An
investigation into the lack sightings of indigenous people during the Dunbar-Hunter expedition in the winter
1803-1804.
In 1803, the Scottish
explorers William
Dunbar and George Hunter were commissioned by President Thomas
Jefferson to explore the portions of the Louisiana
Purchase represented by the lower Mississippi
River Valley and its Western tributaries. The journal of
their travels is transcribed and footnoted in The
forgotten expedition, 1804-1805 : The Louisiana Purchase journals of
Dunbar and Hunter / edited by Trey Berry, Pam Beasley, and Jeanne
Clements. This expedition was the first to be commissioned
and the journal was the first to arrive on Washington's desk after the
purchase of the Louisiana Territory. Although it caused a media
sensation when it was first (partially) published, other expeditions
soon eclipsed the darling of Public Opinion. Although the
expedition journal provided important information regarding
meteorological and geographic features of the day, it soon becomes
noticeable that the journal gives no mention of indigenous peoples. In
fact, there is apparently none of the interaction (with Indians)
that became such a hallmark of the other expeditions, especially the
famous Lewis
and Clark expedition.
The first Europeans to
enter the Indian territories of what would later be called Louisiana
were the Spanish. Sailing into the Gulf of Mexico, they soon gave up
their explorations when they did not yield gold. Ponce de Leon explored
the western Florida coast starting in 1513, Alvarez de Pineda sailed
into Pensacola and Mobile Bay in 1519, and Panfilo de Narvaez founded a
village in Tampa Bay in 1528. Finally, between 1539 and 1543 Hernando
de Soto reached the Mississippi River via Florida, having sailed up to
where it joined the Arkansas River.
Spanish cruelty, soon to be known as the Black Legend, would most
likely explain a rapid decline in the indigenous population. The
unfortunate inhabitants of the area would also have begun to suffer the
terrible consequences of the European diseases most common to the
southwest region. Their death rate from smallpox and dysentery
might have caused a swift and inevitable deterioration of the life span
of their culture.
