James B. Wilkinson and his men
By the time Wilkinson and his men-hungry, cold, and sick-reached present-day Oklahoma, their prospects for survival traveling back to the Mississippi River looked bleak. Then a group of the Osages provided shelter and food for Wilkinson and his men. While recovering, he returned the favor by helping an ailing Osage chief. Meriwether Lewis to lead an expedition to determine the extent of the great Louisiana Territory (which included present-day Oklahoma) he had recently purchased for America from Napoleon. Lewis engaged his own close friend William Clark to help lead the epic trek. Renowned historical artist John Paul Surain (www.johnpaulstrain.com) captured the feat in his painting Spirit of Discovery. From right to left are Captain Clark; sixteen-year-old Shoshone guide Sacagawea and her child; Captain Lewis; and Sacagawea’s husband, a French trapper named Charbonneau.
Meanwhile, young Wilkinson, already in bad physical Straits, and his men nearly starved and froze amidst a bitterly cold Kansas winter and canoe capsizings in icy Arkansas River waters. After building a second set of canoes near present-day Wichita, the craft containing most of their food and supplies capsized and sank. So went countless tales of frustration, terror, and heartbreak, most of them lost to history as Christian civilization compassed Oklahoma and the rest of the West.
In the end, Pike’s Peak was scaled and named, and Wilkinson provided the first recorded American account of the future Sooner State.
Read the entire Oklahoma story in John J. Dwyer's The Oklahomans: The Story of Oklahoma and Its People volume 1 of a 2-part series on the 46th state and the people who make this state very special. |