(Partial summary) The last third of the book discusses the history of missions in the Oregon country including the work of DeSmet and the Catholic missionaries among the Salish. This book is a critical study of the impact of missions on the Indian people.

Zebulon Pike, at the time of Lewis and Clark, led his own expeditions into the hostile territory of the unexplored west. He was a man of great courage but his countrymen suspected that he had conspired with Aaron Burr and General James Wilkinson to hand western land over to the Spanish government of Mexico. He failed to achieve the honor and recognition he craved.

This book will disturb many who hold to the opinion that Fray Marcos de Nice was the first foreign explorer to enter Arizona and New Mexico. According to John Upton Terrell, not only does Fray Marcos fall considerably short of what historians claim for him, but was not, as purported, the discoverer of the so-called Seven Cities of Cibola. The first man of Old World blood to traverse the region was Estevanico the Black. Estevanico went ahead of Fray...