Zebulon Pike and the Conquest of the Southwestern United States
Overview
In late October 1806, Zebulon Montgomery Pike (1779-1813) led an expedition that professed its main goal as mapping the Arkansas and Red Rivers. In reality Pike's explorations may have been designed to gauge the military strength of a potential enemy, Spain, and possibly even provoke an international incident which would lead to war. Nonetheless his journey, although fraught with error and controversy, proved to be influential on the development and conquest of the region and had an impact on settlement patterns throughout the western United States in the eighteenth century.
Background
The United States in 1806 was a growing country. Just three years previous in 1803 the country had secured the Louisiana Purchase, one of the largest land deals in western history, from France. That same year President Thomas Jefferson sent Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809) and William Clark (1770-1838) to make a survey of the newly acquired land. Before this time, most of what is currently the western United States belonged to Spain. After Spain ceded large parts of the territory to Napoleon, the French leader wasted little time in selling the land to the United States to raise money to finance his campaigns in Europe.
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