out in that inclement season of the year,” Pike wrote later. Added to the discomfort was the fact that game was becoming scarce, all drinking water had to be thawed from ice, and forage for the horses was nonexistent.
Much of December 1806, and January 1807, were spent by Pike and his men endlessly wandering in the Colorado mountains searching for the source of the Red River. Their travels carried the cold, weary, and hungry explorers as far north as the South Platte River and as far west as today’s town of Buena Vista. Finally, they headed south and on January 30, they reached what they thought was the Red River. In reality, they had arrived at the headwaters of the Rio Grande.
Nearby, about twelve miles south of present-day Alamosa, they built another stockade of cottonwood logs and measuring thirty-six feet square.
“Thus fortified, I should not have had the least hesitation of putting the 100 Spanish horse at defiance until the first or second night, and then to have made our escape under cover of darkness,” Pike later wrote, referring to an elusive Spanish cavalry troop that he and his men had been tracking in the mountains for days.
Upon completion of the stockade, Dr. Robinson set out on his own for Santa Fe. His visitation there was part of a scheme devised by Pike and Robinson to allow him to gather intelligence about Spanish troop strength and facilities in the town.
The ploy was structured around the fact that, before he departed St. Louis, Pike had promised a merchant in Illinois that, on his behalf, he would attempt to locate an errant trader. The missing agent had gone to Santa Fe with his employer’s goods and while there had liquidated the inventory and fled with the proceeds.
Seeking Information in Santa Fe
Allowing Dr. Robinson to investigate this incident provided a quasi-legitimate reason to visit Santa Fe and one that would not attract as much attention as the lieutenant would, decked out in an American army uniform.
“Our views were to gain a knowledge of the country, the prospect of trade, force, etc. whilst, at the same time, our treaties with Spain guaranteed to him [Robinson], as a citizen of the United States, the right of seeking the recovery of all just debts and demands before the legal and authorised [sic] tribunals of the country.” Pike later explained.
On February 16, nine days after Dr. Robinson had left Pike and the others, a Spanish dragoon and an Indian scout surprised Pike and a companion while they were deer hunting in the woods near the stockade.
From the two, despite the language barrier, Pike learned that Robinson had already arrived in Santa Fe. Knowing that they must be wondering who he was and why he was encamped nearby, he told the pair of puzzled strangers that if the colonial governor would dispatch an interpreter to him, he would gladly reveal his plans. The dragoon and Indian rode away.
On the morning of February 26, the inevitable occurred. Pike and his men peered through the stockade’s rifle ports to observe about one hundred Spanish dragoons and mounted militia approaching.
Their commander was Lieutenant Ignatio Saltelo, who, along with Lieutenant Bartholemew Fernandez, was invited to breakfast inside the stockade. After the meal, Lieutenant Saltelo told Pike that the New Mexican governor had sent him and his soldiers to aid Pike and his men who had obviously lost their way in the mountains.
Saltelo offered “mules, horses, money, or whatever you may stand in need of to conduct you to the head of Red River.” Pike stared at Saltelo in disbelief and exclaimed, “What, is not this the Red River?” Saltelo assured Pike that the stream upon which they were camped was not the Red River, but rather a tributary of the Rio Grande.
An Illegal Border Crossing
The fact that the Americans had arrived on the Rio Grande meant that they had illegally crossed the international border into Mexico. Whether or not Pike already knew that he was trespassing – and whether the entire incident was merely a ploy to get as close to Santa Fe as possible to spy without getting caught – will probably never be known.
In any event, Saltelo persuaded Pike that he and his men accompany him to Santa Fe for an interview with the governor. Because of inclement weather, a few of Pike’s entourage and some of the horses had previously been left behind in the mountains, so he requested that two members of his party be allowed to stay at the stockade to receive the frostbitten men and weather-weary animals when they arrived at camp.
Pike and the soldiers who were to accompany the Spanish dragoons to Santa Fe moved their camp to the one Saltelo’s men had established about twelve miles away. The following day, from this location, Lieutenant Fernandez and fifty of the Spanish troops led Pike and his small contingent of men due south. They generally followed present-day U.S. Highway 285, passing through the pueblo towns of San Juan and Tesuque, before reaching Santa Fe in early March.
Upon first sighting Santa Fe from a distance, Pike remarked that the town of some “4,500 souls” reminded him of “a fleet of flat-bottomed boats, which are seen in the spring and fall seasons, descending the Ohio river.” He found that the village stretched along the banks of a small stream for about a mile, but that it was only three streets wide.
Two churches dominated the skyline and formed “a striking contrast to the miserable appearance of the houses.” A palace, or government building, which housed official offices and provided quarters for soldiers, dominated the plaza.
Nearing the palace, Pike was met by a crowd of curious onlookers who had seen few Americans before. Although his uniform, consisting of “blue trowsers, mockinsons, blanket coat and a cap made of scarlet cloth, lined with fox skins,” was badly damaged and in disarray by his months of travel, the young lieutenant still cut a dashing figure. Dismounting at the palace, Pike was escorted into an anteroom where he awaited the governor’s appearance.
Upon Governor Joaquin del Real Alencaster’s arrival, the interview began. “Do you speak French?” asked the governor. Pike replied that he did, so the ensuing conversation continued in that language. Pike got an early impression from the nature of Alencaster’s questions that the governor was trying to trick him into admitting that his mission was really one of intelligence gathering and espionage. However, after reading Pike’s army commission, the governor moderated his tone and extended his hand to the American, telling him that he was “happy to be acquainted with me as a man of honor.”
Sent to Chihuahua
On the next day, March 4, Alencaster examined the contents of Pike’s trunk and found what he thought to be incriminating documents. He informed Pike that he must report to authorities in Chihuahua for detention and further questioning. Following a finely fashioned dinner at the palace, consisting of “a variety of dishes and wines of the southern provinces,” Pike rejoined his men, and the party was escorted to the edge of town where they began their long journey to Chihuahua, engulfed by a blinding snowstorm.
Pike’s trip to Chihuahua carried him first to Albuquerque, then through today's El Paso, thence to his destination. The party generally followed present-day Interstate Highway 25 from Santa Fe to El Paso and Mexico Federal Highway 45 from El Paso to Chihuahua. The route used was an ancient one called El Camino Real, New Spain’s royal highway that linked Mexico City with Taos. Dr. Robinson, who was being held under house arrest in Albuquerque, joined Pike’s entourage there and accompanied them to Chihuahua.
Taking command of the group at Albuquerque was Lieutenant Facundo Melgares, who, the previous year, had been dispatched from Santa Fe in search of Pike’s expedition while it was traversing the Great Plains. With so much background and experience in common, Pike and Melgares soon became good friends.
The caravan reached El Paso on March 21, and after spending a few days there being entertained “in a very elegant and hospitable manner,” the party was off for Chihuahua, reaching the city on April 2. Upon entering the office of Governor Nemesio Salcedo, Pike was surprised at the governor’s bluntness.
“You have given us and yourself a great deal of trouble,” Salcedo declared. Pike replied boldly, “On my part entirely unsought, and on that of the Spanish government voluntary.” Salcedo then asked for Pike’s papers, had them translated over the next several days, and eventually concluded that Pike’s real mission was one of espionage and not scientific exploration. However, fearful that a vigorous prosecution of his charge might push the United States to the brink of war, he dismissed the entire Pike affair by writing letters to American officials expressing his indignation. He then released Pike to return to the United States.
Oh, Those Pesky Documents
In one of his missives to General Wilkinson, the disgruntled Spanish governor declared that Pike’s “documents contain evident, unequivocal proof that an offense of magnitude [spying and trespassing] has been committed against his Majesty [the King of Spain], and that every individual of this party ought to have been considered as prisoners on the very spot.”
The governor also told Wilkinson that all of Pike’s documents would be confiscated, but that Pike and his men were free to proceed home. In an aftermath of the incident, Valentin de Foronda, the Spanish charge d’ affaires in Washington, D. C. advised Secretary of State James Madison several months later that although Pike might really have been lost when he accidentally crossed the border into Mexico, “it may also be a pretext, and the latter is more probable.”
Pike and his men, escorted by a troop of Spanish dragoons, departed Chihuahua on April 28, following a circuitous route deeper south into Mexico. They then turned generally northeast, crossed the Rio Grande into Texas, and arrived in San Antonio on June 7, and at their destination of Natchitoches in Louisiana on July 1. “Language cannot express the gaiety of my heart when I once beheld the standards of my country waved aloft,” Pike declared.
On June 11, 1806, shortly before Zebulon Pike and his command began preparations for their long journey to the Southwest, General Wilkinson had received orders from Secretary of War Henry Dearborn. Wilkinson was instructed to proceed to the lower Mississippi River valley and to fortify the army command in the South for a potential conflict with Spain. Because at the time of the receipt of Dearborn’s letter he was feverishly planning for Pike’s departure, Wilkinson intentionally disregarded the orders. Not until nearly three weeks after Pike and his expedition had departed did he respond. Along with his apologies, Wilkinson sent Dearborn a copy of his June 24, 1806, instructions to Pike. Wilkinson eventually left St. Louis and arrived at Natchitoches on September 22, there to assume his new command.
A short time after reaching Natchitoches, Wilkinson received two disturbing letters. One, from a confidant in Washington D. C. warned the general that, “It is well ascertained that you are to be replaced at the next session. Jefferson will affect to yield reluctantly to the public sentiment but yield he will. Prepare yourself, therefore, for it. You know the rest. You are not a man to despair or even despond, especially when such prospects offer in another quarter. Are you ready? Are your numerous associates ready? Wealth and glory! Louisiana and Mexico!”
Aaron Burr’s Letter
The other letter was from Aaron Burr himself, and its contents revealed that the former vice-president was ready to put his filibustering scheme into action. He told Wilkinson that he would be in Natchez in mid-December to meet with him and discuss plans.
When he finished reading the two letters, Wilkinson began to brood. This was not the time to be plotting against the United States government, he thought.
He considered the frightening situation in which he found himself and wondered how he might escape from it unscathed. The facts as he saw them were obvious: he might soon lose his position as commanding general of the army, thus ending his military career; the war clouds with Spain had dissipated with the recent American fortification of the Texas frontier, thereby minimizing the chances of a confrontation; Burr’s scheme for creating a separate empire in the Southwest had been exposed on the front page of practically every newspaper in the country and American citizens everywhere were howling for his blood; and he [Wilkinson] still had not heard from Lieutenant Pike about what was going on in New Mexico.
Clearly, if Wilkinson was ever going to attempt to salvage his career, now was the time. He must distance himself from Burr and his cohorts.
A Plot Against the United States
It took Wilkinson a little more than a week’s time after the receipt of the two letters to decide what he had to do to get back in the good graces of President Jefferson and other officials in Washington. He wrote the president a personal letter in which he described, “in a dramatic, even hysterical, manner,” according to one of his biographers, his “discovery” of a serious plot underway to destroy the integrity of the United States.
Having learned of the situation, he wrote, he was prepared to patch up the peace with the Spaniards in Texas and to devote his full energies to this sinister conspiracy. Since “a numerous and powerful association, extending from New York through the western states to the territories bordering on the Mississippi, has been formed with the design to levy and rendezvous eight or ten thousand men in New Orleans,” he declared that he would proceed to the city at once to defend it from the filibusterers.
President Jefferson swallowed Wilkinson’s lies hook, line, and sinker. Later, when the general arrived at New Orleans, he speedily set about creating an air of hysteria among the residents, most of them totally frightened out of their wits about the non-existent invasion of their city.
President Jefferson soon issued what would today be called an “all points bulletin,” for the arrest of Aaron Burr.
On January 17, 1807, Burr surrendered to the acting governor of Mississippi Territory. He was conveyed to Washington, the territory’s capital situated on the Natchez Trace, examined by the grand jury there, and released on bond. He immediately fled Washington but was arrested again by soldiers from Fort Stoddert in present-day Alabama. An armed escort transported him to Richmond, Virginia, to stand trial, arriving there on March 27. With Burr’s arrest and trial, his notorious scheme to alienate the western sections of the United States from the rest of the Union was over for good.
Zebulon Pike wrote a letter to General Wilkinson in late April 1807, bringing him up to date on his capture, arrest, march to Chihuahua, and interviews with the Spanish officials there. From New Orleans, on May 20, Wilkinson replied to Pike, who by now had been promoted to captain. He told Pike that, upon his return to the United States, “you will hear of the scenes in which I have been engaged, and may be informed that the traitors whose infamous designs against the constitution and government of our country I have detected, exposed, and destroyed.”
Wilkinson confided that these enemies were “vainly attempting to explain their own conduct by inculpating me.” He then proceeded to tell Pike that “among other devices, they have asserted [that] your’s and lieutenant Wilkinson’s enterprise was a premeditated co-operation with Burr.”
His letter also warned Pike that he “must be cautious, extremely cautious how you breathe a word, because the publicity may excite a spirit of adventure adverse to the interests of our government.” In other words, Wilkinson was telling Pike to keep his mouth shut about any secret conversations the two may have had about the purpose and objectives of the expedition.
When Pike returned to the United States, it was under a pall of suspicion that he had, indeed, been associated in some manner with the Burr conspiracy. It is unknown to this day whether or not he really was. The important documents that were confiscated from him by the Mexican authorities in Chihuahua were discovered in 1907, and scholars everywhere hoped that they would reveal new insight into the question. Unfortunately, the lost papers disclosed nothing that was not already known.
It is Still a Mystery
The mystery lives on. Did Pike conspire with Wilkinson, and thus indirectly with Burr, to betray the United States government? Or was he a helpless pawn merely going about his life’s work and following orders, although those orders were issued by a conspirator? Only two people knew for sure: Pike, himself, and Wilkinson.
Pike continued his army career, eventually attaining the rank of brigadier-general, but his voice fell silent when he was killed during the War of 1812. Wilkinson went on to testify against Burr at his former associate’s trial in Richmond. He served several more years in the army and was honorably discharged in 1815. He died as a land speculator in Mexico in 1825, carrying his secrets to an unmarked grave in Mexico City.
If Aaron Burr ever had knowledge of Pike’s complicity, he failed to reveal it as well. He survived two trials for treason and one for “misdemeanor” and died, tired and impoverished, in 1836.
James A. Crutchfield can be reached at TNcrutch@aol.com
