Early in September 1805, just before Burr’s arrival, Wilkinson sent east a stunning array of gifts designed to appeal to the president. Packed into a wooden trunk were twenty-seven mineral samples—iron ore from the Platte and Osage rivers, lead and galena from the upper Missouri, pumice stone from the Yellowstone, crystallized gypsum and salt rock from the Arkansas— evidence of enough wealth beneath the earth, he explained, “to employ Thousands of Hands, and to produce Millions of Dollars.” With the help of a Ricara or Pawnee chief, named Ankedoucharo, who spoke seven languages including the lingua franca of the Plains Indians, sign language, the governor also assembled for the president a rough census of the eight thousand Plains Indians living southwest of the Missouri. Finally and most enticingly of all, he sent Jefferson a Native American map drawn on buffalo hide showing the courses of the Platte and Yellowstone rivers and what might have been a geyser in the area of what is now the Yellowstone National Park, thirteen hundred miles to the west.
Nothing was better calculated to earn Jefferson’s gratitude than a gift of Indian lore. But Wilkinson’s sumptuous offering also had an official justification. In addition to making him governor of Louisiana Territory, the president had appointed Wilkinson to be commissioner for Indian affairs, and therefore responsible for putting into practice Jefferson’s policy of relocating Native Americans away from land wanted by settlers. In a report sent with the specimens, Wilkinson suggested that northern Louisiana could be made a repository for Native Americans living in the more desirable south, although this would be “opposed by busy and short- sighted politicians” in the Louisiana Territory. Because it was important to keep white settlers out of land intended for Indians, he urged the president to prevent “Aliens and Suspicious Characters mingling with the Natives, and to suspend all Commerce with them at your discretion.”
On the document Jefferson’s firm tick of approval can be seen beside the paragraph with Wilkinson’s proposals, indicating that president and commissioner were at one on the future of the Louisiana Territory. Recognizing that the policy would not be popular, Wilkinson promised to carry out his president’s instructions “without regard to personal consequences.”
Although it was impossible to read Jefferson’s sphinxlike mind, he clearly valued what Wilkinson could offer. The general had kept the army loyal, shown a passion for western exploration, defied unpopularity to carry out the president’s Indian policies, justified the Red River expedition, and written the new Articles of War, which were about to receive congressional approval. The reward had been the decision to entrust him with almost unlimited power in the west. But Wilkinson’s anxiety to earn Jefferson’s good opinion only increased.
To satisfy the president’s desire for knowledge about the west, he sent off a series of expeditions to explore the unknown country beyond him. Led by Lieutenant Zebulon Pike, the first departed northward a few weeks after the governor’s arrival in St. Louis with a mission to explore the headwaters of the Mississippi and clear any British fur traders from the area. Pike fought his way through the swamps and pine forests of northern Minnesota and spent a hard winter near Cass Lake, which he identified as the source of the river— Lake Itasca, the real source, is about thirty miles away—before returning in April 1806. While he was away, Wilkinson dispatched two other lieutenants to explore the country to the west: George Peter was sent up the Osage River, accompanied by the fur trader Pierre Chouteau; and Wilkinson’s son, James Biddle, was directed to the upper Missouri, an enterprise cut short after a soldier was killed in a skirmish with Kickapoo warriors.
Like the maps that had first caught the president’s attention, all this activity was for Jefferson’s benefit. “My last breath, my last drop of blood shall be for Him,” Wilkinson assured Samuel Smith in March 1806, “would that I had more to give.” Yet, whatever he did, the evidence of his treachery was all around.
While the Red River expedition was being planned on the basis of Wilkinson’s maps, Casa Calvo was advising the acting governor of Texas, in accordance with Wilkinson’s “Reflections,” that Spain should “drive back every illegal usurpation toward the region of Texas.” Consequently, when Wilkinson’s old associate Thomas Freeman led the expedition up the river in the spring of 1806, with Wilkinson’s latest protégé, Captain Richard Sparks, in command of the military detachment, Wilkinson’s advice also ensured that a troop of two hundred Mexican cavalry were being dispatched from Nacogdoches under Captain Francisco Viana to intercept them.
The general’s anxieties were understandable. His adherence to Jefferson had begun as political calculation. But no one had entrusted him with more power, and Wilkinson had responded as he always did to those who flattered his vanity—with wholehearted devotion. That Jefferson might withdraw his trust created an almost intolerable anxiety.
IN THE TWO YEARS since Wilkinson had written “Reflections,” General Salcedo, the commandant of the Internal Provinces, had moved more than seven hundred troops forward to beef up defenses on the Texas border, and Antonio Cordero, the energetic governor of Chihuahua, had been transferred to take over the forward province of Texas. This aggressive policy had been recommended by Agent 13 as a way of preventing the United States from expanding farther west. Rising tension reached a new pitch in October 1805 when Spanish forces occupied two fortified positions east of the Sabine River, the border with Texas as designated by the United States.
On June 11, 1806, Wilkinson received a letter from Henry Dearborn concerning the military situation in the south. Negotiations had failed to persuade the Spanish to withdraw. The presence of their forces on U.S. territory was effectively an invasion. “You will therefore with as little delay as possible repair to the Territory of New Orleans,” the war secretary ordered, “and take upon yourself command of the Troops in that quarter, together with such Militia or Volunteers as you may need for the defence of the country.”
He was being given the chance of war, with overall command. It would enhance his position as commanding general and bring him “fame and honor,” as he acknowledged. At worst, the mere threat of attack might procure a Spanish bribe to keep the peace. At best, it would allow Burr to make his attack on Veracruz and might lead to the seizure of the Mexican silver mines. It should have been the culmination of all Wilkinson’s preparations.
Instead, Dearborn’s letter threw Wilkinson into rage and despair. All he could see was that his enemies had won. This was what Burr had hinted at, and Hunt had predicted. Until that moment Wilkinson had dismissed their reports as groundless. That very month, his confidence had been reinforced by a letter from Samuel Smith passing on Jefferson’s opinion that he could not have made “a fitter appointment” as governor. Now, as Wilkinson told Dearborn, “your letter [has] corrected my delusions.”
The order to leave St. Louis might be dressed up as a military deployment, but to Wilkinson’s eyes, the harsh reality was to force him out of Louisiana. “Bruff, Lucas &c say it is done to get me out of the way to make room for Hammond,” he told Smith. What made it “more afflicting” was the consequent need to move his now seriously ill wife. To Dearborn, he complained that Bruff’s attempt to stir up trouble between “a General in Chief and a Minister of War” and to “draw down unmerited suspicions upon men of purest honor” was tantamount to treason. But to Smith he raged about the worst betrayal of alclass="underline" how could Jefferson have praised him one day and condoned his dismissal the next?