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Andrea Chen

Professor Ward

History 102

11 November 2002

The First Descent of the Grand Canyon

John Wesley Powell was one of the foremost explorers in American history, and his first

descent down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon is one of America’s greatest

adventure stories. Although he is not as well known as other explorers, his travels and his

contributions to American history are significant because they represent a spirit of discovery

motivated not by self-glory or the acquisition of gold or land, but by a curiosity about and

appreciation for both the natural world and the native peoples of the West.

John Wesley Powell pursued knowledge and the uncommon experience his entire life.

Born in 1834 in Ohio to a Methodist minister, he became interested in science as a boy and was

fortunate to have a neighbor who was both an amateur scientist and a willing teacher.1 In 1846,

the Powell family moved to Wisconsin, where John Wesley struggled to continue his scientific

education against the will of his father, who wanted him to become a preacher. In 1857, he set

off on his first great adventure: a trip down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers in a rowboat.2

In 1861 Powell enlisted in the Union Army and was elected captain of artillery under U.

S. Grant. He was wounded at the Battle of Shiloh in 1862 and lost his right arm. Despite his

debility, however, Powell returned to active duty and finished the war.

After the Civil War, Powell became a professor of science at Illinois Weslyan and curator

of the Illinois State Natural History museum. In 1867 he went on his first expedition to Colorado

and began his life-long love affair with the American West and the native peoples who lived

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there. The next year he went back to Colorado and spent the winter among the Utes on the White

River, learning their language.4

Shortly after, he went to Washington to attempt to get support for his expedition down

the Colorado River, but was unsuccessful in gaining more than a few scientific instruments from

the Smithsonian. Undaunted, he raised his own funds to have three sturdy wooden boats built,

and he transported them by rail to Green River, Wyoming, where on May 24, 1869, he began his

journey down the Green and Colorado rivers.5 With him were nine other men, including his

brother. Powell was the only one interested in science; the others were, like other men roaming

the West in the years after the Civil War, rowdy adventurers in search of gold.

Powell hadn’t traveled far down the Green before problems began. His boats were sturdy,

but they weren’t built for running rapids. Furthermore, none of the men had life jackets, nor

could they swim. They managed to tie ropes to the boats and lower them down many of the

Fig. 1. Tau-gu, Chief of the Paiutes, and Major John Wesley Powell (Photo by John Hillers,

1873, National Anthropological Archives)

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rapids, but in the Canyon of Ladore on June 9, one of the boats missed an eddy and was swept

downstream into a rapid Powell later named Disaster Falls (see Fig. 2). Luckily, no one drowned.

Also, Powell and his men were able to salvage two important things they had feared were lost on

the boat—barometers and a keg of whiskey.6

Powell and his men proceeded to the confluence of the Colorado and Green Rivers and

through the severe rapids of Cataract Canyon and the now flooded Glen Canyon. By August 2

they were running low on food. Nevertheless, Powell was busy making side trips, climbing up

canyon walls for a view of the surroundings, and taking measurements. When they entered the

Grand Canyon, their situation was close to desperate and the strain of the journey began to show.

Fig. 2. Wreck at Disaster Falls (John Wesley Powell, Exploration of the Colorado River of the

West and Its Tributaries)

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Finally on August 28, at Separation Rapid near the end of the Grand Canyon, three of the men

deserted.7 Powell and the others continued downstream, and soon encountered Mormon settlers

near the mouth of the Virgin River. Powell’s account of this journey, The Exploration of the

Colorado River and Its Canyons, is remarkable for the scope and depth of knowledge exhibited,

especially because Powell had very little formal training in science or ethnography.

In 1871 Powell made a second expedition down the Colorado River, this time bringing

along a photographer. He spent most of the next decade exploring the Colorado Plateau, doing

important geologic and ethnographic research. In 1878 he published his Report on the Lands of

the Arid Region of the United States, in which he argued against extensive settlement of the

West—an unpopular idea at the time. In 1879 he became director of the Bureau of Ethnology in

Washington, and in 1881 he became director of the U.S. Geological Survey.

In spite of his inability to prevent oversettlement of the West, Powell was a major

influence in preserving many of the wonderful canyons of the Colorado Plateau. Ironically, the

one lake bearing his name is the same one under which Glen Canyon is buried—the one canyon

Powell could not save.

The event that perhaps best represents Powell’s dedication to developing an

understanding of and appreciation for the West and its native peoples happened in 1870. Powell

sought to find out what had happened to the three men who left his expedition at Separation

Rapid. He visited the Shivwits Indians, smoked with them, and asked them if they knew anything

of the missing men. The Shivwits admitted that they had killed Powell’s men, mistaking them for

the murderers of an Indian woman, and apologized for the error. Instead of demanding

retribution, as many others would have done, Powell told the Shivwits it was an honest mistake

and shook hands with them. He later wrote of this same tribe’s nobility and kindness toward him:

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That night I slept in peace, although these murderers of my men, and their

friends, the Uinkarets, were sleeping not 500 yards away. While we were

gone to the canyon, the pack train and supplies, enough to make an Indian

rich beyond his wildest dreams, were all left in their charge, and were all

safe; not even a lump of sugar was pilfered by the children.8

It is unlikely that anyone in a similar situation, either then or now, would have exhibited such

forgiveness and trust.

John Wesley Powell was not only able to see much of the American West before it was

forever changed by settlement, but he was also able to see beyond its value in terms of gold or

settled land to what really mattered—the natural beauty of the land and the native cultures who

lived there. Perhaps it was this understanding that made him fearless and victorious against

hardship. Because of his unfaltering dedication to knowledge and the preservation of the West,

Powell is truly one of the most significant American explorers of the nineteenth century.

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Notes

1. Wallace Stegner, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the

Second Opening of the West. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1954), 13–14.

2. Ibid., 16.

3. Ibid., 17.

4. Ibid., 40.

5. John Wesley Powell, The Exploration of the Colorado River, ed. Wallace Stegner

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), 1–2.

6. Ibid., 21.

7. Ibid., 103.

8. Ibid., 323.

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Bibliography

Hillers, John K. “Tau-gu, Chief of the Paiutes, and Major John Wesley Powell.” National

Anthropological Archives. Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1873.

Powell, John Wesley. The Exploration of the Colorado River. Ed. Wallace Stegner. Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, 1957.

---. Report on the Lands of the Arid Region of the United States. 2nd ed. Washington: GPO,

1879.

---. “Wreck at Disaster Falls.” Exploration of the Colorado River of the West and Its Tributaries.

Washington: GPO, 1875.

Stegner, Wallace. Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second

Opening of the West. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1954.