The ramifications of Zebulon Montgomery Pike’s Southwestern expedition were, in every sense of the word, immense. This book contains unique views on Pike's 1806-1807 Southwest Expedition, the politics of the time, and the popular use of Pike and his legacy in cultural and commercial endeavors. Also included are Donald Jackson’s erudite article, “How Lost was Zebulon Pike?;” papers presented at the Colorado Springs Pioneer Museum’s Speakers Series; the entertaining interpretive script for a historical puppet program; and an enlightening introduction by historian, writer, and musician Mark L. Gardner. You can experience the 1906 Pike Centennial Commemoration events, as told by Edwin and Nancy Bathke, and Katie Davis Gardner’s article on the art inspired by Pikes Peak’s dominating presence.

Introduction by Mark L. Gardner; “Zebulon Pike & the Exploration of the Southwest,” by Matt Mayberry; “How Lost was Zebulon Pike?,” by Donald Jackson; “Zebulon Montgomery Pike & American Science,” by John L. Allen; “Pike & Empire,” by James P. Ronda; “Pike’s Southwestern Expedition: Outfitted or Illfated?,” by Don Headlee; “Zebulon Pike in Colorado: His Struggle to Survive,” by Bruce C. Paton; “Men, Missions & Consequences: The Leadership of Lieutenant Pike,” by John R. Sweet; “Aaron Burr, James Wilkinson, Zebulon Pike & the Great Louisiana Conspiracy: A Veteran Prosecutor & Amateur Historian Looks at the Evidence,” by John M. Hutchins; “Enemies & Friends: Zebulon Montgomery Pike & Facundo Melgares in the Struggle for Control of the Louisiana Purchase,” by Leo E. Oliva; “Zebulon Pike & American Popular Culture, or, Has Pike Peaked?,” by Michael L. Olsen;” Marketing the Mountain: Pikes Peak in the Popular Imagination,” by Leah Davis Witherow; “The Pike Centennial Celebration 1906,” by Edwin A. & Nancy E. Bathke; “’What, is Not This the Red River?’ Pike Speaks on Pike’s Peak, His Life & Times: A Puppet Presentation,” by Stephen Collins & Katherine Scott Sturdevant; “Looming Large: The Artistic Legacy of Pikes Peak,” by Melinda Murphy & Katie Davis Gardner; Selected Bibliography; Index

If you have a history buff to shop for this holiday season, pick up a copy of “To Spare No Pains”: Zebulon Montgomery Pike and His 1806-1807 Southwest Expedition. Pike, of course, led an army expedition to the Rocky Mountains in 1806-1807 and spotted what he thought was a “small blue cloud” that later turned out to be a mountain. He failed to climb the summit, but it was later named for him and became America’s most famous mountain, Pikes Peak, no apostrophe, please.

But there’s more. This was the era of Jeffersonian exploration, and Pike’s expedition was a southern version of Lewis and Clark, with a dash more intrigue. Along the way, Pike got badly lost. He abandoned a couple men. A mutiny he feared never materialized, but there was a murder. And he was arrested by Spaniards on the wrong side of the border.

All of it was clouded by suspicion that more than exploration lay at the heart of the drama, for the mastermind of the expedition was General James Wilkinson, the nation’s ranking army officer and one of the country’s most notorious rogues. Wilkinson was in the pay of America’s imperial rival Spain, and also in cahoots with Aron Burr, the former vice president and the murderer of Alexander Hamilton.

Together Wilkinson and Burr were up to something dastardly—maybe western secession, more likely the raising of a private army to do a little filibustering in New Spain. Either way, military and geographical data from a western expedition would help.

Was Pike involved? Read and find out, for that is among the questions that this book expertly addresses. The volume is comprised of concise essays, most of which originated in a 2006 Pike bicentennial symposium sponsored by the Pikes Peak Library District and the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum.

Even though the authors follow a two-hundred-year-old trail, they offer fresh insights. For example, Bruce Paton, M.D., uses his wilderness medicine expertise to reinterpret Pike’s poor decision-making in the Rockies as a function of impaired judgment induced by starvation, hypothermia, and frostbite.

And by thinking like a lawyer with attorney John Hutchins, readers explore the mystery of Pike’s involvement with the Burr-Wilkinson conspiracy. Colorado National Guard officer John Sweet takes a military perspective to reassess Pike’s leadership, and Army Corps of Engineers employee Don Headlee investigates Pike’s equipment.

Essays by three of the leading scholars of Jeffersonian exploration lead readers along Pike’s route and into the broader contexts of science and empire. Another delves into Pike’s surprising friendship with his Spanish captor, Facundo Melgares.

The final essays survey Pike pop culture—place names, monuments, historical fiction, romantic poetry, posters, tourism, hiking clubs, painting, puppet shows, and plenty of kitsch.

Pike is an intriguing figure, and this is an intriguing book.

Jared Orsi is Associate Professor of history at Colorado State University, where he teaches the history of the North American borderlands and a field trip course that retraces the route of Zebulon Pike across Colorado. He is the author of Hazardous Metropolis: Flooding and Urban Ecology in Los Angeles (2004) and several Pike articles, and he is currently writing an environmental biography of Pike.

 

 

"To Spare No Pains": Zebulon Montgomery Pike and His 1806-1807 Southwest Expedition by Tim Blevins
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