A similar expedition on a smaller scale left St. Louis in August, 1805, to discover the source of the Mississippi. It was led by First Lieutenant Zebulon Montgomery Pike of the First Infantry, a native of New Jersey, then twenty-six years of age. “He was five feet eight inches tall; eyes blue; hair light; abstemious, temperate, and unremitting in duty.” If there could have been doubt of his fitness for the enterprise, the sequel fully justified his selection. His instructions were carefully drawn to keep him and his errand within constitutional limits. The first entry of his journal reads, “Sailed from my encampment, near St. Louis, at 4 o’clock, P. M., on Friday the 9th of August, 1805: with one sergeant, two corporals, and seventeen privates, in a keel boat, 70 feet long, provisioned for four months.” On the 21st of September Pike reached the mouth of the Minnesota, and “encamped on the northeast point of the big island,” which still bears his name. The next day Little Crow, grandfather of the chief of the same name who led the outbreak of 1862, came with his band of one hundred and fifty warriors. On the third day a council was held under the shelter of the sails, on the beach. In his speech Pike let the Indians know that their Great Father no longer lived beyond the great salt water, and that the Canadian traders who tried to keep them in ignorance of American independence were “bad birds”; that traders were forbidden to sell rum, and the Indians ought to coöperate in preventing them; and that the Sioux and Chippeways ought to live in peace together. In particular he asked that they allow the United States to select two tracts of land, one at the mouth of the St. Croix, the other above the mouth of the Minnesota. On these the Great Father would establish military posts, and public trading factories, where Indians could get goods cheaper than from the traders.
The well-advised officer had already crossed the hands of the two head chiefs. He closed his speech with a reference to their “father’s tobacco and some other trifling things” as evidence of good will, and promised some liquor “to clear their throats.” The chiefs saw no need of their signing any paper, but did it to please the generous orator. The “treaty” is a curiosity in diplomacy. The first article grants, what the United States already possessed, “full sovereignty and power” over two tracts of land: one of nine miles square at the mouth of the St. Croix; the other “from below the confluence of the Mississippi and St. Peter’s (Minnesota) up the Mississippi to include the Falls of St. Anthony, extending nine miles on each side of the river.” Pike estimated the area of the latter grant to be about one hundred thousand acres and the value to be $200,000. The second article provides that “the United States shall pay ... dollars.” The final article permits the Sioux to retain the only right they could legally convey, that of occupancy for hunting and their other accustomed uses.