Talk:Pike expedition

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I removed the non sequitur external links for a couple of the Native American groups, and instead made stub articles for those groups and added the links there. That seems more appropriate to me. -- ESP 15:32, 28 Oct 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Reverted edits

So, on 12 Sep 2005, there were several edits, which, as far as I can tell, did the following:

• Changed much of the layout to pre-formatted form.
• Removed dozens of wiki links.
• Removed several interesting points (for example, Pike's orders, splitting of the party at the Arkansas, waypoints of his repatriation)

I found the results less useful and interesting than the previous versions. I'm not sure what the motivation was. Can we discuss? --ESP 14:13, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] James Biddle Wilkinson

So, it's never occurred to me that James Biddle Wilkinson, Pike's lieutenant, and Governor James Wilkinson share the same first and last name. Since the governor's wife's name was "Ann Biddle", it seems quite likely that the former is the son of the latter. Can anyone corroborate? If so, what's JBW's story? --ESP 19:01, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Great American Desert

On this sentence: "Disappointed in the landscape, in his memoirs Pike called the prairie he had crossed The Great American Desert – a term that stuck, and discouraged settlement for decades." I am curious to know the source of this information. I can look for the mention of the term in his memoirs of course, but what about the claim that the term discouraged settlement? I'd have thought the High Plains were simply not as attractive as Oregon and California, for example, regardless of what the High Plains were called. In the 19th century, settlement typically meant farming, and without irrigation farming the High Plains is impractical even today. Also, the sentence implies that Pike coined the term "Great American Desert". Did he? Thanks. Pfly 19:00, 22 November 2006 (UTC)