George Sibley He’d been the head trader at the Indian Factory at Ft. Osage, MO when it opened in 1808 Spring 1811 he led a group of interpreters and Osage scouts on an exploration which they hoped would help improve relations between the Kansa and Pawnee tribes they also wanted to study the Osage’s hunting grounds He took two side expeditions: to the Great Salt Plains (which he called the Grand Saline) and the “Rock Saline” He was pretty confident the salt deposits in the area would be profitable

Great Salt Plains 11,000 acre piece of land in Alfalfa County. There is a thin layer of salt that covers the area scientists think the salt was deposited when water levels rose in a shallow sea millions of years ago Sibley and his crew are thought to have been the first white men to visit the plains—led there by an Osage Native American names Sans Orielle Animals also come to the area for the salt—making it an excellent place to hunt

Great Salt Plains From travelok.com

Adams-Onís Treaty Negotiated between the U.S. and Spain in 1819 In this treaty, the U.S. acquired FL and it established firm boundaries between Spanish territory and the U.S. the treaty also stated that "all islands in the Sabine,... Red and Arkansas Rivers... [were] to belong to the United States…"

Long-Bell Expedition 1820 the expedition crossed the Great Plains Their goal was to gather information about the plant and animal life as well as the regions geography the members of the 22-man team were military men when the U.S. economy took a turn for the worse in 1819 (with the panic) their funding was cut and their journey suffered for it they lacked enough supplies and food do you think their circumstances influenced their reports?

They were short of supplies and mistook the Canadian Rv. for the Red Rv. On top of being delayed, hungry and lost some of the time, the summer was very hot and their was a drought They were responsible for providing a lot of scientific knowledge of the area including plant life but also the idea that the Great Plains was the Great American Desert “For Oklahoma, the negative description had little immediate impact, and by the time white settlement occurred, the technology needed for success already existed.” © Oklahoma Historical Society

The Great American Desert

Washington Irving’s Trip Irving met up with some men going into Indian Territory and jumped at the opportunity to go west Irving was a well-known American author and historian He had also been an ambassador to Spain

Irving took a bunch of notes during his experience including some on the homes, the trading posts and the Cross Timbers He became used to life on the prairies and used his many notes to produce his A Tour of the Prairies which includes chapters about buffalo hunts, several different tribes, and stories from hunters