Wanderer on the American Frontier: The Travels of John Maley, 1808–1813 by John Maley (review)

The United States’ purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803 resulted in a number of state-sponsored military and scientific expeditions to discover its peoples, extent, flora, fauna, and topography. These included the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1804 along the Missouri River, the Freeman-Custis Expedition up the Red River in 1804, the Dunbar-Hunter Expedition up the Ouachita River in 1804, and the two expeditions by Zebulon Pike, one up the Mississippi in 1805 and another up the Arkansas River in 1806. In addition, there were several noteworthy private expeditions into the Louisiana Territory by scientists and adventurers. Among these was the journey of John Maley that began in 1808.

This edition of Maley’s travels, edited by F. Andrew Dowdy, appropriately titles the journal Wanderer on the American Frontier. Maley was indeed a wanderer and someone with the foolhardy courage required to brave the hostile elements and suspicious people of the lands beyond the Mississippi River. Unlike his counterparts John Bradbury and Thomas Nuttall, who were journeying in the Louisiana Territory during the same time, Maley was not a scientist; rather, he was an entrepreneur who believed that the Louisiana Territory offered hidden riches waiting to be found by the intrepid adventurer. During the course of six years the undeterred and inexhaustible Maley journeyed 16,000 miles, across Illinois, then down the Ohio, down the Mississippi, up the Arkansas, down the Mississippi again to New Orleans, up the Red River beyond the infamous log jam known as the Great Raft, that blocked explorers from ascending the tributaries of that river, across the plains of what is now Oklahoma to the hills of Arkansas and finally down the Ouachita, Black, and Red Rivers to the Mississippi once more.

Maley’s journal, the first half of which was discovered in 2012 and made available for publication by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University, is written in a simple style by a relatively untutored man who set it upon himself to travel, discover, and promote settlement of the Louisiana Territory. He set out in 1808 as something of a greenhorn, with courage and determination being his chief attributes, and ended as an experienced frontiersman and explorer who could survive intense thirst, days of famine, angry Indians (especially the Osage), and the other dangers of traveling without accurate information into the wilds, particularly of the Red River Valley.

Maley’s journey up the Red River in 1812 is of particular interest to those seeking information about the early history of Texas. Led by Coushatta guides, he wound his way through watery channels to circumvent the Great Raft, then explored the upper Red River along what is now the border between Oklahoma and Texas. He explored various tributaries along the way, such as the Kiamichi River to the north and the Little Wichita, Wichita, and Pease Rivers to the south. Although the southerly set of rivers, located northwest of today’s Dallas–Fort Worth metropolitan area, was officially under Spanish control, Maley apparently interpreted the Louisiana Purchase to include tributaries of the Red River; hence he journeyed into northern Texas without any trouble from Spanish soldiers.

Editor F. Andrew Dowdy appears just as energetic as Maley in his research, willingness to re-create the journey through personal observation, and painstaking investigation to clear up the many errors and frequent vagueness found in Maley’s journal. The photographs that Dowdy provides are informative, as are the maps, drawn by Bill Nelson, and other illustrations that accompany the text. This book is a great addition to the literature of the exploration of the Louisiana Territory in general and the Red River Valley in particular.