Zebulon Pike

American explorer

• Born: January 5, 1779
• Birthplace: Lamberton (now Trenton), New Jersey
• Died: April 27, 1813
• Place of death: York (now Toronto), Ontario, Canada

One of the most important American explorers of his time, Pike helped to open the American Southwest to U.S. interests, and he gave his name to Colorado’s Pikes Peak, which became famous as a symbol of the goals of Western pioneers.

Early Life

The son of a U.S. Army major and the former Isabella Brown, Zebulon Pike was primarily raised on army posts in western Pennsylvania and Fort Washington, Ohio (now Cincinnati), while his father served under General James Wilkinson . Wilkinson, known to be wily, unscrupulous, and ambitious, would prove to be the predominant figure in the younger Pike’s military and exploratory career.

A crack shot and expert outdoorsman, Pike entered his father’s company as a cadet when he turned twenty years of age but found himself relegated to the job of quartermastering supplies. He served on posts in Indiana and Illinois in essentially a peacetime army with no prospects for distinction until Wilkinson decided to use Pike in two expeditions exploring the opening American West. It is possible that Pike found favor with his father’s former commander when he eloped with Clarissa Brown, a cousin on Pike’s mother’s side and the daughter of a Wilkinson family friend.

In 1805, after President Thomas Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase and the commission of the Meriwether Lewis and William Clark expedition, the newly appointed Governor Wilkinson set up his headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri. There he prepared several expeditions to explore the upper Louisiana Territory, to establish the authority of the U.S. government over Indian tribes, and to discover the source of the Mississippi River. It is also possible that Wilkinson used Pike as leader of one of these expeditions to test British reactions to American incursions into the fur-trapping country and further used the expedition to test Pike’s capabilities for future commands.

On July 30, 1805, Lieutenant Pike received his orders; he left St. Louis on August 5 with a twenty-man party. Pike’s team trekked two thousand miles by keelboat and on foot north to upper Minnesota. On September 23, Pike made a treaty with the Lakota (Sioux) Indians, purchasing one thousand acres of land that later became Minneapolis/St.Paul. On February 21 Pike reached Leech Lake, which he wrongly claimed was the source of the Mississippi. After wintering in the area, he returned on April 30, 1806. His tour was deemed successful, although Pike was disappointed that President Jefferson did not give him the accolades showered on Lewis and Clark’s ongoing reports. Nevertheless, Wilkinson determined that Pike was dependable. Three days after Pike’s return, Wilkinson told him he would command an especially important expedition into the Southwest.

Life’s Work

Although his motives and purposes remain uncertain, Wilkinson gave Pike command of a second expedition ostensibly to discover the headwaters of the Arkansas and Red Rivers and to explore them as far as the Spanish settlements of New Mexico in “New Spain.” In addition, Pike was to accompany a party of Osage prisoners of war back to their country and effect a peace treaty between them and neighboring tribes, notably the strategically important Comanche. Wilkinson, a double agent for the Spanish court, cautioned Pike not to give the Spanish military cause for offense and not to reveal American interest in the economic, strategic, and settlement possibilities of the region.

Oddly, Wilkinson did not provide Pike with enough provisions for the trip, did not assign enough men to repel a serious Indian attack, and did not obtain governmental authority for the expedition. Some historians believe Wilkinson planned to betray Pike to the Spanish in order to spark an international incident, although his own son was part of the company. It is possible Pike had an unspoken agreement with Wilkinson, went beyond his orders, or was an inept geographer; in any event, subsequent actions would cast this expedition under a cloud of mystery.

With a party of twenty-two men, including eighteen from his previous trip, Pike left on July 15, 1806, and marched west to the Arkansas River. Slowed by inclement weather, he moved through Pawnee villages on the Republic River in what is now Kansas. There he learned that six hundred Spanish troops were looking for him. Pike ignored Pawnee warnings to turn back and sent five men, including the younger Wilkinson, to follow the Arkansas River south and return to St. Louis to report. Although not successful in his attempts to meet with Comanche chiefs, Pike was able to persuade the Pawnees that they should change their allegiance from Spanish to American interests.

After following Spanish trails en route to Santa Fe, on November 15, 1806, Pike saw Pikes Peak for the first time. Pike originally named the mountain “Grand Peak,” but his cartographers labeled it “Pikes Peak” on their maps, even though the mountain was well known to the Spanish, Indians, and trappers who had previously crossed the region. On November 26, Pike made one attempt to climb the mountain but was unsuccessful given the cold winter storms; he most likely climbed a nearby peak rather than the one that came to bear his name. Pike later predicted that no one would ever reach the summit of Pikes Peak. Pike then turned southwest, following Indian trails, and suffered from snow and ice in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and upper New Mexico. Pike then found himself traveling in circles, moving north instead of south and unable to determine which way to proceed. After leaving behind three men incapacitated by frostbite, Pike finally came to a halt when he believed he had again found the Red River.

After building a log fort to defend his party against Indians near what turned out to be the upper Rio Grande, on February 26 he was discovered by one hundred Spanish cavalry troops. They invited Pike to come to Santa Fe, where he and his men were held under arrest for illegal entry. Despite Spanish fears that Pike’s and other excursions into their territory were evidence of future American invasions, Pike easily made friends with local authorities. Pike was treated well, but the Spanish confiscated most of his papers (some were hidden in his men’s rifle barrels). Pike’s party was then escorted to Chihuahua, Mexico, and then Pike and his surviving men returned through Texas and were released in Natchitoches, Louisiana, on July 1, 1807.

Pike then went to Washington, D.C., but was busy with military business and did not present his report until January, 1808. By the time of his return, Wilkinson had been disgraced, and Pike found that his own efforts were treated with indifference or contempt, particularly because he maintained Wilkinson’s innocence in conspiring with former vice president Aaron Burr to create a new republic in the Southwest by seizing Spanish lands. Tainted by the Wilkinson furor, Pike and his men were not given the usual land grants awarded by Congress to other explorers.

Pike’s narrative of the trip was published in 1810. It presented the Great Plains to the American public for the first time as a Great American Desert. Pike claimed the region did not have sufficient timber to support settlements, but he believed the desert would prove a useful buffer between the United States and Mexico. Furthermore, he claimed the plains would serve as an area to confine Indian tribes. Promoted to lieutenant colonel, in 1811 Pike was briefly under arrest for insubordination during the investigation of Wilkinson’s possible involvement with the Burr conspiracy. Pike was completely exonerated on all charges. Wilkinson’s role remains controversial and is still the subject of scholarly debate.

Becoming a general at the outset of the War of 1812, Pike was determined to find fame in combat or die. In April of 1813, Pike led sixteen hundred troops invading York (now Toronto), Canada, and was mortally wounded when the British deliberately set off a powder magazine. After a stone broke his spine, Pike lived long enough to hear the cries of his victorious men. As a gesture of respect, a captured British flag was placed under his head.

In 1908, Dr. H. E. Bolton discovered in Mexican archives some original papers confiscated during Pike’s southwestern expedition of 1806. From these documents, Bolton and other historians concluded that Pike’s second expedition was mounted primarily for the purpose of spying for Wilkinson and Aaron Burr, and only secondarily to gather topographical data. Later historians have refuted the charge, noting that extensive publicity preceded Pike’s trip and that Pike did not know Spanish. They also suggest that if Pike were part of the Burr conspiracy, he would logically have gone directly to the Southwest instead of following the Arkansas River.

Significance

Pike’s western expedition pointed the way for new commercial interests, helped temporarily promote peace with the Indians, and helped establish U.S. domain over the territory. Pike’s An Account of Expeditions to the Sources of the Mississippi (1810), although hastily compiled, inaccurate, and misleading, aroused American curiosity about the West. His account of the weakness of Spanish authority in Santa Fe and the profitability of trading with Mexico stirred entrepreneurs and politicians to expand into Texas, setting the stage for the Mexican War.

Some historians give Pike credit for helping to establish the myth of the Great American Desert, which retarded growth into the Great Plains. Pike’s report also foreshadowed the later moves by the American government to push Indian tribes onto less desirable lands. Subsequent editions of Pike’s journals were more dependable and more carefully organized, although not as honest or important as those of the Lewis and Clark dispatches, from which Pike heavily cribbed his own data.

In 1820, Dr. Edwin James became the first man on record to climb Pikes Peak. Julia Archibald Holmes became the first woman to reach the summit in 1858. During that same year, “Pikes Peak or Bust!” became a familiar slogan painted on the wagons of gold miners attracted to the region. Although few gold fortunes were made, the slogan made the mountain a national landmark. In 1893, Katherine Lee Bates, a Massachusetts author and teacher, composed the lyrics to “America the Beautiful,” inspired by the view from the summit. The peak later became an important tourist attraction; visitors are able to reach the top by cog railway, car, or by foot. The Pikes Peak Cog Railroad was built in 1891 and is still in operation. Built in 1916, the Pikes Peak Toll Road is the second highest highway in the world. Pike County, Georgia, and its county seat, Zebulon, were named after Pike in 1856.

Bibliography

Carter, Carrol J. Pike in Colorado. Fort Collins, Colo.: Old Army Press, 1978. Carter’s short, eighty-two-page volume focuses on Pike’s discovery of Pikes Peak and his Colorado journey.

Hart, Stephen H., and Archer B. Hulbert, eds. Zebulon Pike’s Arkansas Journal. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1972. This edition focuses on Pike’s lower Mississippi travels, augmenting Pike’s accounts with interpretations based on recently discovered maps.

Hollon, W. Eugene. The Lost Pathfinder: Zebulon Montgomery Pike. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1949. A longtime standard biography, Hollon’s work is frequently cited as the most authoritative study of Pike’s career.

Hyslop, Stephen G.“An Explorer or a Spy?” American History 37, no. 3 (August, 2002): 58. Describes Pike’s Western explorations, including his alleged espionage activities for Aaron Burr.

Jackson, Donald, ed. The Journals of Zebulon Pike, with Letters and Related Documents. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1966. Jackson’s edition of Pike’s journal is supplemented with both related documents and scholarly interpretations of Pike’s accounts based on information discovered after Pike’s death.

Montgomery, M. R. Jefferson and the Gun-men: How the West Was Almost Lost. New York: Crown, 2000. A chronicle of the Burr conspiracy, including Pike and Wilkinson’s involvement in the scheme.

Pike, Zebulon Montgomery. The Expeditions of Zebulon Montgomery Pike. Edited by Elliott Coues. 2 vols. New York: Dover, 1987. Originally published in three volumes in 1895, these firsthand accounts of Pike’s travels are accompanied by maps.

Sanford, William R., and Carl R. Green. Zebulon Pike: Explorer of the Southwest. Springfield, N.J.: Enslow, 1996. As part of the Legendary Heroes of the Wild West series, this biography is intended for the general reader.

Stallones, Jared. Zebulon Pike and the Explorers of the American Southwest. New York: Chelsea House, 1992. With an introductory essay by former Apollo astronaut Michael Collins, this short, critical overview of Pike emphasizes Pike’s ineptitude and reliance on Wilkinson, portraying Pike as an unlucky man later mythologized as an American hero.

Terrell, John U. Zebulon Pike: The Life and Times of an Adventurer. New York: Weybright and Talley, 1968. Terrell is especially helpful discussing Pike’s connections with his times, and color maps help illustrate Pike’s journeys.