while others ran it westward and rather centrally through the area of
Colorado. Although the Spaniards at that time held that New 'Spain
extended eastward to the Mississippi and northward indefinitely, most of
the French maps issued before the year 1750 gave it a boundary in the
Southwest that included only a small portion of the land of our State.
According to some of these charts, the part of Colorado not conceded to
New Spain (about four-fifths) was wholly within Louisiane; but accord-
ing to others, about one-third was assigned to Canada. However, in those
times and for long afterward it was not a matter of great importance as
to which or what jurisdiction prevailed in the Pike's Peak country.
Diiring the entire period in which the French had possessions in
North America, their government was not inclined to be specific as to the
limits of New France, excepting at the Atlantic seaboard, where some
frontiers had to be recognized. As early as 1715, Eaudot, Colonial Wm-
ister of France, requested French geographers to remove from their maps
all lines and other indications intended to mark the extent of La Salle's
HISTOKY OF COLORADO 41
Louisiane, saying "the Court wishes it left indefinite, and does not want
Frencli maps quoted by foreign nations against us". But the mapmakers
declined to comply with these desires of the Court.
Much guesswork was applied to the preparation of all maps of the
country west of the Mississippi made before our War of the Eevolution,
and in the early French productions certain of the topographical features
of the Far West -n-ere greatly displaced. On some of the latter, the Rio
Grande, with its head in Montana, flows almost due south through the
middle of Colorado ; the Red Eiver, made to rise in eastern Wyoming, runs
across the Colorado plains upon its way to the Southeast; the Arkansas,
with its sources in these plains, is east of the Red, and gets into Kansas
after a few miles of meandering upon Colorado soil. The Platte and its
main branches generally were shown near their actual courses. A French
chart, published in 1723, has the headwaters of the Rio Grande, the Rio
Colorado, and the Missouri closely interlaced in central Colorado; the
mountains being omitted. But as substitutes for the ranges, this map has
several fine volcanoes in lively operation around the site of Denver.
After La Bruyere's failure to find the Asiatic border, we hear no more
of official and land-grabbing expeditions by the French, or of their further
searchings, in the direction of Pike's Peak, for the water-way to the Western
Ocean and for the Sea of the West, although the geographers continued to
draw forms of these imagined features upon their maps.
The last known proposition, and the first for Englishmen, to explore
the trans-mississippi country in quest of the hidden water-passage, was
made in 1753 by Colonel Joshua Fry, of Virginia, to Robert Dinwiddie,
the Colonial Governor of that Province. Dinwiddie thought well of it, and
appointed Dr. Thomas Walker, likewise a Virginian, and whom he called
"a person of fortune and great activity", to organize and command such
an expedition. Dr. Walker made some preparations for the enterprise,
but the oncoming of war between England and France caused it to be
given up.
A^Hiile the Spaniards had not attempted any military interference with
French intruders into Xew Spain since 1730, they had in the meantime
persisted in asserting their right to the country toward the East as far as
the ilississippi and to the arctic regions in the North ; and also in pro-
testing officially against traders and other adventurers prowling in their
territory and making compacts with its Indian tribes, who were subjects
of the King of Spain. But for nearly a decade from 1739, the Spaniards
had more pressing business in other parts of the world, as England declared
war on Spain late in that j^ear. In 1744, she pounced upon France — the
"War of the Austrian Succession" — and it was not until October, 1748,
that she made peace with the two Latin nations. In the meantime the
French of the IMississippi Valley had ceased from troubling their neigh-
bors in the Southwest with exploring expeditions into the domain which
the Spaniards had claimed as their own. So the plains country was
left to wandering traders and trappers and to the Indians and the buffalos,
undisturbed by international friction; and Spain was now disposed to
recognize the authority of France over Louisiane.
The peace of 1748 between England and France was nothing more
substantial than a truce, and was followed immediately by a rasping con-
flict of interests in North America that forebode the early coming of an-
43 HISTOEY OF COLORADO
other struggle between the two nations. The war began seven years later,
and it was j^et seven years more before peace was ratified. New France
then disappeared, and, as I have remai'.ed near the close of Chapter I,
the French were left without a foot of soil upon the North American Con-
tinent. England foi-mally and finally renounced the pretensions of her
American colonies to territory west of the Mississippi, and recognized as
valid the secret transfer of that part of La Salle's Louisiane lying beyond
that river, and also of the District of New Orleans, by France to Spain,
made on the eve of peace to keep this territory from falling to the English.
So the whole of the land of Colorado again became a part of the Spanish
empire in America, though Spain did not actually take possession of the
cession until 1768.
Through all the years down to the close of that war, the French had
made no permanent settlements anywhere in the central region west of the
Mississippi, aside from the hamlet of Ste. Genevieve, upon the right bank
of the Great Eiver, some seventy miles below the mouth of the ]\Iissouri;
their only other "improvements" having been a few temporary "forts",
several stockaded cabins of traders on the lower reaches of the Missouri,
and the huts of some settlers opposite the straggling settlements in Illi-
nois.
Unlike that of the English, and, but in somewhat lesser degree, of the
Spanish, also, who founded their communities upon family life and home-
making, the policy of the French in America placed the fur trade above
all things else, and therefore was opposed to much disturbance of the
country's natural conditions. This policy was supported heartily by the
French missionaries among the red people, in order that they might devote
their labors exclusively to the salvation of Indian souls.
From the downfall of French dominion in North America, in 1763, to
the acquisition of the Province of Louisiane by the United States, the
history of the central region of the West, from the Mississippi Eiver to
the Eocky Mountains, is, as far as surviving records tell, almost a blank,
if it may be so expressed. A pall of lethargy rested upon it, and history-
making events within its limits were few, far between, and, with one ex-
ception — the founding of the city of St. Louis — of low importance.
Early in the spring of 1764, Pierre La Clede, a partner in and the
representative of a French fur company, built a small trading-post upon
the Mississippi's west bank, about fifteen miles below the mouth of the
Missouri; an enterprise in which Auguste Chouteau took part. So the
kernel of St. Louis came into existence. A town arose slowly around La
Clede's station and became the headquarters of the fur trade of the farther
West and the Northwest, which Frenchmen practically monopolized until
well into the first quarter of the nineteenth century. About the year 1770,
a French "fort", doubtless a little trading-post, was built on the Platte
River, some fifty or sixty miles east of the union of the South Platte and
the North Platte, but it does not appear to have survived many seasons.
Through the last half of the eighteenth century, French traders and
trappers, few of whom made any written records of their goings and com-
ings, were busy in the country of the Missouri and in that of its lower
western tributaries ; and some of these had become familiar with the plains
and eastern foot-hills of our State long before any American explorer of
the West beheld the Eocky Mountains.
HISTOEY OF COLORADO +s
A party of French traders built a trading-post upon Colorado soil
prior to the year 1763 ; their attempt thus to establish themselves in the
Colorado country for the purposes of trade having been the first of the
kind, so far. as known, in the primitive history of the region that now
forms our State. For the preservation of a record of this interesting under-
taking, we are indebted to General Amos Stoddard, who was the American
officer (then a Captain) who represented our government in the formali-
ties and other proceedings by which the upper part of the Louisiana Pur-
chase was transferred to the jurisdiction of the United States, at St. Louis,
on March 9, 1804; and who, some years later, wrote and published a his-
torical volume entitled Sketches of Louisiana, in which he related the
circumstances of this pioneer trading-enterprise, the projectors of which
came into the land of our State by way of the Arkansas Eiver, and halted
on that stream, near the base of the mountains. General Stoddard does
not name the year in which this venture was made, nor is he more definite
as to the time than to say it was "when Louisiana was in the hands of
France" — that is, before November, 1763, at which time France ceded
Louisiane to Spain. Yet it could not have been very long before, as one
of the men who formed the party still was living in 1813. Of the enter-
prise and its unfortunate ending, General Stoddard relates the following:
' ' While Louisiana was in the hands of France, some of the French traders
from the upper Mississippi transported a quantity of merchandise by way of the
Arkansas to the Mexican Mountains, where they erected a temporary store, and
opened a trade with the Indians and likewise with the Spaniards of north Mexico.
The Spanish traders at or near Santa Fe, deeming this an infringement of their
privileged rights, procured the imprisonment of the Mississippi adventurers, and
the seizure of their effects; and demanded punishment and confiscation. The cause
was ultimately decided at Havana. The prisoners were liberated and their property
restored on the ground that the store in question (situated on the east side of the
summit of the mountains, and below the source of the Arkansas) was within the
boundaries of Louisiana. ' '
This account makes it plain that the 'temporary store', of these traders
was built upon the north bank of the Arkansas, at no great distance from
the foot-hills. Probability points to the locality at the mouth of our
Fountain Creek, in the eastern section of Pueblo, as the place where this
pioneer business establishment was erected. So far as known, this struc-
ture was the first habitation built by white men in the land of Colorado;
and also, so far as known, the first in the entire region of the Eockies
north of the southern boundary of our State.
CHAPTER III.
ACQUISITION" OF THE PROVINCE OF LOUISIANE BY THE UNITED STATES.
ZEBULON M. pike's EXPEDITION TO THE KOCKY MOUNTAINS. HIS IN-
STRUCTIONS FROM GENERAL JAMES WILKINSON. SPAEKS' EXPLORA-
TION OF THE RED RIVER. PIKE's DEPARTURE FROM BELLE FONTAINE.
HIS VISITS TO THE VILLAGES OF THE OSAGE AND THE PAWNEE INDIANS.
SPANISH COUNTER-EXPEDITION. PIKE's ASCENT OF THE ARKANSAS
RIVER INTO THE LAND OF COLORADO. HIS ENCOUNTER WITH MIS-
CHIEVOUS INDIANS. — HIS BREASTWORK UPON THE SITE OF THE CITY
OF PUEBLO. HIS FAILURE TO REACH THE SUMMIT OF HIS MOUNTAIN
MONUMENT. ERRONEOUS MEASUREMENT OF ITS HEIGHT. GEO-
GRAPHICAL MISTAKES. — THE PARTY's WANDERINGS IN THE COLORADO
MOUNTAINS. COURSE OF THE MARCHES. PIKERS BLOCKHOUSE UPON
THE SITE OF CANON CITY. PREPARATIONS FOR CROSSING THE SANGRE
DE CKISTO RANGE. THE MARCH UP THE WET MOUNTAIN VALLEY.
HARDSHIPS AND SUFFERINGS OF THE LEADER AND HIS MEN. THEIR
DESCENT TO THE RIO GRANDE. — PIKe's FORT ON THE RIO CONEJOS.
DR. Robinson's departure for santa fe. — alleged purpose of his
MISSION. APPEARANCE OF SPANISH SCOUTS AND A COMPANY OF
DRAGOONS. PIKE AND HIS MEN TAKEN INTO SPANISH CUSTODY AND
CONDUCTED TO SANTA FE. PIKE'S RECEPTION BY GOVERNOR ALLEN-
CASTER. THE PARTY ESCORTED TO CHIHUAHUA. INTERVIEW WITH
GENERAL SALCEDO. — RETURN TO THE UNITED STATES.
Wlien, in the year 1800, France and Spain entered into a treaty — the
"Treaty of San Ildefonso" — under which the former again came into
possession of all that part of La Salle's Louisiane lying west of the Mis-
sissippi Eiver, and also of the "District of New Orleans", the westerly
boundaries of this vast extent of territory were not precisely determined,
but left indefinite, as they had been when France ceded the region to
Spain in 1762. The part of Colorado's domain that became French soil
once more, by virtue of that treaty, did not remain so for long. Three years
later, Napoleon Bonaparte, then the First Consul of the French Eepublic,
anticipating war with England, and fearing that France, in that event,
would be unable to keep the English from taking New Orleans, and so
gain a position from, which they could easily command the entire re-
mainder of the cession, sold the whole of it, however much it might
prove to be, to the United States for $15,000,000. Napoleon is represented
to have said, when he was informed by his ministers, Talleyrand and
Barbe-Marbois, that the negotiations had been concluded, "this accession
of territory strengthens forever the power of the United States, and I
have given to England a maratime rival that will sooner or later humble
her pride."
For this deal in real estate, the largest ever consummated by peace-
ful ways and means, and which turned out for the buyer about as well as
any that ever was made. President Thomas Jefferson was most violently
denounced by his jDartisan opponents. The act was one of usurpation, an
outrage upon the people, unconstitutional, a shameful waste of public
money, and everything else that was Ijad. but nothing that was good. Even
44
HISTOEY OF COLORADO 45
some of his political associates hesitated about endorsing the extraor-
dinary proceeding. However, the President was upheld by those who had
foresight of the United States as a continental republic. No single act
by the government of any nation ever yielded results so great and bene-
ficent, directly and indirectly, as those which have followed the purchase
of the Province of Louisiane. The transaction has been, as Mr. Jefferson
said it would be, "replete with blessings to unborn millions of men."
In 1804, President Jefferson .sent an overland expedition, under Cap-
tains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, of the United States Armv,
into the new territory. These explorers went in boats, from St. Louis, up
the Missouri to the headwaters of that river, where they crossed the Con-
tinental Divide and then proceeded to the mouth of the Columbia River.
Two years later, Zebulon M. Pike, a young officer of the Regular Armv,
and whose name always will be closely associated with our State, led his
historic expedition across the plains to the Rocky Mountains, in Colorado,
in obedience to orders from James Wilkinson, then the Commanding-Gen-
eral of the few thousand men who constituted the military force of flie
United States. In the year before, under instructions from Wilkinson,
Pike had successfully conducted an expedition to the far-upper reaches
of the Mississippi, partly for exploration and partly for the purpose of
making friendly advances to the Indians lodged upon its banks and' at the
same time to apprise them that the country w^est of the Great River now
belonged to the United States.
The "primary object" of the fresh duty to which Pike now was as-
signed was that of restoring to their people a band of Osage Indians who
had been held as prisoners by the Pottawattomie tribe, of Illinois ; and also
to escort to their homes several Osage and Pawnee chieftains who had
been taken to Washington to visit their new Great Father. These were the
"passengers" mentioned by Wilkinson in the first of his formal written
orders to Pike, which, in full, were as follows :
"To Lieutenant Z. M. Pike."
"St. Louis, .June 27th, 1S06.''
"Sir:
"YOU are to proceed without delay to the cantonment on the Missouri, where
you are to embark the late Osage captives, and the deputation recently returned from
Washington, with their presents and baggage, and are to transport the whole up
the Missouri and Osage rivers to the to'nn of the Grand Osage. The safe delivery
of this charge at the point of destination constitutes the primary ob.ject of your
expedition, and therefore you are to move with such caution as may prevent surprise
from any hostile band, and are to repel with your utmost force any outrage which
may be attempted. Having safely deposited your passengers and their property,
you are to turn your attention to the accomplishment of a permanent peace between
the Kanses and Osage nations, for which purpose you must effect a meeting between
the head chiefs of those nations, and are to employ such arguments, deduced from
their own obvious interests, as well as the inclinations, desires, and commands of
the President of the United States, as may facilitate your purpose and accomplish
the end. A third object of considerable magnitude will then claim your attention:
It is to effect an inters-iew, and establish a good understanding with the Tetans
or Camanches. For this purpose you must interest White Hair of the Grand Osage,
with whom and a suitable deputation, you will visit the Panie Eepublic, where you
may find interpreters and inform yourself of the most feasible plan to bring the
Camanches to a conference. Should you succeed in this attempt, and no pains must
be spared to effect it, you will endeavour to make peace between that distant pow-
erful nation and the nations which inhabit the country between us and them,
particularly the Osage; and finally, you will endeavour to induce eight or ten of
4U HISTOEY OF COLORADO
their distinguished chiefs to make a visit to the seat of goTernment next September,
and you may attach to this deputation four or five Panis and the same number of
Kanses chiefs. As your interview with the Camauches will probably lead you to
the head branches of the Arkansaw and Red rivers, you may find yourself approx-
imated to the settlements of Xew Mexico, and therefore it will be necessary you
should move with great circumspection, to keep clear of any hunting or reconnoitring
parties from that province, and to prevent alarm or oflfenee, because the affairs of
Spain and the United States appear to be on the point of amicable adjustment;
and, moreover, it is the desire of the President to cultivate the friendship and
harmonious intercourse of all the nations of the earth, and particularly our nearest
neighbours, the Spaniards.
"In the course of your tour you are to remark particularly upon the geograph-
ical structure, the natural history, and population of the country through which you
may pass, taking particular care to collect and preserve specimens of everything
curious in the mineral and botanical worlds which can be preserved and are portable.
Let your courses be regulated by your compass, and your distances by your watch,
to be noted in a field-book; and I would advise you, when circumstances permit, to
protract and lay down in a separate book the march of a day at every evening 's halt.
' ' The instruments which I have furnished will enable you to ascertain the
variation of the magnetic needle, and the latitude, with exactness; and at every
remarkable point I wish you to employ your telescope in observing the eclipses of
Jupiter's satellites, having previously regulated and adjusted your watch by your
quadrant, taking care to note with great nicety the periods of immersion and
emersion of the eclipsed satellite. These observations may enable us after your
return, by application to the appropriate tables, which I cannot now furnish you,
to ascertain the longitude. It is an object of much interest with the executive to
, ascertain the direction, extent, and navigation of the Arkansaw and Bed rivers;
as far therefore as may be compatible with these instructions, and practicable to
the means you may command, I wish you to carry your views to those subjects, and
should circumstances conspire to favour the enterprise, you may detach a party
with a few Osages to descend the Arkansaw, under the orders of Lieutenant
Wilkinson or Sergeant BaUinger, properly instructed and equipped to take the
courses and distances, to remark upon the soil, timber, &c., and to note the trib-
utary streams. This party will, after reaching our post on the Arkansaw, descend
to Fort Adams, and there await further orders. And you yourself may descend the
Red river, accompanied by a party of the most respectable Camanches to the post
of Natchitoches, and there receive further orders. To disburse your necessary
expenses, and to aid your negotiations, you are herewith furnished six hundred
dollars' worth of goods, for the appropriation of which you are to render a strict
account, vouched by documents to be attested by one of your party.
' ' Wishing you a safe and successful expedition,
' ' I am, Sir, with much respect and esteem,
"Tour very obedient servant,
' ' James Wilkinson. ' '
"To Lieutenant Z. M. Pike."
"Cantoxmext, Missouei, July 12, 1806.''
" Sir :
' ' THE health of the Osages being now generally restored, and all hopes of the
speedy recovery of their prisoners from the hands of the Potowatomies being at an
end, they have become desirous to commence their journey for their villages; you
are therefore to proceed to-morrow. In addition to the instructions given to you on
the 24th ultimo. I must require you to have the talks under cover, delivered to White
Hair and the Grand Peste, the chief of the Osage band which is settled on the
waters of the Arkansaw, together with the belts which accompany them; you will
also receive herewith a small belt for the Panis, and a large one for the Tetans or
Camanches. Should you find it necessary, you are to give orders to Maugraiue, the
resident interpreter at the Grand Osage, to attend you. I beg you to take measures
for the security and safe return of your boats from the Grand Osage to this place.
Doctor Robinson will accompany you as a volunteer; he will be furnished witli
medicines, and for the accommodation which you give him, he is bound to attend
to your sick.
' ' Should you discover any unlicensed traders in your route, or any person
HISTOEY OF COLORADO 47
from this Territory [I.ouisianal, or from tlie United States, witlaout a proper license
or passport, yon are to arrest sucli person or persons, and dispose of their property
as the law directs.
"My confidence in your caution and discretion has prevented my urging you
to be vigilant in guarding against the stratagems and treachery of the Indians ;
holding yourself above alarm and surprise, the composition of your party, though
it be small, will secure to you the respect of a host of untutored savages.
' ' You are to communicate from the Grand Osage, and from every other
practicable point, directly to the Secretary of War, transmitting your letters to
this place, under cover to the commanding officer, or by any more convenient route.
I wish you health, and a successful and honorable expedition, and am yours, with
friendship, James Wilkinson."
From Wilkinson's reference to the Osages and the Pottawattomies it
appears tliat the redemption of other Osage prisoners from captivity among
the latter had heen expected.
At the time Willcinson issued these orders to Pilve, there was serious
and increasing friction between the United States and Spain over the
southwestern boundary of the Louisiana Purchase; and, as Spain also had
some other ranlvling grievances, an early declaration of war by the one
or the other was thought by many to he inevital)le. Moreover, the flying
rumors of the purposes of Aaron Burr's conspiracy, which menaced Mexico
as well as the Mississippi Valley, already were familiar to Spanish ears.
While Pike was making preparations for his expedition into the West he
was under constant surveillance by Spanish agents at St. Louis, from
whom Spanish authorities in the Southwest received reports before his de-
parture. Of the relations between the two countries and of this spying
watchfulness, he says in a foot-note in his Journal of an Expedition