Article by Central Staff
Pike Bicentennial – August 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
When we left Lt. Zebulon Pike on July 31, 1806, he and his military party of 23 were camped, along with 51 Osage and Pawnee Indians who were being returned from captivity by the Pottawatomie, near Mary’s Home, Mo., about 200 miles up the Missouri and Osage rivers from St. Louis.
Pike’s interpreter, Baronet Vasquez, had been arrested over a debt but had returned. They were proceeding upriver in small boats called batteaux, usually propelled by poles.
On July 31 it started raining, and it rained all night.
On August 1, “We spread our baggage to dry, but it continuing to rain, by intervals, all day, the things were wetter at sun-down than in the morning.” They killed six deer for food. Since the river was rising, making for a stronger current against them, they made only two miles the next day.
On account of their need to dry their goods and supplies, they frequently laid over during this rainy August. Often the Indians walked, taking shortcuts where the Osage River meandered, and they made better time than the soldiers on the water.
On Aug. 11, Pike went out hunting, got thirsty, and “indulged myself by drinking plentifully of the water, and was rendered so extremely unwell by it, that I was scarce capable of pursuing my route to camp.” Apparently it wasn’t safe to drink straight from creeks even then.
The Indians were returned to their home and relatives on Aug. 15. On Aug. 20, the boats’ progress was “halted by a large drift quite across the river.” Pike sent interpreter Vasquez to an Osage village to procure horses, and the negotiations for horses, and treating with nearby Indians, took the rest of August. The party made about 200 miles during the month, and were camped in or near present Vernon County, Mo., just east of the Kansas line about 80 miles south of Kansas City at the end of August.
One major event of the bicentennial celebration in Colorado is the temporary return of Pike’s original field papers. On loan from the National Archives in Washington, the documents will be on exhibit at the Colorado Springs Pioneer Museum through Aug. 21 — their first visit to this territory since 1807.
The collection includes Pike’s field notebook, a leather-bound journal in which he kept navigational computations, notations about his route, and hand-drawn maps. Also on exhibit will be Pike’s hand-written Army orders for the expedition, signed by his commanding officer, General James Wilkinson, and Pike’s hand-drawn map of his route along the Arkansas River.
The documents were confiscated in 1807 by Spanish authorities in Chihuahua, and were transferred to Mexico City in 1828. There they languished in the archive of the Secretariat of Foreign Relations until found in 1908 by Dr. Herbert E. Bolton of the University of California.
In 1910, Henry Lane Wilson, U.S. ambassador to Mexico, formally requested return of Pike’s papers. Enrique C. Creel of the Mexican Secretariat responded that “I have the honor to transmit to your Excellency, as a token of respect and esteem to the Government of the United States of America, the documents which were taken from the Lieutenant of the American Army, Zebulon Pike.”
You’d think that our government would have kept close track of the papers after that, but Pike’s papers were soon transferred from the State Department to the War Department without anyone really noticing, and the War Department had to move things around a lot during World War I. Thus the papers were lost again until 1927, when they were tracked to the Archives Division of the Adjutant General’s office.
Other Pike Bicentennial events in Colorado:
July 21, Salida: An Evening with Lieutenant Zebulon Pike. Reenactor John Patrick Murphy will be Lieutenant Zebulon Montgomery Pike, 7:30 p.m. at the Steam Plant.
July 22, Canon City: Royal Gorge Region Pike Partners Trail Ride. The Chamber of Commerce will host a trail ride through the Royal Gorge Bridge and Park area. Contact; George Turner at the chamber, 719-275-2331.
July 22-23, Canon City: Zebulon Pike Bicentennial Commemoration. Zebulon Pike spent several weeks in the Royal Gorge area looking for the headwaters of the Arkansas River, and crawled up the granite gulch that is now the home to the park’s World’s Steepest incline railway, a 1,550 ft. incline at a 45-degree angle. Reënactors with authentic period costumes strolling through the park, and a Commemoration Ceremony honoring Pike’s explorations are among the many activities planned for the weekend. Contact Royal Gorge Bridge and Park, 719-275-7507.
Aug. 5, Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum: 2 p.m., public lecture and book signing by historian and author Mark Gardner. He will discuss the many editions of Pike’s famous journal in “Reconnaissance for Manifest Destiny: The Southwestern Journals of Zebulon Pike.” This publication would literally change the course of history in the Southwest. Gardner explores the convoluted history of Pike’s journals and the significant impact their publication had on U.S. westward expansion. Free, but reservations are encouraged, call 719-385-5631; www.cspm.org.
August 12, Buena Vista: An Evening with Lieutenant Zebulon Pike at the Buena Vista Museum, 7:30pm. Tickets on sale at the Buena Vista or Salida Chamber offices.
August 12, Colorado Springs: Enjoy the melodic sounds of history in a one-of-a-kind concert sponsored by the Giddings Foundation. “The Music of Zebulon Montgomery Pike’s World” will feature musicians Mark Gardner, Rex Rideout and The Southwest Musicians, who will perform traditional American and Hispanic music from Pike’s era. The concert will take place at the Gazebo on the south side of the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum grounds at 1:00 p.m. Bring your lawn chairs or picnic blankets and enjoy the free show. After the concert, historical interpreters will be on hand to share interesting aspects of the Pike story in the three bicentennial exhibits inside the Museum.
August 23-25, Rocky Ford: “Explore the 129th Arkansas Valley Fair on Pike’s Trail.” The fair is the oldest continuous fair in Colorado. For information, contact Sally Cope at 719-254-7723 or www.arkvalleyfair.com.
