David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler
In 1806, President Thomas Jefferson made a startling discovery. Aaron Burr, Jefferson’s former vice-president and political ally, had been in contact with the senior general of the United States Army, James Wilkinson. Jefferson did not know that Wilkinson was a spy for Spain nor did he know that Wilkinson, solely on his own authority, had dispatched Captain Zebulon Pike on an exploratory expedition into the Southwest, a trek that would include an examination of Spanish territory. Yet, there were other reasons to judge the Wilkinson-Burr correspondence as potentially sinister, for Jefferson knew Aaron Burr.
As it happened, Burr and Wilkinson were not just renewing their old army friendship from the American Revolution. The most charitable explanation for their behavior was that Burr and Wilkinson were plotting to conquer New Spain (Mexico) and wanted Pike, unaware of the real purpose of his expedition, to gather intelligence to aid that scheme. A more disturbing possibility was that Burr and Wilkinson planned to detach the southwestern United States to add to their new empire. When the shadowy outlines of the Burr conspiracy came to light, Wilkinson disguised his role in it by becoming a turncoat, Burr went on trial for treason, and Pike had rambled through a wild, exotic portion of the continent. Burr’s trial amounted to an unfolding, complex narrative that held the young nation rapt for months even as it helped to define the meaning of treason, the idea of loyalty, and the reach of government.