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De Soto, in 1541, was the true discoverer of the Mississippi river, and the first person who crossed it, who has left a narrative of that fact; although it is evident that Cabaca de Vaca, the noted survivor of the ill-fated expedition of Narvaez in 1528, must, in his extraordinary pilgrimage between Florida and the eastern coasts of the gulf of California, have crossed this river, perhaps before him; but he has not distinctly mentioned it in his memoir. Narvaez himself was not the discoverer of the mouth of the Mississippi, as some persons have conjectured, inasmuch as he was blown off the coast and lost, east of that point. The most careful tracing of the narrative of his voyage in boats along the Florida shore, as given by De Vaca, does not carry him beyond Mobile bay, or, at farthest, Perdido bay.[1]

De Soto's death frustrated his plan of founding a colony of Spain in the Mississippi valley; and that stream was allowed to roll its vast volume into the gulf a hundred and thirty-two years longer, before it attracted practical notice. Precisely at the end of this time, namely, in 1673, Mons. Jolliet, accompanied by James Marquette, the celebrated enterprising missionary of New France, entered the stream at the confluence of the Wisconsin, in accordance with the policy, and a plan of exploration, of the able, brave, and efficient governor-general of Canada, the Count Frontenac. Marquette and his companion, who was the chief of the expedition, but whose name has become secondary to his own, descended it to the mouth of the Arkansas, the identical spot of De Soto's demise. La Salle, some five or six years later, continued the discovery to the gulf; and Hennepin extended it upward, from the point where Marquette had entered it, to the falls of St. Anthony, and the river St. Francis. And it is from this era of La Salle, the narrators of whose enlarged plans, civic and ecclesiastical, recognised the Indian geographical terminology, that it has retained its Algonquin name of Mississippi.

It is by no means intended to follow these initial facts by recitals of the progress of the subsequent local discoveries in the Mississippi valley, which were made respectively under French, British, and American rule. Sufficient is it, for the present purpose, to say, that the thread of the discovery of the Mississippi, north and west of the points named, was not taken up effectively, till the acquisition of Louisiana. Mr. Jefferson determined to explore the newly acquired territories, and directed the several expeditions of discovery under Lewis and Clark, and Lieut. Z. M. Pike. The former traced out the Missouri to its sources, and followed the Columbia to the Pacific; while the latter continued the discovery of the Mississippi river above St. Anthony's falls where Hennepin, and perhaps Carver, had respectively left it. The map which Pike published in 1810 contained, however, an error of a capital geographical point, in regard to the actual source of the Mississippi. He placed it in Turtle lake, at the source of Turtle river of upper Lac Cedre Rouge, or Cass lake, which lies in the portage to Red lake of the great Red River of the North, being in the ordinary route of the fur trade to that region.

In 1820, Mr. Calhoun, who determined to erect a cordon of military posts to cover the remotest of the western settlements, at the same time that he despatched Major Long to ascend to the Yellowstone of the Missouri, directed the extreme upper Mississippi to be examined and traced out to its source. This expedition, led by Gov. Cass, through the upper lakes, reached the mouth of Turtle river of the large lake beyond the upper cataract of the Mississippi, which has since borne the name of the intrepid leader of the party. It was satisfactorily determined that Turtle lake was not the source, nor even one of the main sources, of the Mississippi; but that this river was discharged, in the integrity of its volume, into the western end of Cass lake. To determine this point more positively, and trace the river to its source, another expedition was organized by the Department of War in 1832, and committed to me. Taking up the line of discovery where it had been left in 1820, the river was ascended up a series of rapids about forty miles north, to a large lake called the Amigegoma; a few miles above which, it is constituted by two forks, having a southern and western origin, the largest and longest of which was found[2] to originate in Itasca lake, in north latitude 37° 13'—a position not far north of Ottertail lake, in the highlands of Hauteur des Terres.

So far as the fact of De Soto's exploration of the country west of the Mississippi, in the present area of Missouri and Arkansas, is concerned, it is apprehended that the author of these incidents of travel has been the first person to identify and explore this hitherto confused part of the celebrated Spanish explorer's route. This has been traced from the narrative, with the aid of the Indian lexicography, in the third volume of his Indian History (p. 50), just published, accompanied by a map of the entire route, from his first landing on the western head of Tampa bay. Prior to the recital of these personal incidents, it may serve a useful purpose to recall the state of geographical information at this period.

The enlarged and improved map of the British colonies, with the geographical and historical analysis, accompanying it, of Lewis Evans, which was published by B. Franklin in 1754, had a controlling effect on all geographers and statesmen of the day, and was an important element in diffusing a correct geographical knowledge of the colonies at large, and particularly of the great valley of the Mississippi, agreeably to modern ideas of its physical extent. It was a great work for the time, and for many years remained the standard of reference. In some of its features, it was never excelled. Mr. Jefferson quotes it, in his Notes on Virginia, and draws from it some interesting opinions concerning Indian history, as in the allusion to the locality and place of final refuge of the Eries. It was from the period of the publication of this memoir that the plan of an "Ohio colony," in which Dr. Franklin had an active agency, appears to have had its origin.

Lewis Evans was not only an eminent geographer himself, but his map and memoir, as will appear on reference to them, embrace the discoveries of his predecessors and contemporary explorers, as Conrad Wiser and others, in the West. The adventurous military reconnoissance of Washington to fort Le Bœuf, on lake Erie, was subsequent to this publication.

Evans's map and analysis, being the best extant, served as the basis of the published materials used for the topographical guidance of General Braddock on his march over the Alleghany mountains. Washington, himself an eminent geographer, was present in that memorable march; and so judicious and well selected were its movements, through defiles and over eminences, found to be, that the best results of engineering skill, when the commissioners came to lay out the great Cumberland road, could not mend them. Such continued also to be the basis of our general geographical knowledge of the West, at the period of the final capture of fort Du Quesne by General Forbes, and the change of its name in compliment to the eminent British statesman, Pitt.

The massacre of the British garrison of Michilimackinac in 1763, the investment of the fort of Detroit in the same year by a combined force of Indian tribes, and the development of an extensive conspiracy, as it has been termed, against the western British posts under Pontiac, constituted a new feature in American history; and the military expeditions of Cols. Bouquet and Bradstreet, towards the West and North-west, were the consequence. These movements became the means of a more perfect geographical knowledge respecting the West than had before prevailed. Hutchinson's astronomical observations, which were made under the auspices of Bouquet, fixed accurately many important points in the Mississippi valley, and furnished a framework for the military narrative of the expedition. In fact, the triumphant march of Bouquet into the very strongholds of the Indians west of the Ohio, first brought them effectually to terms; and this expedition had the effect to open the region to private enterprise.

The defeat of the Indians by Major Gladwyn at Detroit had tended to the same end; and the more formal march of Colonel Bradstreet, in 1764, still further contributed to show the aborigines the impossibility of their recovering the rule in the West. Both these expeditions, at distant points, had a very decided tendency to enlarge the boundaries of geographical discovery in the West, and to stimulate commercial enterprise.

The Indian trade had been carried to fort Pitt the very year of its capture by the English forces; and it may serve to give an idea of the commercial daring and enterprise of the colonists to add, that, so early as 1766, only two years after Bouquet's expedition, the leading house of Baynton, Wharton & Morgan, of Philadelphia, had carried that branch of trade through the immense lines of forest and river wilderness to fort Chartres, the military capital of the Illinois, on the Mississippi.[3] Its fertile lands were even then an object of scarcely less avidity.[4] Mr. Alexander Henry had, even a year or two earlier, carried this trade to Michilimackinac; and the English flag, the symbol of authority with the tribes, soon began to succeed that of France, far and wide. The Indians, finding the French flag had really been struck finally, submitted, and the trade soon fell, in every quarter, into English hands.

The American revolution, beginning within ten years of this time, was chiefly confined to the regions east of the Alleghanies. The war for territory west of this line was principally carried on by Virginia, whose royal governors had more than once marched to maintain her chartered rights on the Ohio. Her blood had often freely flowed on this border, and, while the great and vital contest still raged in the Atlantic colonies, she ceased not with a high hand to defend it, attacked as it was by the fiercest and most deadly onsets of the Indians.

In 1780, General George Rogers Clark, the commander of the Virginia forces, visited the vicinity of the mouth of the Ohio, by order of the governor of Virginia, for the purpose of selecting the site for a fort, which resulted in the erection of fort Jefferson, some few miles (I think) below the influx of the Ohio, on the eastern bank of the Mississippi. The United States were then in the fifth year of the war of independence. All its energies were taxed to the utmost extent in this contest; and not the least of its cares arose from the Indian tribes who hovered with deadly hostility on its western borders. It fell to the lot of Clark, who was a man of the greatest energy of character, chivalric courage, and sound judgment, to capture the posts of Kaskaskia and Vincennes, in the Illinois, with inadequate forces at his command, and through a series of almost superhuman toils. And we are indebted to these conquests for the enlarged western boundary inserted in the definitive treaty of peace, signed at Paris in 1783. Dr. Franklin, who was the ablest geographer among the commissioners, made a triumphant use of these conquests; and we are thus indebted to George Rogers Clark for the acquisition of the Mississippi valley.

American enterprise in exploring the country may be said to date from the time of the building of fort Jefferson; but it was not till the close of the revolutionary war, in 1783, that the West became the favorite theatre of action of a class of bold, energetic, and patriotic men, whose biographies would form a very interesting addition to our literature. It is to be hoped that such a work may be undertaken and completed before the materials for it, are beyond our reach. How numerous this class of men were, and how quickly they were followed by a hardy and enterprising population, who pressed westward from the Atlantic borders, may be inferred from the fact that the first State formed west of the Ohio river, required but twenty years from the treaty of peace for its complete organization. Local histories and cyclical memoirs have been published in some parts of the West, which, though scarcely known beyond the precincts of their origin, possess their chief value as affording a species of historical material for this investigation. Pioneer life in the West must, indeed, hereafter constitute a prolific source of American reminiscence; but it may be doubted whether any comprehensive work on the subject will be effectively undertaken, while any of this noble band of public benefactors are yet on the stage of life.

The acquisition of Louisiana, in 1803, became the period from which may be dated the first efforts of the United States' government to explore the public domain. The great extent of the territory purchased from France, stretching west to the Pacific ocean—its unknown boundaries on the south, west, and north—and the importance and variety of its reputed resources, furnished the subjects which led the Executive, Mr. Jefferson, to direct its early exploration. The expeditions named of Lewis and Clark to Oregon, and of Pike to the sources of the Mississippi, were the consequence. Pike did not publish the results of his search till 1810. Owing to the death of Governor Meriwether Lewis, a still greater delay attended the publication of the details of the former expedition, which did not appear till 1814. No books had been before published, which diffused so much local geographical knowledge. The United States were then engaged in the second war with Great Britain, during which the hostility of the western tribes precluded explorations, except such as could be made under arms. The treaty of Ghent brought the belligerent parties to terms; but the intelligence did not reach the country in season to prevent the battle of New Orleans, which occurred in January 1815.

Letters from correspondents in the West, which were often published by the diurnal press, and the lectures of Mr. W. Darby on western and general geography, together with verbal accounts and local publications, now poured a flood of information respecting the fertility and resources of that region, and produced an extensive current of emigration. Thousands were congregated at single points, waiting to embark on its waters. The successful termination of the war had taken away all fear of Indian hostility. The tribes had suffered a total defeat at all points, their great leader Tecumseh had fallen, and there was no longer a basis for any new combinations to oppose the advances of civilization. Military posts were erected to cover the vast line of frontiers on the west and north, and thus fully to occupy the lines originally secured by the treaty of 1783. In 1816, Mr. J. J. Astor, having purchased the North-west Company's posts, lying south of latitude 49°, established the central point of his trade at Michilimackinac. A military post was erected by the government at the falls of St. Anthony, and another at Council Bluffs on the Missouri. The knowledge of the geography and resources of the western country was thus practically extended, although no publication, so far as I am aware, was made on this subject.

In the fall of 1816, I determined to visit the Mississippi valley—a resolution which brought me into the situations narrated in the succeeding volume. In the three ensuing years I visited a large part of the West, and explored a considerable portion of Missouri and Arkansas, in which De Soto alone, I believe, had, in 1542, preceded me. My first publication on the results of these explorations was made at New York, in 1819. De Witt Clinton was then on the stage of action, and Mr. Calhoun, with his grasping intellect, directed the energies of the government in exploring the western domain, which, he foresaw, as he told me, must exercise a controlling influence on the destinies of America.

In the spring of 1818, Major S. H. Long, U. S. A., was selected by the War Office to explore the Missouri as high as the Yellowstone, and, accompanied by a corps of naturalists from Philadelphia, set out from Pittsburgh in a small steamer. The results of this expedition were in the highest degree auspicious to our knowledge of the actual topography and natural history of the far West, and mark a period in their progress. It was about this time that Colonel H. Leavenworth was directed to ascend the Mississippi, and establish a garrison at the mouth of the St. Peter's or Minnesota river. Early in 1820, the War Department directed an exploratory expedition to be organized at Detroit, under the direction of Lewis Cass, Esq., Governor of Michigan Territory, for the purpose of surveying the upper lakes, and determining the area at the sources of the Mississippi—its physical character, topography, and Indian population. In the scientific corps of this expedition, I received from the Secretary of War the situation of mineralogist and geologist, and published a narrative of it. This species of public employment was repeated in 1821, during which I explored the Miami of the Lakes, and the Wabash and Illinois; and my position assumed a permanent form, in another department of the service, in 1822, when I took up my residence in the great area of the upper lakes.

It is unnecessary to the purposes of this sketch to pursue these details further than to say, that the position I occupied was favorable to the investigation of the mineral constitution and natural history of the country, and also of the history, antiquities, and languages and customs, of the Indian tribes. For a series of years, the name of the author has been connected with the progress of discovery and research on these subjects. Events controlled him in the publication of separate volumes of travels, some of which were, confessedly, incomplete in their character, and hasty in their preparation. Had he never trespassed on public attention in this manner, he would not venture, with his present years, and more matured conceptions of a species of labor, where the difficulties are very great, the chances of applause doubtful, and the rewards, under the most favorable auspices, very slender. As it is, there is a natural desire that what has been done, and may be quoted when he has left this feverish scene and gone to his account, should be put in the least exceptionable form. Hence the revision of these travels.