William Dunbar (explorer)


William Dunbar was a Scottish and American merchant, plantation owner, naturalist, astronomer and explorer.

Life

William Dunbar was born in Duffus House, Duffus Parish near Elgin, Scotland. His family's roots can be traced back to at least the tenth century. His father, Sir Archibald Dunbar, 4th baronet of Northfield and Duffus, married his cousin Helen Dunbar, with whom he had at least one girl and three boys: Archibald, Robert and Alexander. Helen died in 1748 and in 1750 Anne Bayne became Archibald's second wife. They had three children: William, Thomas and Peggy. William's father thought him a sissy and worried about his health, because he was quiet and serious-minded, unlike his half-brothers, who hunted, fished, and drank. Archibald did not recognise William's brilliance.
William entered King's College in Aberdeen in the autumn of 1763, and graduated with a Master of Arts degree on March 30, 1767. After his return to Elgin, William continued his study and research in the natural sciences. The deaths in 1762 of his two eldest half-brothers, Archibald and Robert, brought William from fourth to second in line to inherit the family estates, but William's father Archibald died in 1769, leaving him only about 500 pounds. His remaining half-brother, Alexander, as the oldest surviving male, inherited the full rights to all of the estates – he became Sir Alexander Dunbar, 5th baronet of Northfield and Duffus. William probably could have expected assistance from his father in making his way in Britain, but not from a half-brother with whom he had never really been close.
In the spring of 1771, William Dunbar sailed from London to Philadelphia to try his luck in America. He initially became a merchant in Philadelphia, transporting goods he brought with him from London in an effort to enter the Indian trade. In 1773 he formed a partnership with John Ross, another Scottish merchant from Philadelphia, in the British province of West Florida. He then went to Pensacola and obtained a grant of land near Baton Rouge, which was at the time called Fort New Richmond, from the British governor. In 1784 he established, together with Ross, a plantation near Natchez, Mississippi called "The Forest", where he cultivated Indigo and cotton. After Ross' death in 1800, he bought out his interest from Ross' heirs. In 1785 he married Dinah Clark from Whitehaven, England, with whom he had nine children. By 1803 Dunbar owned some – he also owned "The Grange" and other lots within Natchez given him for his service to the Spanish Government as surveyor. In 1807 he wrote Charleston merchants, Thomas Tunno and John Price, to purchase a shipload of African slaves excepting those from 'the Iboa nation' and those 'nearer the coast, such as Bornon, Houssa, Zanfara, Zegzeg, Kapina, Tombotoo, all or near the river Niger'. William Dunbar died in The Forest on October 16, 1810.

Scientific achievements

William Dunbar was known for his engineering and scientific talents, which he employed in plantation work. He invented a screw press and introduced the square baling of cotton, and was the first to suggest the manufacture of cottonseed oil. He was Surveyor General for West Florida in 1798 and made the first meteorological observations in the Mississippi Valley in 1799. Dunbar built an astronomical observatory in Union Hill near his Natchez home and opened it to the public. His plantation home, The Forest, became a meeting place for scholars; men such as naturalist William Bartram and ornithologist Alexander Wilson were frequent guests.
In 1799 Daniel Clark, US consul for New Orleans, introduced Dunbar to Thomas Jefferson through a letter, saying "for Science, Probity & general information is the first Character in this part of the World". Through Jefferson, Dunbar would be introduced to the rest of the American scientific establishment. Dunbar met Jefferson for the first time in person two weeks before his death, but the two corresponded for many years, and Jefferson asked him to lead the Red River expedition in 1804 and to organize another one in 1806. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1800 and contributed twelve articles to the Society Transactions on subjects in natural history, astronomy and American Sign Language. In 1803 Dunbar, with others, established the Mississippi Society for the Acquirement and Dissemination of Useful Knowledge. After returning from the expeditions, and until his death in 1810, he devoted himself to scientific inquiry, gathering a significant collection of data on Indian vocabulary, as well as using chemical analysis in geology, seasonal river levels, fossils, astronomical phenomena, and utilizing a method of finding longitude by astronomical means.

Red River expeditions

On March 13, 1804, Thomas Jefferson wrote to Dunbar, charging him with the task of assembling the first scientific expedition into the lower Louisiana Purchase. Jefferson sanctioned four such expeditions altogether: the famous 1804 Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery expedition to the northern territory of the Louisiana Purchase, Willam Dunbar's Red River expedition of 1804, the Red River Expedition of Thomas Freeman and Peter Custis, and the Pike Expedition in 1806–1807.
Jefferson assigned George Hunter, a prominent Philadelphia chemist and also a Scot, to be second in command to Dunbar. The proposed southern journey was later called the Grand Expedition. The trip was drastically altered due to friction with the Osage Indians and Spanish colonial officials, resulting in a shorter journey.
On October 16, 1804, Dunbar and Hunter set off with a party of 15 on the expedition, which lasted just under three months. They explored the Red River and the Black and Ouachita rivers, and brought back a wealth of scientific information, geological surveys, records of flora and fauna as well as the first detailed chemical analysis of the Hot Springs of Arkansas.
Another expedition preliminarily named the "Great Excursion" was planned by Jefferson in order to continue the exploration of the Red River. Although Dunbar's failing health prevented him from participating in the expedition, he nevertheless was charged by Jefferson with the task of organizing it, together with Secretary of War Henry Dearborn. Dunbar used his experience from the first Red River expedition to plan this one; among his ideas was to use a boat suited for inland exploration in the trans-Mississippi region. This expedition was led by astronomer/surveyor Thomas Freeman and medical student Peter Custis, and it reached up the river before being halted by a Spanish military force.