Pike-Pawnee Village Site - 1806: Melgares and Pike

1806: Melgares and Pike

Under the 1800 Treaty of San Ildefonso, Spain returned the Louisiana Territory to France. In connection with this transfer, France agreed not to sell the territory to a third party; Talleyrand had indicated that a strong French Louisiana would halt the expansion of Britain and the United States in the New World.

Napoleon quickly reneged on this agreement. In the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, France sold the territory to the United States. This led to conflict between the latter nation and Spain. The Spanish contended that the sale of Louisiana to the United States was invalid, and that the territory had reverted to them. Although they were unable to prevent American occupation of New Orleans, they sought to check American activity west of the Mississippi River.

Spain and the United States both sought allies among the Native Americans of the disputed territory. In June 1806, Lieutenant Facundo Melgares and 600 men were dispatched from the Spanish provincial capital of Santa Fe down the Red River and then northward into present-day Nebraska. Although no Spanish records of the Melgares expedition are known to exist, it is believed that its purpose was to find and arrest the Lewis and Clark party, and to establish alliances with the Native Americans of the region, including the Pawnees.

About a month later, Lieutenant Zebulon Pike left St. Louis with an American party of 23 men, and orders to negotiate peace between the Kanzas and Osages, to contact the Comanches of the high plains, and to explore the headwaters of the Red and Arkansas Rivers. For guides and interpreters to the Comanches, Pike turned to the Pawnees; his Osage and Pawnee guides led him northwest through present-day Kansas toward the Kitkehahki village on the Republican.

Melgares was the first to arrive at the village. His journey north had not been easy. Mutiny had broken out and been suppressed among his New Mexican militia; and many of his horses had gone lame, or had been stolen by Pawnee raiders. He had left 240 of his men on the Arkansas in southern Kansas before turning northward with the other half of his force. In the Republican village, he met with Kitkehahki and Chaui leaders, to whom he presented gifts, including Spanish flags. The Pawnees agreed to expel Americans from their territory, but also opposed the Melgares expedition's continuing to the Missouri River. In the face of this opposition, and with no supply lines and a force too large to live off the country, Melgares returned to the Arkansas and thence to Santa Fe.