On this tab, I’ll follow Pike every few days on his southwestern expedition. The italicized words are taken from Pike’s journals (the version edited by Donald Jackson and published by University of Oklahoma Press, 1966). I have occasionally corrected punctuation for clarity and used ellipses liberally to shorten the entries for web readers, but otherwise I have left his original spelling (and misspelling) and characteristically rough grammar and syntax intact. The non-italicized portions are my commentary on the journals. These comments are intentionally brief. Of course, I elaborate the logic, evidence, and citations for them in Citizen Explorer.

Find out what Pike was doing on this day. Or mouse over the “Pike: On this Day” tab above and to the right to follow him on other days.