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KF5JRV > TODAY 15.07.20 13:02l 32 Lines 1505 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 54069_KF5JRV
Read: GUEST
Subj: Today in History - Jul 15
Path: IW8PGT<I3XTY<IZ3LSV<IQ5KG<I3XTY<GB7COW<PE1RRR<N7HPX<KF5JRV
Sent: 200715/1053Z 54069@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA BPQ6.0.20
Zebulon Pike, the U.S. Army officer who in 1805 led an
exploring party in search of the source of the Mississippi
River, sets off with a new expedition to explore the
American Southwest. Pike was instructed to seek out
headwaters of the Arkansas and Red rivers and to
investigate Spanish settlements in New Mexico.
Pike and his men left Missouri and traveled through
the present-day states of Kansas and Nebraska before
reaching Colorado, where he spotted the famous mountain
later named in his honor. From there, they traveled
down to New Mexico, where they were stopped by Spanish
officials and charged with illegal entry into
Spanish-held territory. His party was escorted to Santa Fe,
then down to Chihuahua, back up through Texas, and
finally to the border of the Louisiana Territory, where
they were released. Soon after returning to the east,
Pike was implicated in a plot with former Vice President
Aaron Burr to seize territory in the Southwest for
mysterious ends. However, after an investigation,
Secretary of State James Madison fully exonerated him.
The information he provided about the U.S. territory in
Kansas and Colorado was a great impetus for future U.S.
settlement, and his reports about the weakness of Spanish
authority in the Southwest stirred talk of future U.S.
annexation. Pike later served as a brigadier general
during the War of 1812, and in April 1813 he was killed
by a British gunpowder bomb after leading a successful
attack on York, Canada.
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