Tensions between Zebulon Pike and his hosts the Kitkahahki (Republican) Pawnees have been running high. Previously, the latter feigned an attack during the night and placed an embargo on trade. Today, as Pike prepares an express with letters for United States Army Commander James Wilkinson and Secretary of War Henry Dearborn, tensions ease and the Pawnee trade resumes.
Mud Lodge of the Loup Fork Village (1871)
William Henry Jackson
Derived from the original provided by the National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, //www.si.edu/object/archives/components/sova-naa-photolot-176-ref12416.
The above Skiri (Panimaha or Loup) band lived on the Loup River some 80 miles north of Pike’s location on the Rebuplican River.
Pawnee Embargo
Pawnee Republic, 2d Oct. 1806
Dear General [James Wilkinson],
This day I sent out several of my party to purchase horses, but know not yet how we shall succeeed as the Kans [Kansas] have intimated an idea, that the [Pawnee] chief will prohibit his people from trading with us.
Z. M. Pike, Lt.[1]Donald Jackson, The Journals of Zebulon Montgomery Pike (Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1966), 2:151–53.
Trade Resumes
The intercourse again commenced. Traded for some horses. Writing for my express.
—Zebulon Pike[2]Journals, 1:330.
Notes
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