New Search  |  Browse by Location  |  Browse by Subject  |  Browse all entries  |  Map
Results:  1 Item 
Locations
Concord (1)
Hot Springs (1)
Natchez (1)
Saint Catherine's Landing (1)
Saint Louis (1)
Washita (1)
1.Title:  William Dunbar and Zebulon Pike Journals (1804-1806)
 Dates:  1804 - 1806 
 Extent:  3 volumes  
 Locations:  Concord | Hot Springs | Natchez | Saint Catherine's Landing | Saint Louis | Washita 
 Abstract:  The Expedition Journals feature three travel journals bound in a single volume. The first two document William Dunbar's expedition up the Red and Ouachita Rivers to the Hot Springs of Arkansas in 1804-1805. Although few contemporary locations are named, they include numerous coordinates that researchers may use to track the journey. "Journal... to the Mouth of the Red River" furnishes particularly lush descriptions of the settlers (e.g. 10/21/1804) and indigenous peoples (11/24/1804) in the region. The second journal records technical data from the expedition, including a thermometrical log. Both journals dovetail nicely with that of traveling companion, George Hunter, also available at the APS (Mss.B.H912).; The final journal recounts an expedition to explore the geography of the Mississippi River led by Lt. Zebulon Montgomery Pike between 1805-1806. The Pike journal provides a daily account of the activities of the expedition during an early exploration into present day Minnesota. Notably, that journal includes significant attention to exchanges between settlers and local indigenous tribes (e.g. 9/3/1805, 9/10/1805, 9/24-25/1805). That volume has been printed with variations and omissions in An Account of Expeditions to the Sources of the Mississippi and through the Western Parts of Louisiana... (Philadelphia, 1810), and it was edited in Donald Jackson, ed., The Journals of Zebulon Pike: with Letters and Related Documents (Norman, Okla., 1966). Bound together, the Dunbar and Pike volumes ought to interest a range of scholars researching U.S. exploration and Native America in the early national period. 
    
 
    
The Expedition Journals feature three travel journals bound in a single volume. The first two document William Dunbar's expedition up the Red and Ouachita Rivers to the Hot Springs of Arkansas in 1804-1805. Although few contemporary locations are named, they include numerous coordinates that researchers may use to track the journey. "Journal... to the Mouth of the Red River" furnishes particularly lush descriptions of the settlers (e.g. 10/21/1804) and indigenous peoples (11/24/1804) in the region. The second journal records technical data from the expedition, including a thermometrical log. Both journals dovetail nicely with that of traveling companion, George Hunter, also available at the APS (Mss.B.H912).; The final journal recounts an expedition to explore the geography of the Mississippi River led by Lt. Zebulon Montgomery Pike between 1805-1806. The Pike journal provides a daily account of the activities of the expedition during an early exploration into present day Minnesota. Notably, that journal includes significant attention to exchanges between settlers and local indigenous tribes (e.g. 9/3/1805, 9/10/1805, 9/24-25/1805). That volume has been printed with variations and omissions in An Account of Expeditions to the Sources of the Mississippi and through the Western Parts of Louisiana... (Philadelphia, 1810), and it was edited in Donald Jackson, ed., The Journals of Zebulon Pike: with Letters and Related Documents (Norman, Okla., 1966). Bound together, the Dunbar and Pike volumes ought to interest a range of scholars researching U.S. exploration and Native America in the early national period.
 
View Full Description in New Window
 
 
  Selected Quotations
  • Dunbar: "On the left is a small settlement commenced by a man and his wife: a covered frame of rough poles without walls serves for a house, and Couple of acres of Indian corn had been cultivated, which sufficed to stock their little magazine with bread for the year, the forest supplies Venison, Bear, turkey &c, the river fowl and fish, the skins of the wild animals and an abundance of the finest honey being carried to market enables the new settler to supply himself largely with all other necessary articles, in a year or two he arrives at a state of independence, he purchases horses, cows & other domestic animals, perhaps a slave also who shares with the labours and productions of his fields & of the adjoining forests. How happy the contrast, when we compare the fortune of the new settler in the U.S. with the misery of the half staving, oppressed and degraded peasant of Europe!!" (10/21/1804)

  • Dunbar: "By the expression planes or prairies in this place is not to be understood a dead flat resembling certain savannahs, whose soil is stiff and impenetrable, often under water & bearing only a coarse grass resembling weeds, very far different are the western Prairies, which expression signifies only a country without timber: Those Prairies are neither flat nor hilly, but undulating into gently swelling lawns and expanding into spacious vallies in the center of which is always found a little timber growing upon the banks of brooks and rivulets of the finest water, the whole of the prairies is represented to be composed of the richest and most fertile soil, the most luxuriant & succulent herbage cover the surface of the Earth interspersed with millions of flowers and flowering shrubs the most ornamental and adorning kinds: Those who have viewed only a skirt of those prairies, speak of them with a degree of enthusiasm as if it was only there that Nature was to be found in a state truly perfect, they declare that the fertility and beauty of the rising grounds, the extreme richness of the Vallies, the coolness and excellent quality of the waters found in every Valley, the Salubrity of the atmosphere and above all the grandeur and majesty of the enchanting landscape which this country presents, inspires the soul with sensations not to be felt in any other region of the Globe. This Paradise is now very thinly inhabited by a few tribes of Savages and by immense herds of wild Cattle (Bison) which people those countries…the whole of it being cultivable, it will admit the fullest population, and will at a future day vie with the best cultivated and most populous countries on the Globe (1/10/1805)

  • Pike: "It is astonishing to me, what a dread the Indians have of the Americans in this quarter. I have frequently seen them go round Islands to avoid meeting my Boat. It appears evident to me that the Traders have taken great pains to impress on the Minds of the Savages, an idea of our being a very Vindictive, Ferocious, and Warlike people. This impression was given no doubt with an evil intention, but when they find that our conduct towards them is guided by magnanimity and justice, instead of operating in an injurious manner, it will have the effect of making them reverence, at same time, they fear us" (9/3/1805)
 
 Subjects:  Caddo Indians. | Chickasaw Indians. | Chippewa Tribe | Dakota Indians. | Diaries. | Expedition | Exploration & encounters | Hot Springs (Ark.) | Indian traders. | Louisiana Purchase. | Meteorology. | Minnesota. | Mississippi River--Description and travel. | Native America | Ojibwa Indians. | Osage Indians. | Travel. | United States--Civilization--1783-1865. | Weather. 
 Collection:  Expedition Journals  (Mss.917.7.D91)  
  Go to the collection