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Show +8 ar) teh teeta ae eee ee ee) P ae 3S et ee ee eae eet ee cd Fa eee ee ae One bo en pared | Se ie ee tee “s : tdoo Daa 0b tee Cee ee et oe eee ee ee 97 echt mci dean OLD SANTA FE TRAIL @ ¢ nd a t.2 Be n ew le ee Re ee eet @ returns in business ventures. It was not, however, for several years after his return that attempts were made to open the trade. “It is an interesting coincidence,”’ says Chittenden, ‘‘that almost simultaneously with the United States’ exploring expediti on into Spanish territory there took place a much more EXPEDITION UNDER formidable one from Santa Fé far into United MELGARES States territory. The Spanish expedition consisted of one hundred dragoons of the regular army and five hundred mounted militia, with two extra horses and a mule to each man and ammunition for six months. It was command ed by a distinguished Spanish officer, Don Facundo Melgares. It left Santa Fé probably about the middle of June, for that was the date of a commission carried by Melgares to the chief of the Pawnees. The route of the party at first lay down the Canadian, thence north- east to the Arkansas, and from that point to the Pawnee villages Where a grand council was held. The expedition then returned Santa Fé where it arrived in October. The Spaniards could scaree-to ly have been a month lages. ms UR Re { i ene —— : y — yo le ahead of the Americans at the Pawnee vil- Their expedition, according to Pike, was intended to fore- stall his own, and it is a remarkable instance of the energetic fashion in which a Spaniard could execute an enterprise when he once really set about it. “There is a profound significance in the almost simultaneous Presence of these two expeditions upon the boundless prairies that ‘eparated the frontier settlements of their respective countries. One was looking into the future and paving a way for the irresistible expansion of his people. The other was clinging to the past and watching with distrustful eye the too rapid progress of a rival Power. Both were visiting the wild inhabitants of the plains and Seeking with presents and speeches and grandiloquent pictures of the Sreatness of their respective nations, to secure their attachment. 0 this preliminary skirmish between two powers, which were even then, did they but know it, preparing the way for inevitable con- flict, the advantage was on the side of the Spaniards. Powerful and well-appointed expedition of Melgares Between the and the small and poorly equipped handful of men with Pike the contrast was great, and to the untutored mind of the prairie inhabitant , there could be no doubt of the outcome of a trial of strength between their govern- ments. He could not see the forces behind these outward mani- festationg — the expanding vigor of a young nation and the decaent energies of the old; but in due time he came to know.’’ °* _n November, 1809, three men by the names of Smith, McClan- Seo€ tittenden, M., History of the American also vol, 1,HH. this work, pp. 480-1. Fur Trade, pp. 495-496. |