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Speaker 1: Like Apollo thirteen, Thomas Jefferson's Red River expedition into the

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Speaker 1: West was a failure. This is how their story should

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Speaker 1: have gone. I'm Dan Flores, and this is the American West,

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Speaker 1: the river that flowed from nowhere part one years ago,

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Speaker 1: with dogwoods and red buds firing the first boats of

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Speaker 1: color through the drab late winter woods of Virginia. I

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Speaker 1: stood looking westward across the Blue Ridge Mountains on Thomas

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Speaker 1: Jefferson's of Veranda, atop the small mountain where he built

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Speaker 1: his experimental home, Monticello. I just spent an hour touring

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Speaker 1: the home and domestic world of the American president, whose

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Speaker 1: fascination with what lay towards the sunset brought the American

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Speaker 1: West into the country's future. I'd looked with a kind

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Speaker 1: of numb amazement at the bed Jefferson rolled out of

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Speaker 1: as soon as the morning light was strong enough to

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Speaker 1: see the hands on a clock near a writing table

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Speaker 1: where so many graceful sentences tumbled from his mind. But

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Speaker 1: the thing that had riveted me the most was to find,

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Speaker 1: hanging on the west wall appropriately of Monticello's receiving room,

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Speaker 1: a map of the continent, as cartography had understood it

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Speaker 1: two centuries ago. The two rivers Jefferson regarded as the

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Speaker 1: most intriguing rivers of Western destiny, the Missouri of the

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Speaker 1: north and the Red River of the south, were there

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Speaker 1: their confluences, with the Mississippi fixed on the map by

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Speaker 1: mathematical coordinates. By the time he died in eighteen twenty six,

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Speaker 1: Thomas Jefferson felt he knew the Missouri, its course and

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Speaker 1: its marbles. Lewis and Clark had made the Missouri and

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Speaker 1: the Columbia on the other side of the Rockies live

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Speaker 1: in his mind, but the Red his receiving room map,

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Speaker 1: showed the old French city of Nacotash on the Red

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Speaker 1: true enough. Beyond that, this river, he thought of as

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Speaker 1: next to the Missouri, the most interesting water of the West,

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Speaker 1: angled off on this map into blankness, a runless unknown.

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Speaker 1: That featurelessness hadn't been filled in wasn't from lack of trying.

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Speaker 1: As I described an episode seven of The American West

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Speaker 1: with a script called Jefferson's Southwestern Counterpart. To Lewis and Clark,

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Speaker 1: the President's attempt to explore or the Red River was

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Speaker 1: a fully engaged and valiant one, but like the Apollo

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Speaker 1: thirteen mission's failure to reach the Moon through circumstances beyond

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Speaker 1: its control. Equally valiant Spanish opposition to Jefferson's second major

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Speaker 1: probe into the West brought the Red River Expedition to

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Speaker 1: a halt after it journeyed only six hundred and fifteen

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Speaker 1: miles into the Southwest, disappointingly for Western history, especially given

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Speaker 1: the expedition's rather mysterious destination, plus the quality of an

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Speaker 1: expedition leader like Thomas Freeman, who had the training and

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Speaker 1: ability to have brought that world to life. Jefferson's probe

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Speaker 1: ended short of where the real West began, and especially

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Speaker 1: in doctor Peter Custis, Jefferson's twenty five year old naturalists

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Speaker 1: whose medical degree under famous professors at the University of

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Speaker 1: Pennsylvania made him the first America trained scientists ever appointed

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Speaker 1: to a Western exploring party. The Red River Expedition had

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Speaker 1: included a writer who could have given us an account

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Speaker 1: on a par with Meriwether Lewis's Western Journals. Standing there

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Speaker 1: in Jefferson's receiving room, looking up at that map, he

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Speaker 1: must have experienced some regret about more than once I

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Speaker 1: decided I couldn't resist, I knew well that despite at

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Speaker 1: least two other government attempts to find the sources of

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Speaker 1: the Red River, this was a geographic mystery that wasn't

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Speaker 1: finally resolved until three quarters of a century after Jefferson's attempt.

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Speaker 1: In the eighteen seventies, the same decade that Sir Richard

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Speaker 1: Burton tracked the Nile to its sources in Lake Victoria

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Speaker 1: and Darkest Africa, an Army Corps of topographically engineer's officer

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Speaker 1: named Ernest Ruffner finally figured out the Red River long,

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Speaker 1: one of the great geographical riddles of the West.

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Speaker 2: But if the.

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Speaker 1: Outcome of Jefferson's Red River expedition had been different, here

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Speaker 1: is what I think is Naturalist doctor Peter Custis would

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Speaker 1: have told the President an American history about a river

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Speaker 1: and a Western setting, whose full exploration might well have.

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Speaker 2: Made him famous.

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Speaker 1: Peter Custis's Reports on the Upper Red River eighteen oh

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Speaker 1: six eighteen oh seven, Pawnee Villages on the Red River

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Speaker 1: ninety seven degrees thirty seven minutes thirty seconds west of Greenwich,

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Speaker 1: September tenth, eighteen. Dear President Jefferson, obedient to your instructions, Sir,

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Speaker 1: you will have from mister Freeman's hand another description of

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Speaker 1: our ascent of the river to this point, including a

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Speaker 1: fuller account of the diplomatic arrangement entered into by our

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Speaker 1: party and Captain Vianna, who commanded the Spanish force sent

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Speaker 1: out from Texas to arrest our exploration of the river.

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Speaker 1: I will note only mister Freeman's and Captain Sparks's agreement

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Speaker 1: with the Spanish representatives that in our further progress up river,

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Speaker 1: we confine ourselves, sensible to the President's own orders, to

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Speaker 1: an examination of the Red River only and no other

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Speaker 1: major waters flowing from the Mexican Mountains, and per the

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Speaker 1: agreement with Captain Vianna, that we locate our encampments and

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Speaker 1: examine the country only on the north side of the

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Speaker 1: main river until such time as a formal agreement delineating

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Speaker 1: an accepted boundary between the possessions of the King of

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Speaker 1: Spain and those of the United States can be made.

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Speaker 1: Fortunately to this arrangement, thus far in our journey, the

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Speaker 1: country lying to the south of the river has not

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Speaker 1: presented a face materially different from that to the north. Indeed,

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Speaker 1: the most interesting topographical variations we have seen in the

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Speaker 1: extensive meadows that characterize the first thousand miles above the

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Speaker 1: river's mouth have appeared on the north bank, while one

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Speaker 1: division of the Indian village, where we have been encamped

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Speaker 1: since the first instant of the present month, does lie

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Speaker 1: south of the channel. The two larger divisions, including the

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Speaker 1: lodge of Awahkai, the main chief of these peoples, are

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Speaker 1: fixed on the north bank. Our tents, space for which

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Speaker 1: was cleared by the women of these tribes. Contrary to assumption,

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Speaker 1: there are four different, though related peoples in this village,

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Speaker 1: now sit comfortably on a rise of ground well north

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Speaker 1: of the river bed, in part to escape the sandstorms

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Speaker 1: that frequent winds of this region stir up from the channel.

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Speaker 1: Mister Freeman, Captain Sparks, and myself meanwhile were invited into

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Speaker 1: the lodge of the Great Chief, where we want for nothing,

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Speaker 1: agreeably to the orders of the President and mister Dunbar,

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Speaker 1: our advisor in Natches. As with my four previous missives,

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Speaker 1: I've attached a list of species observed, forty one additional

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Speaker 1: botanical observations, and twenty eight new specimens properly dried and

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Speaker 1: packed in a leather cartouche sealed with bear grease for

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Speaker 1: delivery by messenger into mister Dunbar's hands. This accompanies a

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Speaker 1: description of eleven additional trees not found below the place

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Speaker 1: where we treated with the Spaniards. We have surely entered

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Speaker 1: a new and very different country from that of the

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Speaker 1: river below. My measurements, descriptions, and proposed scientific names for

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Speaker 1: several species new to science are also enclosed, although I

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Speaker 1: will take occasion here to mention a few of the

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Speaker 1: more remarkable. From the point where we met the Spanish

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Speaker 1: army to this a distance of three hundred and eighty

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Speaker 1: river miles measured by line, and approximately half that distance

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Speaker 1: in a straight tangent, according to Lieutenant Humphreys' calculations, required

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Speaker 1: a full six weeks travel on the river. While in

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Speaker 1: no wise a challenge approaching that presented by the mazes

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Speaker 1: of the Great Swamp earlier in the summer.

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Speaker 2: This part of the Red River affords its.

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Speaker 1: Own obstacles to navigation, chiefly in the form of low

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Speaker 1: water at this season of the year. On separate occasions,

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Speaker 1: our party were obliged to encamp for multiple days awaiting thunderstorms,

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Speaker 1: which occurred but infrequently in this country, but fortunately discharge

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Speaker 1: astonishing quantities of precipitation when they do in order to

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Speaker 1: raise the level of the river sufficiently to float our barges.

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Speaker 1: Thus did we proceed to this spot, stopping waiting with

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Speaker 1: appreciated opportunities to hunt and botanize, then hurrying upriver with

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Speaker 1: the Freshess the Indian agent and Knakeolish doctor Sibley was

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Speaker 1: undoubtedly correct when he represented the Pawnee villages as the

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Speaker 1: upper limit of navigation on this river. As to the

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Speaker 1: nature of the country, if the river between the head

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Speaker 1: of the great Raft and the bluff where we encountered

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Speaker 1: the Spaniards appeared to me as the paradise of the world,

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Speaker 1: awaiting only our countrymen to claim its fertility, the country

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Speaker 1: sense has presented equally a garden, but of a very

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Speaker 1: different kind. It is not like anything I have seen before,

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Speaker 1: and indeed unlike the descriptions we had received of it,

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Speaker 1: causing me to wonder if it can properly be described

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Speaker 1: by first hand observers to people who have never seen

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Speaker 1: its analog. Its transformation begins almost immediately beyond the point.

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Speaker 2: Where we met the Spanish force.

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Speaker 1: The cause of the gradual change from tall woods to

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Speaker 1: vast open meadows is not yet obvious to me, but

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Speaker 1: direct observation seems to refute the notion expressed in the

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Speaker 1: recent literature that the prairies of the interior of Louisiana

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Speaker 1: are the dried beds of ancient lakes. Nor can the

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Speaker 1: soil be faulted for its fertility, for it is so rich, black,

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Speaker 1: and even greasy to the hand that we followed the

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Speaker 1: hunter's custom of calling this region the black prairies. The

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Speaker 1: first evidence for the alteration appeared two days upriver from

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Speaker 1: our encounter with the Spaniards, when with our catto guide's

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Speaker 1: cut finger and grand Oa sages, mister Freeman and I

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Speaker 1: left the boats under command of Captain Sparks, and ascended

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Speaker 1: out of the sandy margins of the river and the

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Speaker 1: cotton tree bottoms to look over the uplands on the

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Speaker 1: right bank. What immediately demanded attention was that the tree

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Speaker 1: growth of the hills, although composed of many of the

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Speaker 1: same species as those downriver, was here sensibly dwarfed in size.

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Speaker 1: Species of oaks, of which there are several, which were

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Speaker 1: sixty feet high in the vicinity of the raft, here

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Speaker 1: at full maturity, possessed a height of no more than

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Speaker 1: thirty five feet. Nor was this a local phenomenon of soil.

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Speaker 1: For the same dwarfing exit extended to many other common species,

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Speaker 1: and was observed across all the face of the country

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Speaker 1: we traversed. Equally worthy of remark the copses of upland

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Speaker 1: meadows we had seen here and there down river, almost

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Speaker 1: exclusively occupied by an orange hued bunch grass growing to

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Speaker 1: knee height here became much extended, so that woods and

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Speaker 1: meadow began to occupy almost the same balance of ground.

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Speaker 1: No doubt linked to these phenomena, the horizon had now

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Speaker 1: become visible in many places at a distance of a

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Speaker 1: mile or more. I thought this inexplicable transformation might correspond

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Speaker 1: to the slowly rising elevation of the country, as measured

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Speaker 1: by our barometer. A few reinforced when, during a delay

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Speaker 1: incasion by low water, the Indians, our interpreter mister Tellpoone

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Speaker 1: and I had the opportunity to ascend the Kyomichi, a

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Speaker 1: north tributary of the Red River, famous among the hunters

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Speaker 1: for its beaver. On that excursion, two days traveled by Piro,

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Speaker 1: brought us to a piny, mountainous country and eventually to

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Speaker 1: a fine, long Mountain valley that in aspect and elevation

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Speaker 1: so closely resembled the Blue Ridge that my eyes filled

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Speaker 1: for home. The mountains here, however, run east and west

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Speaker 1: rather than north south, and under close examination the similarity

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Speaker 1: is only partial, with much difficulty on account of heat

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Speaker 1: and swarming ticks. We ascended the sandstone and slate Ridges,

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Speaker 1: where the barometers showed an elevation of more than twenty

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Speaker 1: four hundred.

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Speaker 2: Feet above the sea.

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Speaker 1: The view to the north was of immense meadows and

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Speaker 1: set with picturesque peaks, through which flowed a south branch

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Speaker 1: of the Arkansas River. The Keados used the same name

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Speaker 1: for this river and the mountains, Kyo Mitchie. It means

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Speaker 1: horned screamer, and it refers to the cries of the

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Speaker 1: giant woodpeckers, the great ivory bills being particularly numerous here

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Speaker 1: in these mountains, I observed that the vegetation often differed

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Speaker 1: markedly from one side of the ridge to the other.

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Speaker 1: Seeing the heights so thinly clothed with scrubby oaks and

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Speaker 1: specimens of pinus twisted into fantastical shapes, gave me the

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Speaker 1: notion that, as in the Blue Ridge, perhaps it was

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Speaker 1: elevation that was producing the change we were witnessing. In

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Speaker 1: the country above the mouth of the Kyo Michie, we

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Speaker 1: entered a region the hunters called horse prairie, and while

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Speaker 1: cotton trees still flank the margins of the river, we

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Speaker 1: were now in a country where the uplands were composed

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Speaker 1: of prairie almost entire, the only trees away from the

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Speaker 1: river being those found in the declivities of the hills.

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Speaker 2: The country also grew choppier, the crest.

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Speaker 1: Of the hills from one to three miles apart. The

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Speaker 1: tree the Indians used to make their bows full of

217
00:16:25,720 --> 00:16:29,680
Speaker 1: large yellow fruit of a pebbly surface is plenty on

218
00:16:29,800 --> 00:16:31,360
Speaker 1: the margins of these prairies.

219
00:16:32,080 --> 00:16:33,840
Speaker 2: Here I first saw at.

220
00:16:33,760 --> 00:16:38,560
Speaker 1: Great distance a small group of quadruped animals I thought

221
00:16:38,760 --> 00:16:42,880
Speaker 1: goats escaped from a Spanish settlement, But then they turned

222
00:16:42,920 --> 00:16:46,520
Speaker 1: from me and escaped across the prairie, where a rapidity

223
00:16:46,840 --> 00:16:48,320
Speaker 1: only a winged.

224
00:16:48,080 --> 00:16:49,680
Speaker 2: Pagos's goat could have reached.

225
00:16:50,400 --> 00:16:54,600
Speaker 1: This may perhaps be the astonishing creature described by mister

226
00:16:54,720 --> 00:16:59,400
Speaker 1: Laharp and to me by mister Hendry, with the unlikely

227
00:16:59,560 --> 00:17:04,160
Speaker 1: ornamentation of a single horn. We sell these animals several

228
00:17:04,200 --> 00:17:08,720
Speaker 1: more times, always at great distance, rendering me even more

229
00:17:08,760 --> 00:17:12,879
Speaker 1: anxious to resolve their mystery. In these same prairies, at

230
00:17:12,880 --> 00:17:16,760
Speaker 1: about west longitude ninety six degrees, we also met with

231
00:17:16,840 --> 00:17:21,160
Speaker 1: the first of a peculiar species of burrowing squirrels.

232
00:17:21,200 --> 00:17:22,080
Speaker 2: In size, they.

233
00:17:22,000 --> 00:17:24,359
Speaker 1: Are a little different from the fox squirrel, but possess

234
00:17:24,400 --> 00:17:27,359
Speaker 1: a yellowish coat and are equipped with a very short

235
00:17:27,359 --> 00:17:32,560
Speaker 1: tail tipped in black, and reside in extensive underground colonies

236
00:17:32,760 --> 00:17:36,600
Speaker 1: defended by centuries. I give a more precise description of

237
00:17:36,640 --> 00:17:40,440
Speaker 1: the squirrel elsewhere, along with a proposal for a scientific

238
00:17:40,560 --> 00:17:44,040
Speaker 1: name from a specimen I prepared of one mister Freeman,

239
00:17:44,160 --> 00:17:48,879
Speaker 1: collected with an admirable rifle shot. The small owl in

240
00:17:48,960 --> 00:17:52,399
Speaker 1: my collection is from one of these squirrel towns. For

241
00:17:52,480 --> 00:17:56,800
Speaker 1: the two species appear to coexist in the squirrel colonies

242
00:17:57,280 --> 00:18:01,880
Speaker 1: with a species of weasel, a fleet and cunning animal,

243
00:18:02,119 --> 00:18:05,920
Speaker 1: and possessed of a masked face. I have not yet

244
00:18:05,960 --> 00:18:08,840
Speaker 1: been able to collect one, but I am certain it

245
00:18:08,880 --> 00:18:17,359
Speaker 1: is new, as it is not in Linnaeus. The appearance

246
00:18:17,400 --> 00:18:21,320
Speaker 1: of these vast grassy meadows almost constantly dapple, with the

247
00:18:21,359 --> 00:18:25,440
Speaker 1: shadows of clouds floating above them and grazing peacefully upon

248
00:18:25,480 --> 00:18:29,720
Speaker 1: their surfaces. The first small droves of buffaloes and bands

249
00:18:29,720 --> 00:18:33,040
Speaker 1: of wild horses we had seen produced a strange and

250
00:18:33,240 --> 00:18:38,240
Speaker 1: unexpected reaction from almost the entire party. We were filled

251
00:18:38,240 --> 00:18:41,720
Speaker 1: with a sense of euphoria, and had we possessed horses,

252
00:18:41,960 --> 00:18:44,840
Speaker 1: I've no doubt we would have dashed madly away in

253
00:18:44,920 --> 00:18:49,000
Speaker 1: pursuit of distant herds. The President may envision something of

254
00:18:49,040 --> 00:18:52,200
Speaker 1: the appearance of this country from the view he commands

255
00:18:52,240 --> 00:18:56,160
Speaker 1: to the southeast from his mountain home in Albemarle County,

256
00:18:56,520 --> 00:19:00,440
Speaker 1: except that no eminence of any height is required for

257
00:19:00,440 --> 00:19:04,080
Speaker 1: such views. In the country approaching the Pawnee villages on

258
00:19:04,160 --> 00:19:09,120
Speaker 1: the Red River, such views surround one on every side.

259
00:19:09,160 --> 00:19:13,320
Speaker 1: A great salvo of thunderstorms played across the arizon west

260
00:19:13,320 --> 00:19:16,600
Speaker 1: of US as we followed the river through these extensive prairies,

261
00:19:16,640 --> 00:19:20,520
Speaker 1: which affected a steady rise and muddying in the river's waters,

262
00:19:20,640 --> 00:19:25,280
Speaker 1: the tents of which fully illustrate its name. Nonetheless, these

263
00:19:25,400 --> 00:19:30,080
Speaker 1: welcome storms much eased our ascent. By ten August, the

264
00:19:30,160 --> 00:19:33,600
Speaker 1: Black Prairies began to fall behind us, and we entered

265
00:19:33,640 --> 00:19:38,200
Speaker 1: a sandier country, thickly overgrown as far as the eye

266
00:19:38,200 --> 00:19:42,439
Speaker 1: could penetrate, both north and south. Perhaps twenty miles in

267
00:19:42,520 --> 00:19:47,040
Speaker 1: each direction, with dwarfed oaks of several species, and in

268
00:19:47,080 --> 00:19:51,040
Speaker 1: some cases so dense with smilax and other underbrush that

269
00:19:51,119 --> 00:19:55,200
Speaker 1: the woods were impossible to penetrate. This the hunters called

270
00:19:55,520 --> 00:19:59,600
Speaker 1: the first Crosschimbers, for the Red River is bisected by

271
00:19:59,680 --> 00:20:04,200
Speaker 1: two such unruly tangles. I suspected that the sandy soil

272
00:20:04,359 --> 00:20:07,200
Speaker 1: was the cause of this growth, but our French guides,

273
00:20:07,400 --> 00:20:12,480
Speaker 1: mister Grappi and Talipoon, claimed that these oak corridors were

274
00:20:12,520 --> 00:20:16,199
Speaker 1: the result of droppings from the wild pigeon flights that

275
00:20:16,280 --> 00:20:21,000
Speaker 1: were endlessly passing over us at tremendous speeds bound for

276
00:20:21,119 --> 00:20:21,560
Speaker 1: the south.

277
00:20:22,040 --> 00:20:22,480
Speaker 2: Prairie.

278
00:20:22,560 --> 00:20:27,439
Speaker 1: Openings continued to appear, however, and on several occasions Talipoon

279
00:20:27,640 --> 00:20:30,639
Speaker 1: returned with the choice because of a buffalo he had

280
00:20:30,720 --> 00:20:34,919
Speaker 1: killed barely seared over our campfires. This was certainly the

281
00:20:34,960 --> 00:20:44,800
Speaker 1: most sumptuous meat I've ever tasted. By August nineteen we

282
00:20:44,880 --> 00:20:48,640
Speaker 1: emerged from the sandy oak country into a prairie more

283
00:20:48,720 --> 00:20:52,359
Speaker 1: extensive and vast than we have yet seen. The soil

284
00:20:52,720 --> 00:20:57,840
Speaker 1: calcaous rather than loamy black as below, with white limestone

285
00:20:57,960 --> 00:21:02,080
Speaker 1: full of shells exposed in the street beds. Indeed, rather

286
00:21:02,119 --> 00:21:06,520
Speaker 1: than prairie, this country might properly be called, following General

287
00:21:06,560 --> 00:21:10,960
Speaker 1: Wilkinson's map, the Great Plains, or the Grand Prairie.

288
00:21:11,760 --> 00:21:12,919
Speaker 2: Open and elevated.

289
00:21:13,240 --> 00:21:17,320
Speaker 1: It was exceedingly pleasant and more insect free than any

290
00:21:17,400 --> 00:21:21,240
Speaker 1: country in my experience. Among numerous species.

291
00:21:21,320 --> 00:21:23,760
Speaker 2: New to me is a gored I collected.

292
00:21:24,000 --> 00:21:26,600
Speaker 1: I found it growing in all the buffalo wallows that

293
00:21:26,720 --> 00:21:30,880
Speaker 1: indent this plane, so profusely that at the low angles

294
00:21:30,920 --> 00:21:34,960
Speaker 1: of the sun their craters cast a pox of shadows.

295
00:21:34,960 --> 00:21:40,160
Speaker 1: Across the smooth grasslands. We found buffaloes and wild horses,

296
00:21:40,240 --> 00:21:43,600
Speaker 1: and such plenty in this grand prairie that the mind

297
00:21:43,800 --> 00:21:48,680
Speaker 1: cannot grasp their abundance. So too were white wolves, which

298
00:21:48,680 --> 00:21:52,640
Speaker 1: we saw in the hundreds every day, trotting along at

299
00:21:52,640 --> 00:21:55,800
Speaker 1: the heels of the buffaloes, and so tame we began

300
00:21:55,880 --> 00:22:00,760
Speaker 1: to feel we must have been invisible to them, so

301
00:22:00,960 --> 00:22:03,960
Speaker 1: numerous in the vicinity of the great raft are no

302
00:22:04,040 --> 00:22:07,520
Speaker 1: longer found on the Red River where it courses through

303
00:22:07,560 --> 00:22:12,480
Speaker 1: these prairies. Four days before reaching the Pawnee villages, the

304
00:22:12,640 --> 00:22:16,560
Speaker 1: vast plains gave way to another broken country, and once

305
00:22:16,600 --> 00:22:20,760
Speaker 1: again oaks and common cedars overspread the land, but growing

306
00:22:20,920 --> 00:22:24,200
Speaker 1: in more park black fashion here as if the country

307
00:22:24,240 --> 00:22:28,159
Speaker 1: were regularly swept by fires, as indeed the hunters and

308
00:22:28,280 --> 00:22:29,800
Speaker 1: Indian guides assured us.

309
00:22:29,800 --> 00:22:32,120
Speaker 2: It was it was here.

310
00:22:31,960 --> 00:22:36,480
Speaker 1: That I collected the spiny shrub the hunters called mosquite,

311
00:22:36,920 --> 00:22:41,080
Speaker 1: which grows in the declivities, only never on the uplands,

312
00:22:41,320 --> 00:22:44,880
Speaker 1: as it appears to be sensitive to the great prairie

313
00:22:44,960 --> 00:22:49,880
Speaker 1: conflagrations which burn it up. According to Tallapoon, who has

314
00:22:49,960 --> 00:22:53,080
Speaker 1: traveled extensively in the direction of the Spanish settlements to

315
00:22:53,160 --> 00:22:56,800
Speaker 1: the south, it becomes more common and grows to a

316
00:22:56,920 --> 00:22:58,000
Speaker 1: much larger.

317
00:22:57,760 --> 00:23:03,040
Speaker 2: Size farther south eat the bean like seed pods.

318
00:23:08,720 --> 00:23:12,200
Speaker 1: Due to mister Freeman's urgency to reach the Pawnee villages

319
00:23:12,520 --> 00:23:15,879
Speaker 1: so we might continue on to the Mexican mountains in

320
00:23:15,920 --> 00:23:19,399
Speaker 1: the vicinity of Santa Fe. Before winter, I did not

321
00:23:19,600 --> 00:23:23,400
Speaker 1: have sufficient opportunity to study the habits of the buffalo

322
00:23:23,520 --> 00:23:27,639
Speaker 1: and the wild horses, but knowing the President's keen interest

323
00:23:27,800 --> 00:23:32,000
Speaker 1: in the latter particularly, I will seek occasion to do so.

324
00:23:32,760 --> 00:23:36,800
Speaker 1: I do note that bears and lions remain common, that

325
00:23:36,880 --> 00:23:40,800
Speaker 1: the Virginia deer not being hunted much by the Indians

326
00:23:40,880 --> 00:23:45,000
Speaker 1: in Buffalo country are as common and tame as barnyard

327
00:23:45,119 --> 00:23:49,359
Speaker 1: stock round about the Pawnee villages. In addition to the

328
00:23:49,400 --> 00:23:53,720
Speaker 1: white wolves, which on intimate acquaintance are grizzled gray, and

329
00:23:53,840 --> 00:23:57,320
Speaker 1: some even of a black color, there is another wolf

330
00:23:57,640 --> 00:24:01,040
Speaker 1: midway in size between the fox and the white wolf.

331
00:24:01,640 --> 00:24:04,800
Speaker 1: It is more sharply made than the white wolf, rather

332
00:24:04,880 --> 00:24:08,720
Speaker 1: more blond and coloring, and very vocal like its ken,

333
00:24:09,200 --> 00:24:13,919
Speaker 1: but replaces the large wolf's mournful howls with barks and

334
00:24:14,080 --> 00:24:18,080
Speaker 1: yips of great variety. I am sending along a skin

335
00:24:18,359 --> 00:24:25,119
Speaker 1: and skull. I have named it Canus Ludovisianus. One final

336
00:24:25,200 --> 00:24:29,359
Speaker 1: observation about the country bee trees and the honey bee,

337
00:24:29,680 --> 00:24:34,119
Speaker 1: which the Indians call white man's fly, do not now

338
00:24:34,160 --> 00:24:38,959
Speaker 1: occur past about ninety seven degrees west, but our Catto

339
00:24:39,119 --> 00:24:43,720
Speaker 1: guides say they find them farther up river every year.

340
00:24:45,800 --> 00:24:49,520
Speaker 1: On account of emissaries sent in advance of us by

341
00:24:49,880 --> 00:24:54,320
Speaker 1: de Heehuit, the great Catto chief, to apprize the Pawnees

342
00:24:54,400 --> 00:24:58,920
Speaker 1: of our mission, our arrival here was expected and greeted

343
00:24:59,000 --> 00:25:03,679
Speaker 1: warmly by the Pawnee chief Owaha Kai, whose name means

344
00:25:03,920 --> 00:25:08,600
Speaker 1: great bear. Mister Freeman will offer the presidential eye a

345
00:25:08,640 --> 00:25:12,520
Speaker 1: fulsome account of his speech to the assembled Pawnees, informing

346
00:25:12,600 --> 00:25:16,480
Speaker 1: them they were now children of the U States, expressing

347
00:25:16,520 --> 00:25:20,680
Speaker 1: our desire for trade relations, distributing gifts from our stores

348
00:25:20,960 --> 00:25:25,680
Speaker 1: for this purpose, and presenting Owahakai a US flag, which

349
00:25:25,680 --> 00:25:30,600
Speaker 1: he wrapped around his person then hoisted above his village.

350
00:25:30,680 --> 00:25:34,720
Speaker 1: After some haggling, he agreed to trade US sufficient horses

351
00:25:35,040 --> 00:25:38,160
Speaker 1: for twenty four of us to continue our journey up river,

352
00:25:38,640 --> 00:25:44,080
Speaker 1: for which we embark tomorrow, September eleventh, accompanied by Tallapoon

353
00:25:44,560 --> 00:25:49,359
Speaker 1: and three Pawnees. Captain Sparks has now appointed Corporals Reid

354
00:25:49,520 --> 00:25:53,400
Speaker 1: and Osborne, with two more enlisted men to remain at

355
00:25:53,400 --> 00:25:56,480
Speaker 1: the Pawnee villages to guard one of the flatboats and

356
00:25:56,680 --> 00:26:00,240
Speaker 1: three p ros our party will use to descend the

357
00:26:00,320 --> 00:26:04,040
Speaker 1: river when we return from its exploration. The rest of

358
00:26:04,080 --> 00:26:08,440
Speaker 1: the party, twenty two in number and commanded by Lieutenant Humphreys,

359
00:26:08,720 --> 00:26:12,919
Speaker 1: will set out downriver tomorrow in the other large flatboat

360
00:26:13,160 --> 00:26:13,879
Speaker 1: and piros.

361
00:26:19,760 --> 00:26:21,720
Speaker 2: Obedient to the President's instructions.

362
00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:25,640
Speaker 1: In our short stay, I have attempted a Pawnee vocabulary,

363
00:26:26,080 --> 00:26:29,920
Speaker 1: several words of which appear similar to those of the caddos.

364
00:26:30,640 --> 00:26:34,639
Speaker 1: A young Pawnee woman she Dee, a remarkable for her

365
00:26:34,680 --> 00:26:38,879
Speaker 1: address and intelligence, was my principal informant in this and

366
00:26:39,040 --> 00:26:39,920
Speaker 1: other endeavors.

367
00:26:40,560 --> 00:26:41,560
Speaker 2: Her name is that.

368
00:26:41,760 --> 00:26:44,640
Speaker 1: Of one of the common shrubs in this vast country

369
00:26:45,000 --> 00:26:50,280
Speaker 1: and means wild sage. The Pawnees, some of whom call

370
00:26:50,400 --> 00:26:59,000
Speaker 1: themselves Iskanis, others Taioves, others Oahes, and still others Wishatas,

371
00:26:59,600 --> 00:27:04,120
Speaker 1: are a guiling and handsome people, numbering about four hundred,

372
00:27:04,720 --> 00:27:08,840
Speaker 1: now greatly reduced by the smallpox. They came to this

373
00:27:09,040 --> 00:27:12,040
Speaker 1: fine spot on the river within the memories of some

374
00:27:12,119 --> 00:27:15,359
Speaker 1: of those still living, and say they formerly lived on

375
00:27:15,480 --> 00:27:19,679
Speaker 1: rivers to the north, including the Arkansas and new white

376
00:27:19,720 --> 00:27:25,240
Speaker 1: men there many generations ago. Several Spaniards raised from childhood

377
00:27:25,240 --> 00:27:30,000
Speaker 1: as Indians, reside among them, and on inquiry said they

378
00:27:30,160 --> 00:27:34,640
Speaker 1: wished no other life. At a distance, their houses resemble

379
00:27:34,720 --> 00:27:37,919
Speaker 1: those of the Caddos, but are constructed on a different

380
00:27:37,960 --> 00:27:42,040
Speaker 1: plan and include space inside for their best horses, on

381
00:27:42,119 --> 00:27:45,920
Speaker 1: account of frequent attacks on their villages by the Osages.

382
00:27:46,840 --> 00:27:51,160
Speaker 1: Like the Caddoes, their women grow maize, squashes and beans

383
00:27:51,240 --> 00:27:55,440
Speaker 1: of various sorts, also melons, which they raised in sufficient

384
00:27:55,520 --> 00:27:59,840
Speaker 1: quantities to store and to trade with the nomadic ait

385
00:28:00,680 --> 00:28:04,720
Speaker 1: are coumench as some call them, for products of the chase.

386
00:28:05,520 --> 00:28:10,800
Speaker 1: The Pawnees themselves generally only hunt buffalo extensively in the winter,

387
00:28:11,240 --> 00:28:15,080
Speaker 1: when they desert their villages for the purpose. They are

388
00:28:15,119 --> 00:28:19,600
Speaker 1: a generous people in every respect. One example will suffice.

389
00:28:20,200 --> 00:28:23,800
Speaker 1: The women of the villages were much taken with Samson,

390
00:28:24,160 --> 00:28:27,879
Speaker 1: my black man. They said they were long familiar with

391
00:28:28,280 --> 00:28:31,560
Speaker 1: the black white man, as they called him, some of

392
00:28:31,560 --> 00:28:35,200
Speaker 1: whom had lived with them in the past. They exhorted him,

393
00:28:35,520 --> 00:28:38,960
Speaker 1: and indeed not him alone, to sport with them and

394
00:28:39,080 --> 00:28:42,840
Speaker 1: their green corn dance and their gaming, which goes on

395
00:28:43,040 --> 00:28:47,280
Speaker 1: nearly every night. He did so with such enthusiasm that

396
00:28:47,360 --> 00:28:51,440
Speaker 1: he caused mister Friedman a certain anxiety. Yet none of

397
00:28:51,480 --> 00:28:55,960
Speaker 1: their husbands uttered a word of reproach. As I wrote

398
00:28:56,040 --> 00:28:59,440
Speaker 1: the above, sitting outside my tent with a fine view

399
00:28:59,560 --> 00:29:05,000
Speaker 1: across the yellow grasslands, which form overlapping horizontal plains into

400
00:29:05,040 --> 00:29:10,040
Speaker 1: the distance, a Pawnee warrior named Tatasunk, a fair Spaniard

401
00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:14,480
Speaker 1: captured as a child and raised to adulthood as a Pawnee,

402
00:29:14,920 --> 00:29:19,240
Speaker 1: says he confirmed to mister Freeman that the Spanish force

403
00:29:19,440 --> 00:29:24,320
Speaker 1: dispatched from Santa fe under command of a man named Melgaris,

404
00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:28,920
Speaker 1: is still upon the prairies. He says also that the

405
00:29:29,040 --> 00:29:32,760
Speaker 1: river we are exploring forks, but while the right fork

406
00:29:32,840 --> 00:29:36,280
Speaker 1: will take us to rocky mountains, it will not take

407
00:29:36,360 --> 00:29:40,000
Speaker 1: us near Santa Fe. He says that the left fork

408
00:29:40,120 --> 00:29:43,680
Speaker 1: is longer, but reaches a place known to Indians and

409
00:29:43,760 --> 00:29:47,120
Speaker 1: Spaniards as El Jano Estacado.

410
00:29:47,960 --> 00:29:49,880
Speaker 2: He says, this last is a.

411
00:29:49,840 --> 00:29:54,520
Speaker 1: Very dangerous place to the unwary or unlucky, a place,

412
00:29:54,800 --> 00:30:00,440
Speaker 1: he says, that can confound and confuse your obedience. Servant

413
00:30:00,840 --> 00:30:17,560
Speaker 1: Peter Custis, January fifteenth, eighteen oh seven, Nakatish doctor Sibley's home,

414
00:30:18,920 --> 00:30:20,880
Speaker 1: my dear President Jefferson.

415
00:30:22,200 --> 00:30:24,600
Speaker 2: While my letter of appointment instructed me.

416
00:30:24,600 --> 00:30:28,640
Speaker 1: To convey specimens and scientific data to Secretary of Ward,

417
00:30:28,680 --> 00:30:33,200
Speaker 1: dearborn Sir, and I attend no disrespect to him. I

418
00:30:33,240 --> 00:30:37,240
Speaker 1: am aware that the contents of my accounts are intended

419
00:30:37,640 --> 00:30:41,720
Speaker 1: ultimately for the presidential eye, so I will direct my

420
00:30:41,760 --> 00:30:46,120
Speaker 1: remarks most specifically to your concerns, mister President, so you

421
00:30:46,200 --> 00:30:50,080
Speaker 1: may understand fully the nature of the country we have explored,

422
00:30:50,480 --> 00:30:54,240
Speaker 1: as well as the circumstances about the decision for the

423
00:30:54,400 --> 00:30:58,720
Speaker 1: root mister Freeman concluded, we should follow to perform a

424
00:30:58,840 --> 00:31:03,600
Speaker 1: correct mapping of the Red River and the bounds of Louisiana.

425
00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:08,480
Speaker 1: I inquire of your health, sir, as always as well

426
00:31:08,480 --> 00:31:12,400
Speaker 1: as that of my old friend mister Lewis. Doctor Sibley

427
00:31:12,480 --> 00:31:15,560
Speaker 1: tells me that his voyage on the Missouri in Columbia

428
00:31:15,920 --> 00:31:18,720
Speaker 1: has been an entire success, and that he.

429
00:31:18,800 --> 00:31:20,240
Speaker 2: Is the toast of Washington.

430
00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:24,600
Speaker 1: I beseech you, also, sir, to assure my family of

431
00:31:24,680 --> 00:31:28,120
Speaker 1: my safety. Doctor Sibley has told me of the false

432
00:31:28,200 --> 00:31:31,760
Speaker 1: accounts of our fate in the New Orleans papers, which

433
00:31:31,800 --> 00:31:36,760
Speaker 1: I fear may have found their way to Charlottesville. You

434
00:31:36,760 --> 00:31:41,080
Speaker 1: will learn from mister Freeman's report the chronology of our

435
00:31:41,160 --> 00:31:44,959
Speaker 1: exploration to the source of the river, his success in

436
00:31:45,080 --> 00:31:49,000
Speaker 1: delivering your message to the Indians respecting our wish for

437
00:31:49,120 --> 00:31:53,400
Speaker 1: peace and trade, and the transfer of their allegiance to us.

438
00:31:54,080 --> 00:31:55,520
Speaker 2: Mister Freeman has given me to.

439
00:31:55,560 --> 00:32:00,920
Speaker 1: Understand in very confidential terms, your certain disappointed that the

440
00:32:00,960 --> 00:32:06,160
Speaker 1: Red River does not access Santa Fe the Mexican Mountains,

441
00:32:06,200 --> 00:32:11,080
Speaker 1: and the possibilities thereof my account of our journey from

442
00:32:11,160 --> 00:32:13,880
Speaker 1: the Pawnee villages to the head sources of the Red

443
00:32:13,960 --> 00:32:21,960
Speaker 1: River with a brief notice of our return to Nacotish follows.

444
00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:29,920
Speaker 1: We left the Pawnee villages on September the eleventh, eighteen

445
00:32:29,960 --> 00:32:33,800
Speaker 1: oh six, at daybreak. The parties selected to penetrate to

446
00:32:33,840 --> 00:32:37,400
Speaker 1: the remotest sources of the river, consisting of twenty three

447
00:32:37,440 --> 00:32:41,320
Speaker 1: citizens of the United States, my black Man, and three

448
00:32:41,320 --> 00:32:45,960
Speaker 1: Indian guides. Our cavy, a word the hunters use to

449
00:32:46,040 --> 00:32:49,920
Speaker 1: refer to a party's drove of horses, consisted of thirty

450
00:32:49,960 --> 00:32:53,520
Speaker 1: seven riding horses and mules, which were employed to pack

451
00:32:53,600 --> 00:32:58,480
Speaker 1: our scientific instruments, collections and presents and flags for the

452
00:32:58,560 --> 00:33:02,640
Speaker 1: tribes of river. We left the scattered oak woods the

453
00:33:02,720 --> 00:33:06,480
Speaker 1: first day and soon entered a country that for vastness

454
00:33:06,560 --> 00:33:10,040
Speaker 1: and desolation. I took then to be the equal of

455
00:33:10,160 --> 00:33:14,920
Speaker 1: any on Earth. Many days at a stretch passed with

456
00:33:15,120 --> 00:33:19,480
Speaker 1: no precipitation of any sort, and the sky an immense

457
00:33:19,640 --> 00:33:21,040
Speaker 1: inverted blue.

458
00:33:20,760 --> 00:33:22,240
Speaker 2: Bowl over our heads.

459
00:33:22,680 --> 00:33:26,720
Speaker 1: The sun was harsh, the light exceedingly bright to the eye,

460
00:33:27,120 --> 00:33:31,040
Speaker 1: and the yellow grasses began to mimic the dwarfing we

461
00:33:31,120 --> 00:33:35,440
Speaker 1: had early observed in tree growth. I attempted my first

462
00:33:35,480 --> 00:33:39,400
Speaker 1: images with the camera obscura of this region. They will

463
00:33:39,440 --> 00:33:43,760
Speaker 1: show the presidential eye a land rolling away like gentle

464
00:33:43,840 --> 00:33:49,520
Speaker 1: ocean waves in every direction from our tiny party, consistently

465
00:33:49,560 --> 00:33:52,800
Speaker 1: away from the river. The effect of such travel was

466
00:33:52,880 --> 00:33:57,000
Speaker 1: to surmount the wave press before us, with the expectation

467
00:33:57,160 --> 00:34:02,479
Speaker 1: of having achieved an overlook, only to find another higher

468
00:34:02,600 --> 00:34:07,360
Speaker 1: crest directly ahead. Species new to science in this region

469
00:34:07,440 --> 00:34:11,200
Speaker 1: included a wild chicken different from the grouse of the

470
00:34:11,239 --> 00:34:15,719
Speaker 1: Eastern States, and the prairie goat I saw distantly in

471
00:34:15,800 --> 00:34:19,080
Speaker 1: the prairie short of the Pawnee villages, but did not

472
00:34:19,320 --> 00:34:23,279
Speaker 1: collect there. I now believed this animal to be an

473
00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:28,920
Speaker 1: antelope or gazelle, similar to those of Africa, and found

474
00:34:29,080 --> 00:34:33,399
Speaker 1: in great numbers in a part of Louisiana that resembles

475
00:34:33,520 --> 00:34:38,319
Speaker 1: Africa south of the Sahara. It is an exceedingly actively

476
00:34:38,360 --> 00:34:43,240
Speaker 1: made creature, remarkably light or frame, and with bulging eyes,

477
00:34:43,280 --> 00:34:47,400
Speaker 1: made for seeing across these great distances. Both males and

478
00:34:47,440 --> 00:34:52,719
Speaker 1: females possessed true horns, not antlers, which they shed. We

479
00:34:52,800 --> 00:34:57,919
Speaker 1: saw no specimen with the single horn described by our informants,

480
00:34:58,280 --> 00:35:03,560
Speaker 1: nor do we believe such variation exists. Herds of elk

481
00:35:03,640 --> 00:35:07,920
Speaker 1: and troves of wild horses also inhabit this wild, desolate country.

482
00:35:08,760 --> 00:35:12,680
Speaker 1: We saw regularly used Indian trails along the river, but

483
00:35:12,960 --> 00:35:16,200
Speaker 1: far more common were the paths of the buffalo and

484
00:35:16,280 --> 00:35:20,960
Speaker 1: wild horses, which so crisscrossed the river's embankments and the

485
00:35:21,000 --> 00:35:24,799
Speaker 1: sparsely grassed uplands as to give it at first impression

486
00:35:25,200 --> 00:35:29,319
Speaker 1: that of a thickly settled and inhabited region. On our

487
00:35:29,440 --> 00:35:33,520
Speaker 1: outward track, however, we saw but few buffalo here, although

488
00:35:33,560 --> 00:35:47,680
Speaker 1: their droppings and skeletal remains abounded. Four days after leaving

489
00:35:47,719 --> 00:35:51,440
Speaker 1: the Pawnee villages, we began to see the blue profile

490
00:35:51,600 --> 00:35:55,239
Speaker 1: of mountains some distance to the north, and on the

491
00:35:55,280 --> 00:35:58,480
Speaker 1: morning of the sixth day we met with the great

492
00:35:58,640 --> 00:36:02,680
Speaker 1: forking of the Upper Red In truth, there are three

493
00:36:02,880 --> 00:36:07,720
Speaker 1: forks altogether, a considerable stream bed with but little water,

494
00:36:07,960 --> 00:36:12,200
Speaker 1: entering from the southwest, followed ten miles up river by

495
00:36:12,239 --> 00:36:16,640
Speaker 1: a division in the main stream, the smaller fork flowing

496
00:36:16,719 --> 00:36:21,440
Speaker 1: a wholesome, clear water down from the mountains now closer

497
00:36:21,480 --> 00:36:25,640
Speaker 1: in view, whilst the widest of the three beds presented

498
00:36:25,920 --> 00:36:30,560
Speaker 1: the coiling swipe of a sandy stream disappearing into the

499
00:36:30,600 --> 00:36:36,200
Speaker 1: plain directly westward. We name these rivers the Dearborn, the

500
00:36:36,320 --> 00:36:41,360
Speaker 1: Jefferson and the Dunbar in honor of our expedition's sponsors.

501
00:36:42,719 --> 00:36:46,080
Speaker 1: Mister Freeman's account will explain at length the reasons behind

502
00:36:46,360 --> 00:36:50,320
Speaker 1: our decision to explore only two of these, the main

503
00:36:50,600 --> 00:36:54,919
Speaker 1: or Jefferson Fork to its source, while attempting an examination

504
00:36:55,120 --> 00:36:59,800
Speaker 1: of the Interesting Mountain or Dunbar Fork on our return journey.

505
00:37:00,880 --> 00:37:05,000
Speaker 1: Mister Freeman had employed the Pawnee Tatasuck as our chief

506
00:37:05,080 --> 00:37:09,480
Speaker 1: guide into this unknown region, for mister Tellipoon had only

507
00:37:09,680 --> 00:37:13,720
Speaker 1: vague and second hand knowledge of it. With Tatasuck riding

508
00:37:13,800 --> 00:37:17,399
Speaker 1: with mister Freeman on our point on the twentieth day

509
00:37:17,520 --> 00:37:21,640
Speaker 1: of September eighteen oh six, we directed our horses up

510
00:37:21,680 --> 00:37:26,200
Speaker 1: the Jefferson Fork and proceeded on. This followed one of

511
00:37:26,239 --> 00:37:29,160
Speaker 1: the great storms we met with in this country, on

512
00:37:29,239 --> 00:37:32,640
Speaker 1: a day that began entirely clear, but by noon had

513
00:37:32,680 --> 00:37:37,160
Speaker 1: produced directly before us a columnar cloud climbing ever higher

514
00:37:37,280 --> 00:37:40,840
Speaker 1: above our heads, which by four PM had spread into

515
00:37:40,880 --> 00:37:45,800
Speaker 1: the dark shape of a smithy's anvil. Its tumult commenced

516
00:37:45,800 --> 00:37:49,560
Speaker 1: with bolts of lightning that struck the prairie in plane

517
00:37:49,680 --> 00:37:53,600
Speaker 1: view and threw geysers of mud and rock and grass.

518
00:37:53,680 --> 00:37:57,040
Speaker 1: One hundred feet into the air. This was followed by

519
00:37:57,239 --> 00:38:01,200
Speaker 1: rain and blinding sheets, and was so fury of wind

520
00:38:01,520 --> 00:38:04,200
Speaker 1: that we were obliged to pull our horses to the

521
00:38:04,239 --> 00:38:08,160
Speaker 1: ground and lie beside them. Yet this was but prelude

522
00:38:08,520 --> 00:38:12,480
Speaker 1: to the pummeling we received from stones of hail the

523
00:38:12,520 --> 00:38:17,600
Speaker 1: size of hen's eggs, which fell about us like artillery. Ultimately,

524
00:38:17,640 --> 00:38:21,480
Speaker 1: the storm stampeded our cavey, which required most of the

525
00:38:21,600 --> 00:38:26,000
Speaker 1: day following to gather. Yet within an hour of starting,

526
00:38:26,360 --> 00:38:29,799
Speaker 1: the storm passed and the sun came out, showing a

527
00:38:29,840 --> 00:38:35,520
Speaker 1: country glistening white with hailstones. The storms of this country

528
00:38:35,600 --> 00:38:46,000
Speaker 1: appear fully the equal of the vastness of its scale.

529
00:38:46,040 --> 00:38:49,240
Speaker 1: We travel for almost a week through this sandy desert,

530
00:38:49,640 --> 00:38:54,000
Speaker 1: inhabited principally by the burrowing squirrel, and vegetated in place

531
00:38:54,080 --> 00:38:57,799
Speaker 1: by grown oaks, now reaching only to the height of

532
00:38:57,880 --> 00:39:02,960
Speaker 1: the knee, also inly by kinds of cactus. Here we

533
00:39:03,120 --> 00:39:07,680
Speaker 1: encountered the large crested cuckoo, which the Indians call snake

534
00:39:07,760 --> 00:39:12,160
Speaker 1: bird for its skill and killing rattlesnakes. It secures them

535
00:39:12,239 --> 00:39:14,800
Speaker 1: behind the head with a rapid dart of the beak

536
00:39:15,160 --> 00:39:19,880
Speaker 1: and smashes the head on rocks. Till the serpent lies senseless.

537
00:39:20,480 --> 00:39:25,680
Speaker 1: On the autumnal equinox, a line of mountains rose pretentiously

538
00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:29,520
Speaker 1: in our path to the west, appearing at first like

539
00:39:29,600 --> 00:39:34,520
Speaker 1: a low stratum of blue clouds before us. I say line,

540
00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:38,680
Speaker 1: because from the distance which we thought very near, but

541
00:39:38,800 --> 00:39:43,120
Speaker 1: that required two long days to cross, a frequent miscalculation

542
00:39:43,320 --> 00:39:47,640
Speaker 1: in all this upriver region. Owing to the extreme transparency

543
00:39:47,640 --> 00:39:53,040
Speaker 1: of the atmosphere, these mountains appeared to constitute an almost

544
00:39:53,400 --> 00:39:59,280
Speaker 1: uniformly horizontal summit, with but few peaks visible, and others

545
00:39:59,400 --> 00:40:04,080
Speaker 1: of an o block shape. To our discomfort. As we

546
00:40:04,200 --> 00:40:07,120
Speaker 1: neared this line of mountains, the water in the river,

547
00:40:07,520 --> 00:40:11,880
Speaker 1: though clear, assumed a taste so salty and so liable

548
00:40:11,960 --> 00:40:14,719
Speaker 1: to expand in the mouth, that it was with difficulty

549
00:40:14,719 --> 00:40:17,280
Speaker 1: that we drank of it, and I was kept busy

550
00:40:17,400 --> 00:40:21,719
Speaker 1: treating the men for the cramping. These indeed may be

551
00:40:21,960 --> 00:40:26,560
Speaker 1: the salt mountains about which the President has been so curious.

552
00:40:27,560 --> 00:40:31,040
Speaker 1: We now entered a country much gashed and torn, where

553
00:40:31,080 --> 00:40:34,280
Speaker 1: the soil was red as blood like the red beds

554
00:40:34,280 --> 00:40:39,240
Speaker 1: of Georgia, and crystallized spider webs of salt, most often

555
00:40:39,320 --> 00:40:43,880
Speaker 1: laid in horizontal strata, were exposed in an array of

556
00:40:44,040 --> 00:40:46,520
Speaker 1: striking patterns in the tributaries.

557
00:40:47,160 --> 00:40:48,840
Speaker 2: Wild horses were here.

558
00:40:49,160 --> 00:40:53,960
Speaker 1: Extremely abundant, and repeatedly we were forced to rout the stallions,

559
00:40:54,239 --> 00:40:58,600
Speaker 1: which sought to toll away our remounts. Here too, a

560
00:40:58,760 --> 00:41:02,759
Speaker 1: new kind of deer made its appearance, different from the

561
00:41:02,880 --> 00:41:07,720
Speaker 1: common deer in several particulars, among them its black tipped

562
00:41:07,800 --> 00:41:12,520
Speaker 1: tail and mew like ears, but most readily in its gait,

563
00:41:12,960 --> 00:41:16,840
Speaker 1: hence our name for it hopping deer, as if it

564
00:41:16,880 --> 00:41:20,640
Speaker 1: presented a kind of general template. There was also a

565
00:41:20,800 --> 00:41:24,960
Speaker 1: large hair that differed from the familiar kind, not just

566
00:41:25,080 --> 00:41:29,760
Speaker 1: in size, but in a black tail and remarkably long ears.

567
00:41:30,480 --> 00:41:34,799
Speaker 1: Tatasuk said there were times when the hares swarmed the

568
00:41:35,000 --> 00:41:40,040
Speaker 1: entire country, so many they rivaled the buffalo. All the while,

569
00:41:40,280 --> 00:41:46,160
Speaker 1: the strange mountains loomed before us, assuming forms and shapes

570
00:41:46,280 --> 00:41:49,120
Speaker 1: such as I have never seen in the art of

571
00:41:49,239 --> 00:41:53,719
Speaker 1: Rosa or Turner or anyone else. Some agreed that these

572
00:41:53,840 --> 00:41:59,080
Speaker 1: bizarre and unprecedented forms carved from rock layers of the mountains,

573
00:42:00,520 --> 00:42:04,840
Speaker 1: the turrets, towers and porticos of castles on the rhine.

574
00:42:05,360 --> 00:42:09,120
Speaker 1: Others with some familiarity with the Orient thought they must

575
00:42:09,160 --> 00:42:12,920
Speaker 1: have been built by the same hands that constructed the

576
00:42:12,960 --> 00:42:15,120
Speaker 1: towers of Constantinople.

577
00:42:24,640 --> 00:42:26,799
Speaker 2: So, Dan, in this episode, you give us a.

578
00:42:28,560 --> 00:42:35,080
Speaker 3: Counterfactual account of the Freeman and Custis Custis expedition, which

579
00:42:35,080 --> 00:42:41,960
Speaker 3: we talked about in a earlier episode. And I want

580
00:42:42,000 --> 00:42:47,640
Speaker 3: to begin by just asking you how much of this

581
00:42:49,160 --> 00:42:52,600
Speaker 3: draws from your imagination and how much of this draws

582
00:42:52,640 --> 00:42:58,200
Speaker 3: from the evidence? Right, what if you were to sort

583
00:42:58,200 --> 00:43:01,880
Speaker 3: of go through line by line or page page how

584
00:43:01,960 --> 00:43:05,160
Speaker 3: much there was there and how much there came from

585
00:43:05,160 --> 00:43:05,799
Speaker 3: somewhere else.

586
00:43:07,160 --> 00:43:11,319
Speaker 1: Well, you know, like probably I haven't written a lot

587
00:43:11,360 --> 00:43:15,360
Speaker 1: of fiction. I've written a little bit. Probably like most

588
00:43:15,440 --> 00:43:22,520
Speaker 1: people who write fiction, historical fiction particularly, you actually do

589
00:43:22,560 --> 00:43:29,840
Speaker 1: a lot of research. And because I knew this expedition, well,

590
00:43:29,880 --> 00:43:33,319
Speaker 1: because I wrote the only major book that exists on it,

591
00:43:33,760 --> 00:43:38,400
Speaker 1: and I read a lot of the accounts that both

592
00:43:38,680 --> 00:43:43,000
Speaker 1: Thomas Freeman and Peter Custis assembled for the Peace of

593
00:43:43,040 --> 00:43:47,479
Speaker 1: the River that they actually did yet to explore. One

594
00:43:47,520 --> 00:43:50,840
Speaker 1: thing I can say is that I think I'm probably

595
00:43:50,880 --> 00:43:55,960
Speaker 1: pretty close to the tone and the writing style that

596
00:43:56,040 --> 00:44:00,400
Speaker 1: Peter Custis brought to these submissions that he made to

597
00:44:00,480 --> 00:44:04,000
Speaker 1: the government and on the expedition before it was stopped

598
00:44:04,040 --> 00:44:07,239
Speaker 1: by Spain in the summer of eighteen oh six. He

599
00:44:07,400 --> 00:44:12,359
Speaker 1: submitted four of these reports. And so what I had

600
00:44:12,400 --> 00:44:17,560
Speaker 1: in mind for the counterfactual version, Okay, I'm going to

601
00:44:17,680 --> 00:44:22,319
Speaker 1: invent an excuse to allow them to keep going, and

602
00:44:22,400 --> 00:44:24,800
Speaker 1: so I'm going to let him continue to do exactly

603
00:44:24,880 --> 00:44:27,680
Speaker 1: the same thing. Custis is going to submit two more

604
00:44:27,719 --> 00:44:30,560
Speaker 1: major reports about what the river is like as they

605
00:44:30,600 --> 00:44:33,920
Speaker 1: explore onto the sources of it. And then the other

606
00:44:34,000 --> 00:44:40,040
Speaker 1: thing I would say, of course, is that many of

607
00:44:40,080 --> 00:44:45,680
Speaker 1: the people mentioned here, the names of individual people are

608
00:44:45,719 --> 00:44:50,960
Speaker 1: all directly out of history. In the second part of this,

609
00:44:51,080 --> 00:44:56,759
Speaker 1: when we get farther west among the Comanches, I used

610
00:44:56,760 --> 00:45:00,400
Speaker 1: the names of Comanche leaders who existed at the time.

611
00:45:00,719 --> 00:45:03,120
Speaker 1: And the reason I know all this is because I've

612
00:45:03,480 --> 00:45:07,200
Speaker 1: done enough research and written sort of all around this

613
00:45:07,840 --> 00:45:12,759
Speaker 1: kind of story that I knew from the moment I

614
00:45:12,760 --> 00:45:15,359
Speaker 1: sat down to write this, who the people were who

615
00:45:15,360 --> 00:45:19,520
Speaker 1: were out there, who Freeman and Custis would be encountering

616
00:45:19,920 --> 00:45:21,439
Speaker 1: that Pawnee.

617
00:45:21,000 --> 00:45:23,640
Speaker 2: Leader a Waja Kai. He's a real guy.

618
00:45:24,120 --> 00:45:27,040
Speaker 1: The young woman who is going to help him with

619
00:45:27,120 --> 00:45:30,959
Speaker 1: the Pawnee vocabulary, she's a real person. The guy who

620
00:45:31,400 --> 00:45:34,720
Speaker 1: the Spanish kid who's raised as an Indian, who guides

621
00:45:34,800 --> 00:45:38,319
Speaker 1: them further west Tattasuck. He's a real person. These are

622
00:45:38,360 --> 00:45:41,240
Speaker 1: all people that I know about from having done research

623
00:45:41,280 --> 00:45:43,160
Speaker 1: about this part of the world. And then I'll add

624
00:45:43,200 --> 00:45:46,239
Speaker 1: one other thing to this, and this is probably going

625
00:45:46,320 --> 00:45:49,240
Speaker 1: to be more Germane when we get to the second

626
00:45:49,360 --> 00:45:53,160
Speaker 1: half of the story of this adventure that I'm sending

627
00:45:53,239 --> 00:45:58,280
Speaker 1: them on. I spent quite a number of years living

628
00:45:58,480 --> 00:46:01,520
Speaker 1: in the part of the world where Freemont and Custious

629
00:46:01,520 --> 00:46:05,960
Speaker 1: are going to end up going, and I wrote two

630
00:46:06,000 --> 00:46:07,920
Speaker 1: books about that part of the world, one of them

631
00:46:07,920 --> 00:46:11,280
Speaker 1: which was about all the canyon country that was out there,

632
00:46:11,320 --> 00:46:15,440
Speaker 1: and almost every one of which I explored on foot

633
00:46:15,520 --> 00:46:19,160
Speaker 1: and camped out in. And so it's also the story

634
00:46:19,239 --> 00:46:22,799
Speaker 1: is also informed by the fact that where I have

635
00:46:23,040 --> 00:46:26,040
Speaker 1: them going, and they are going to be going to

636
00:46:26,080 --> 00:46:29,120
Speaker 1: the very logical places that they would have gone had

637
00:46:29,160 --> 00:46:33,920
Speaker 1: they actually continued on. I've been there and hiked and

638
00:46:34,000 --> 00:46:40,640
Speaker 1: camped and climbed in past years. So it's a pretty

639
00:46:40,920 --> 00:46:44,520
Speaker 1: well informed counterfactory story.

640
00:46:45,800 --> 00:46:49,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, you didn't take crazy liberties with what happened to

641
00:46:49,239 --> 00:46:50,040
Speaker 3: them along the way.

642
00:46:50,080 --> 00:46:52,440
Speaker 2: It's sort of a pretty straightforward.

643
00:46:54,760 --> 00:46:57,680
Speaker 3: You know, I was curious because I don't know that

644
00:46:57,719 --> 00:47:03,359
Speaker 3: we discussed this in the prior episode that covered their expedition.

645
00:47:03,520 --> 00:47:06,760
Speaker 3: But you obviously wrote a book on Freeman and Custis,

646
00:47:06,800 --> 00:47:12,600
Speaker 3: but in this episode you're writing from the perspective of

647
00:47:12,920 --> 00:47:18,520
Speaker 3: Peter Custis, and I wonder how well you know him

648
00:47:19,600 --> 00:47:24,040
Speaker 3: in that, And I guess to better explain myself.

649
00:47:24,600 --> 00:47:25,880
Speaker 2: So much of what we.

650
00:47:27,239 --> 00:47:31,360
Speaker 3: Think or hear about Lewis and Clark, so much is

651
00:47:31,440 --> 00:47:36,359
Speaker 3: made of Meriwether Lewis's disposition, yeah, and his personality and

652
00:47:36,400 --> 00:47:39,840
Speaker 3: how it shapes his writing of the story. And so

653
00:47:39,960 --> 00:47:43,040
Speaker 3: this doesn't necessarily have much to do with what you

654
00:47:43,080 --> 00:47:46,319
Speaker 3: wrote here, but I'm very curious to if you can

655
00:47:46,440 --> 00:47:50,399
Speaker 3: add some texture to Custice, the person whom you're sort

656
00:47:50,440 --> 00:47:52,200
Speaker 3: of inhabiting in this episode.

657
00:47:52,560 --> 00:47:57,360
Speaker 1: Well, because I wrote the primary book on this expedition,

658
00:47:58,360 --> 00:48:01,359
Speaker 1: I mean, and it was a story, worry that was

659
00:48:01,800 --> 00:48:06,680
Speaker 1: almost completely unknown in American history really until I did

660
00:48:06,719 --> 00:48:09,640
Speaker 1: the first version of it, which I call Jefferson in

661
00:48:09,719 --> 00:48:16,480
Speaker 1: Southwestern Exploration. I felt a strong obligation to figure out

662
00:48:16,520 --> 00:48:20,719
Speaker 1: who these people were, and so I did quite a

663
00:48:20,760 --> 00:48:23,520
Speaker 1: bit of research to try to try to come up

664
00:48:23,560 --> 00:48:25,719
Speaker 1: with some sense of who Peter Custis was.

665
00:48:26,400 --> 00:48:27,359
Speaker 2: He was the.

666
00:48:29,320 --> 00:48:37,759
Speaker 1: Cousin of George Washington's wife, Martha had married a Custis.

667
00:48:37,800 --> 00:48:42,320
Speaker 1: Martha Washington had been married before she married George Washington,

668
00:48:42,360 --> 00:48:46,560
Speaker 1: and she married into the Custis family in Virginia, which

669
00:48:46,719 --> 00:48:50,080
Speaker 1: was like the Randolphs and the Lee's, and it was

670
00:48:50,120 --> 00:48:57,160
Speaker 1: one of those big, well keeled, landed families in Virginia,

671
00:48:58,280 --> 00:49:03,200
Speaker 1: very near Charlottesville, where where Jefferson lived in Albemarle County,

672
00:49:03,239 --> 00:49:07,759
Speaker 1: the same county, which is why Jefferson knew him. And

673
00:49:07,840 --> 00:49:11,719
Speaker 1: so he's related to a lot of heavyweight figures in.

674
00:49:13,520 --> 00:49:14,480
Speaker 2: That part of the world.

675
00:49:15,040 --> 00:49:20,040
Speaker 1: And he's a young man who says, and I found

676
00:49:20,440 --> 00:49:24,560
Speaker 1: a letter in the research I did on him where

677
00:49:24,600 --> 00:49:29,600
Speaker 1: he says that he wants to use his share of

678
00:49:29,640 --> 00:49:35,960
Speaker 1: the family inheritance to pay for a liberal arts education

679
00:49:36,440 --> 00:49:40,279
Speaker 1: at a top American university. And so he goes to

680
00:49:40,360 --> 00:49:44,000
Speaker 1: the University of Pennsylvania, which at the time, I think

681
00:49:44,040 --> 00:49:47,000
Speaker 1: you could probably argue that University of Pennsylvania may have

682
00:49:47,080 --> 00:49:50,480
Speaker 1: been the top university in the country, and it particularly

683
00:49:50,760 --> 00:49:54,279
Speaker 1: was in terms of natural history because it had a

684
00:49:54,400 --> 00:49:59,040
Speaker 1: very famous early American natural historian named Benjamin Smith Barton,

685
00:49:59,440 --> 00:50:02,799
Speaker 1: and that's who Custis went to study with. Now, when

686
00:50:02,800 --> 00:50:08,279
Speaker 1: you studied natural history in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,

687
00:50:08,840 --> 00:50:11,680
Speaker 1: what you got a degree in was medicine. You got

688
00:50:11,719 --> 00:50:19,040
Speaker 1: an MD degree because medicine used botany, what was known

689
00:50:19,080 --> 00:50:22,520
Speaker 1: as materia medica, in order to cure people. And so

690
00:50:23,120 --> 00:50:26,960
Speaker 1: Custis went to the University of Pennsylvania studied under Benjamin

691
00:50:27,000 --> 00:50:29,759
Speaker 1: Smith Barton. I actually am doing research on him. Was

692
00:50:29,800 --> 00:50:36,120
Speaker 1: able to find another student's lecture notes about the lectures

693
00:50:36,160 --> 00:50:39,839
Speaker 1: that Benjamin Smith Barton gave to the classes when Peter

694
00:50:39,920 --> 00:50:43,240
Speaker 1: Custis was taking classes with him, and so I knew

695
00:50:43,280 --> 00:50:49,000
Speaker 1: that Barton was. He was a promoter of Linnaeus and

696
00:50:49,080 --> 00:50:52,600
Speaker 1: Linnaean natural history. I mean, he was very up to

697
00:50:52,680 --> 00:50:56,960
Speaker 1: date on all of his scientific work, and so he

698
00:50:57,040 --> 00:51:01,600
Speaker 1: prepared Custis, I think really well. Custis got disappointment. He

699
00:51:01,640 --> 00:51:04,359
Speaker 1: hadn't yet graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with his

700
00:51:04,480 --> 00:51:08,800
Speaker 1: MD degree. But Jefferson was casting about for a nationalist

701
00:51:09,160 --> 00:51:12,600
Speaker 1: and he first tried William Bartram, the guy.

702
00:51:12,440 --> 00:51:14,480
Speaker 2: Who had written travels.

703
00:51:15,160 --> 00:51:17,600
Speaker 1: Why don't you take the posts of naturalists on my

704
00:51:17,640 --> 00:51:20,560
Speaker 1: Red River? Expedition, and William Bartram was sixty six years old,

705
00:51:20,800 --> 00:51:23,439
Speaker 1: so he said, well, I feel like maybe I shouldn't go,

706
00:51:23,960 --> 00:51:29,080
Speaker 1: But he recommended a young man named Alexander Wilson, who was,

707
00:51:29,239 --> 00:51:34,160
Speaker 1: of course Ottobn's predecessor as the first great bird ornithologist.

708
00:51:34,280 --> 00:51:37,840
Speaker 1: Guy wrote the first big book on American birds. But

709
00:51:37,920 --> 00:51:42,719
Speaker 1: the problem was Jefferson had already selected Thomas Freeman, who

710
00:51:42,760 --> 00:51:46,840
Speaker 1: was an Irish immigrant. He was not a native born American,

711
00:51:47,520 --> 00:51:51,759
Speaker 1: and Alexander Wilson was also an immigrant, he was a

712
00:51:51,800 --> 00:51:56,040
Speaker 1: Scottish immigrant, and Jefferson didn't want to confront having people

713
00:51:56,080 --> 00:51:59,120
Speaker 1: say potics of that, Yeah, you're appointing all these guys

714
00:51:59,320 --> 00:52:01,719
Speaker 1: from some other part of the world to lead this expedition,

715
00:52:01,840 --> 00:52:05,319
Speaker 1: So instead he picked Peter Custis to do it. And

716
00:52:06,320 --> 00:52:11,200
Speaker 1: Custis after the expedition, I mean, the expedition actually has

717
00:52:11,480 --> 00:52:15,840
Speaker 1: in his case a sort of a tragic conclusion because

718
00:52:16,320 --> 00:52:19,200
Speaker 1: all of his materials are turned over to a guy

719
00:52:19,560 --> 00:52:23,520
Speaker 1: named Nicholas King, who evidently couldn't read Peter Custis's handwriting.

720
00:52:24,120 --> 00:52:28,960
Speaker 1: And whenever the publication of the Red River Expedition came out,

721
00:52:29,120 --> 00:52:35,120
Speaker 1: this Nicholas King guy so mangled Custus's Latin binomials that

722
00:52:35,320 --> 00:52:38,920
Speaker 1: anybody who would have read those reports would have thought, so,

723
00:52:39,040 --> 00:52:43,000
Speaker 1: this guy is an idiot. He actually doesn't know Linney

724
00:52:43,080 --> 00:52:45,640
Speaker 1: in science, and I think in a way that turned

725
00:52:45,680 --> 00:52:47,360
Speaker 1: Custis away from natural history.

726
00:52:47,560 --> 00:52:50,239
Speaker 2: He moved to New Bern, North Carolina.

727
00:52:50,120 --> 00:52:53,760
Speaker 1: And became a doctor, a kind of a country doctor,

728
00:52:54,200 --> 00:53:01,279
Speaker 1: and married the daughter of a fellow doctor, and was

729
00:53:01,360 --> 00:53:04,040
Speaker 1: therefore I mean, he lived to nineteen or to eighteen

730
00:53:04,120 --> 00:53:08,840
Speaker 1: forty two. He outlived everybody else that was on the expedition,

731
00:53:09,440 --> 00:53:12,600
Speaker 1: and there are several kind of accounts of people who

732
00:53:12,960 --> 00:53:16,000
Speaker 1: used him as their doctor, who referred to him as

733
00:53:16,120 --> 00:53:22,640
Speaker 1: lovable but gruff. But so that's kind of about as

734
00:53:22,760 --> 00:53:27,080
Speaker 1: much as you can put together about somebody who's alive in.

735
00:53:27,080 --> 00:53:29,440
Speaker 2: The beginning of the eighteen hundreds.

736
00:53:30,120 --> 00:53:33,400
Speaker 1: There's not even a photograph of him, for example, we

737
00:53:33,480 --> 00:53:37,120
Speaker 1: don't have a photographic image or a painting as exists

738
00:53:37,120 --> 00:53:40,799
Speaker 1: for Willim Clark and Mary with Lewis, of either one

739
00:53:40,840 --> 00:53:42,399
Speaker 1: of these guys.

740
00:53:43,239 --> 00:53:49,000
Speaker 3: As I was reading this episode, I thought that maybe

741
00:53:49,640 --> 00:53:51,879
Speaker 3: one of the parts of this that was most fun

742
00:53:51,960 --> 00:54:00,200
Speaker 3: for you was describing animals and landscapes in the the

743
00:54:00,280 --> 00:54:03,560
Speaker 3: mind or in the words of someone who has never

744
00:54:03,600 --> 00:54:06,800
Speaker 3: seen them before and drawing analogs to the old world

745
00:54:06,920 --> 00:54:11,280
Speaker 3: or to you know, it's like the famous Prairie wolf

746
00:54:10,880 --> 00:54:13,680
Speaker 3: of Lewis and Clark, and you got to do that

747
00:54:14,880 --> 00:54:15,560
Speaker 3: for yourself.

748
00:54:15,680 --> 00:54:17,439
Speaker 2: So I wonder if you can just talk a little

749
00:54:17,440 --> 00:54:20,600
Speaker 2: bit about that what you did there.

750
00:54:21,480 --> 00:54:24,560
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, that's one of the fun things about doing this,

751
00:54:24,600 --> 00:54:31,840
Speaker 1: absolutely is that progression from east to west is something

752
00:54:31,920 --> 00:54:35,600
Speaker 1: that I grew up doing. Yeah, because growing up in

753
00:54:35,640 --> 00:54:38,160
Speaker 1: Louisiana and being fascinated with the west. I mean, as

754
00:54:38,160 --> 00:54:40,520
Speaker 1: soon as I was able to get keys to a car,

755
00:54:40,719 --> 00:54:44,640
Speaker 1: I was taking off and driving and through all this

756
00:54:44,760 --> 00:54:49,279
Speaker 1: country and watching these same things, watching all the vegetation

757
00:54:49,719 --> 00:54:55,680
Speaker 1: gradually dwarf and shrink away, and watching it become possible to.

758
00:54:55,239 --> 00:54:56,400
Speaker 2: See the horizon.

759
00:54:56,880 --> 00:55:00,359
Speaker 1: I mean, in Louisiana you can't see an horizon more

760
00:55:00,360 --> 00:55:03,200
Speaker 1: than fifty feet away, the trees are so dense. But

761
00:55:03,560 --> 00:55:05,880
Speaker 1: as you go west, of course, the country opens up

762
00:55:05,880 --> 00:55:08,680
Speaker 1: more and more, until finally you can see horizons a

763
00:55:08,719 --> 00:55:14,000
Speaker 1: mile away and eventually twenty miles away, and very rapidly.

764
00:55:14,280 --> 00:55:17,440
Speaker 1: Not only is the landscape changing, but all the animals

765
00:55:17,480 --> 00:55:20,560
Speaker 1: are beginning to change. And that has always been something

766
00:55:20,640 --> 00:55:25,400
Speaker 1: that I've had a lot of fun sort of imagining

767
00:55:25,440 --> 00:55:30,200
Speaker 1: how people would react to that. And I've known because

768
00:55:30,239 --> 00:55:32,600
Speaker 1: of the research I've done, I've known pretty much where

769
00:55:32,920 --> 00:55:36,280
Speaker 1: the first parade dog towns showed up, the first chance

770
00:55:36,320 --> 00:55:39,319
Speaker 1: you had to see prong horns, where you were going

771
00:55:39,360 --> 00:55:41,600
Speaker 1: to encounter mule deer for the first time.

772
00:55:42,160 --> 00:55:44,080
Speaker 2: And it's going to be fun.

773
00:55:44,160 --> 00:55:47,560
Speaker 1: I can tell you to carry this on where they're

774
00:55:47,600 --> 00:55:52,960
Speaker 1: going to end up, because, as I said in the script,

775
00:55:53,400 --> 00:55:57,640
Speaker 1: one of the fascinating things about this particular river, which

776
00:55:57,760 --> 00:56:01,800
Speaker 1: Jefferson regarded as as he wrote, next to the Missouri,

777
00:56:01,880 --> 00:56:05,120
Speaker 1: the most interesting water of the West, is the Red River.

778
00:56:05,920 --> 00:56:09,399
Speaker 1: And he thought it came out of the so called

779
00:56:09,440 --> 00:56:12,920
Speaker 1: Mexican Mountains, the southern Rockies, near Santa Fe. And I

780
00:56:12,960 --> 00:56:16,400
Speaker 1: think the reason he's sending these guys there is because

781
00:56:16,440 --> 00:56:21,319
Speaker 1: what he's anticipating is what becomes fifteen years later the Santa.

782
00:56:21,000 --> 00:56:22,919
Speaker 2: Fe trade trade route.

783
00:56:23,040 --> 00:56:26,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, the trade route, and so that's why he's so

784
00:56:26,400 --> 00:56:30,759
Speaker 1: interested in having them go here. But what becomes the

785
00:56:30,800 --> 00:56:34,520
Speaker 1: big mystery of all of this is that the Red

786
00:56:34,680 --> 00:56:39,000
Speaker 1: River doesn't head in the mountains near Santa Fe, and

787
00:56:39,080 --> 00:56:42,520
Speaker 1: nobody could find where the Red River headed for most

788
00:56:42,560 --> 00:56:45,920
Speaker 1: of the nineteenth century. So what I'm going to have

789
00:56:46,000 --> 00:56:48,960
Speaker 1: these guys do is they're going to discover a mystery

790
00:56:49,000 --> 00:56:56,400
Speaker 1: that actually American geographic exploration doesn't find until the eighteen seventies.

791
00:56:57,560 --> 00:57:00,719
Speaker 1: And it's going to require them to just stick to

792
00:57:00,800 --> 00:57:02,719
Speaker 1: the course of the river and track it all the

793
00:57:02,719 --> 00:57:05,640
Speaker 1: way to where it goes. But all of these other

794
00:57:05,680 --> 00:57:08,040
Speaker 1: expeditions kept saying, well, it must head here, and they

795
00:57:08,080 --> 00:57:11,400
Speaker 1: would just try to go to some spot and they

796
00:57:11,400 --> 00:57:13,640
Speaker 1: would find a river, but it would be the Canadian

797
00:57:14,200 --> 00:57:17,320
Speaker 1: or it would be the Pecos, and it would never

798
00:57:17,440 --> 00:57:21,160
Speaker 1: be the Red River that Jefferson wanted to explore. So,

799
00:57:21,240 --> 00:57:23,560
Speaker 1: as I said in the introduction to it, I mean

800
00:57:23,600 --> 00:57:26,280
Speaker 1: it's the same decade that Sir Richard Burton discovers the

801
00:57:26,320 --> 00:57:29,960
Speaker 1: sources of the Nile, that we finally figure out where

802
00:57:29,960 --> 00:57:31,000
Speaker 1: the Red River comes from.

803
00:57:31,280 --> 00:57:34,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, Dan, looking forward to seeing where you take

804
00:57:34,560 --> 00:57:35,240
Speaker 3: us next here.

805
00:57:35,640 --> 00:57:39,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's gonna be fun, I think in episode two

806
00:57:39,320 --> 00:57:39,600
Speaker 1: of this

807
00:57:39,840 --> 00:57:41,680
Speaker 2: All right, see it nks Randel