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United States Army Captain Zebulon Pike led the Pike expedition ( July 15, 1806 - July 1, 1807) to explore the south and west of the Louisiana Purchase. Roughly contemporaneous with the Lewis and Clark expedition, Pike's excursion was the first American effort to explore the western Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, and marked the discovery of Pikes Peak.1 Purpose of the Expedition
Initiated by order of the Governor of the newly-formed Louisiana Territory James Wilkinson, the Pike expedition had several overt goals, and at least one covert one. The most prosaic purpose was the return to their native soil of 50 Osage prisoners who had been held hostage by rival PotawatomiThe Potawatomi (also spelled Pottawatomie or Pottawatomi are an Aboriginal American people of the upper Mississippi River region. The Potawatomi were part of a long term alliance with the Ottawa and Ojibwe, called the Council of Three Fires and which fougs and liberated by the US Army. More ambitious and vague were orders to negotiate a peace settlement between the KansasKansas derived from the Siouan word Kansa meaning "People of the south wind", is a midwestern state in the United States. postal abbreviation for the state is KS and the state flower is the sunflower. The state motto is "Ad astra per aspera", Latin for "t and PawneeThe Pawnee (sometimes Paneassa are a Native American tribe that historically lived along the Platte River in what is now Nebraska. In the 18th century they were allied with the French and played an important role in limiting Spanish expansion onto the Gre people, and to establish relations with the ComancheAlternate meanings: Comanche helicopter and Comanche computer games The Comanche Nation is a Native American group of approximately 10,000 members, about half of whom live in Oklahoma and the remainder concentrated in Texas, California, and New Mexico.. Finally, the expedition was to explore the headwaters of the ArkansasThe Arkansas River is a tributary of the Mississippi which flows east and southeast through Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and the state of Arkansas. At 1450 miles (2334 km) it is the fourth longest river in the United States. Its origin is in the Colorado Ro and RedThe Red River is one of several rivers with that name. It rises in two branches in the Texas Panhandle and flows along the border of Texas and Oklahoma and Texas and Arkansas. At Fulton, Arkansas, the Red turns south into Louisiana where it empties into t rivers, and explore the length of the Red to its mouth on the Mississippi.
The covert purpose of the mission was to determine the strength and location of SpanishThe Kingdom of Spain is a country located in the southwest of Europe. It shares the Iberian Peninsula with Portugal, Gibraltar and Andorra. To the northeast, along the Pyrenees mountain range, it borders France and the tiny principality of Andorra. It inc forces in what is now Colorado, KansasKansas derived from the Siouan word Kansa meaning "People of the south wind", is a midwestern state in the United States. postal abbreviation for the state is KS and the state flower is the sunflower. The state motto is "Ad astra per aspera", Latin for "t, New Mexico and northern Texas. The Louisiana Purchase had just been completed, and large swathes of the southwest edge of the territory were disputed between the United States and Spain. Pike and his outfit were to determine what ability Spain had to defend that claim, if pressed.
Wilkinson did not have approval from his superiors in Washington DC for any of the more important points of this mission. Some of the goals, such as the prisoner repatriation, would fall under a territorial governor's jurisdiction, but the more important exploratory and military ones were beyond his authority. After the expedition's departure, however, Wilkinson presented the mission as a fait accompli to the War Department, and received explicit approval.
