Pike, Zebulon | The first government exploration of the southwest

Pike, Zebulon

An Account of Expeditions to the Sources of the Mississippi, and through the Western Parts of Louisiana, to the Sources of Arkansaw, Kans, La Platte, and Pierre Juan, Rivers; performed … during the Years 1805, 1806, and 1807. And a Tour through the Interior Parts of New Spain … in the Year 1807. Philadelphia: Published by C. & A. Conrad; Somervell & Conrad, Petersburgh; Bonsal, Conrad, & Co., Norfolk; and Fielding Lucas, Jr., Baltimore (John Binns, Printer), 1810

8vo in half sheets ( 213 x 132 mm). Stipple-engraved frontispiece portrait of Pike by Edwin, 6 engraved maps and charts (5 folding, one on two joined sheets), 3 folding letterpress tables; frontispiece offset onto title, text browned, maps browned and offset, maps and tables with marginal tears, a couple of the maps misfolded and creased. Contemporary tree sheep, spine gilt-ruled with red label, plain endpapers and edges; extremities worn with minor loss, especially to foot of spine, upper joint cracked.

First edition of the first government exploration of the southwest. The maps were the first to describe the terrain of the Southwest based on firsthand accounts and are considered "milestones in the mapping of the American West" (Wheat). Setting out from St. Louis in 1806, Pike and his party proceeded overland to Arkansas, Kansas, and Colorado (failing to reach the summit of the Peak that now carries his name), before falling into the hands of the Spanish authorities and being escorted to Santa Fe, and then to Louisiana. He provides the first account in English of Texas as a whole and his very detailed information on the local Spanish government proved influential for federal territorial ambition. Three of the maps show Texas. Pike's information about the weakness of Spanish authority in Santa Fe, and the profitability of trading with Mexico, stirred businessmen and politicians into expanding to Texas.

REFERENCES:

Best of the West 32; Graff 3290; Howes P373; Sabin 62836; Streeter, Texas 1047; Streeter sale 5: 3125; Wagner-Camp-Becker 9:1; Wheat, Mapping the Transmississippi West 297-29

PROVENANCE:

T. Ross (contemporary signature on title-page and front free endpaper)