In 1806 President Thomas Jefferson sent cartographer Thomas Freeman and botanist Peter Custis to explore the southen Louisiana Purchase westward to the Rocky Moutnains. Stopped by a Spanish army in what is today extreme southern Oklahoma, they did not complete their mission. President Jefferson minimized their failure by focusing instead on the success of their northern counterparts Lewis and Clark. Hence the fame of Lewis and Clark and the virtual anonymity of Freeman and Custis-until now, thanks to editor Dan L. Flores.
Dan Flores presents the primary documents created by Freeman and...
In 1806 President Thomas Jefferson sent cartographer Thomas Freeman and botanist Peter Custis to explore the southen Louisiana Purchase westward to...
This is a journal kept by Lieutenant James H. Bradley of the Seventh Infantry, which records in considerable detail the major incidents of the march of the Montana Column, under the command of Colonel John Gibbon, from Fort Shaw to Fort Ellis to participate in the Sioux campaign of 1876. Bradley was engaged in putting his journal into shape from field when he was called to fight another Indian campaign, agains Chief Joseph of the Nez Perces, from which he never returned. So, as not to leave an unfinished story, a letter written by Bradley describing the finding of the bodies of Custer's...
This is a journal kept by Lieutenant James H. Bradley of the Seventh Infantry, which records in considerable detail the major incidents of the march o...
In 1839 a journalist for the New Orleans Picayune, Matthew C. Field, joined a company of merchants and tourists headed west on the Santa Fe Trail. Leaving Independence, Missouri, early in July "with a few wagons and a carefree spirit," Field recorded his vivid impressions of travel westward on the Santa Fe Trail and, on the return trip, eastward along the Cimarron Route. Written in verse in his journal and in eighty-five articles later published in the Picayune, Field's observations offer the modern reader a unique glimpse of life in the settlements of Mexico and on the Santa Fe Trail.
In 1839 a journalist for the New Orleans Picayune, Matthew C. Field, joined a company of merchants and tourists headed west on the Santa Fe Trail. ...
In 1841 U.S. government authorities sent Major Ethan Allen Hitchcock to Indian Territory to investigate numerous charges of fraud and profiteering by various contractors dealing with the Cherokee, Creek, Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw Indians, who had been removed from the South during the last decade. Hitchcock's report, filed after four months of travel, exposed such a high level of graft and corruption that his investigation was suppressed and never brought to the attention of Congress. Hitchcock kept nine personal diaries of his travels and observations, however, and they reveal much...
In 1841 U.S. government authorities sent Major Ethan Allen Hitchcock to Indian Territory to investigate numerous charges of fraud and profiteering by ...
The Mackay and Evans expedition (1795-1797) was more than an exploratory mission. It was the last effort by Spain to gain control over the Missouri River basin in the decade before the United States purchased the Louisiana territory. In that respect, it failed. But the expedition was successful as a journey of exploration, and had it not occurred, Lewis and Clark would have been denied valuable documents that significantly aided their exploration. In Prologue to Lewis and Clark, W. Raymond Wood narrates the history of this long-forgotten but important expedition up the Missouri River....
The Mackay and Evans expedition (1795-1797) was more than an exploratory mission. It was the last effort by Spain to gain control over the Missouri Ri...
Volume 78 in The American Exploration and Travel Series After returning to his Italian monastery in 1770, a Capuchin friar named Ilarione da Bergamo wrote an account of his transatlantic crossing and five-year residence in colonial Mexico. Sent to Mexico to collect alms for missionary work, Friar Ilarione lived four years in the silver-mining camp of Real del Monte, fifty miles north of the viceregal capital. Ilarione relates how he secured silver donations from the miners, describes mining and refining techniques, and writes of a bitter and widespread labor strike. Ilarione also spent a...
Volume 78 in The American Exploration and Travel Series After returning to his Italian monastery in 1770, a Capuchin friar named Ilarione da Bergamo w...
