John Pope (c. 1754 – January 31, 1795) was an American soldier, traveler, and author of the book A Tour through the Southern and Western Territories of the United States of North-America.
The book attracted little notice during Pope's lifetime but is valued by historians for its first-hand descriptions of the frontiers of the early United States, including the Spanish provinces of Luisiana and the Floridas as well as the Creek Nation.
[1]: 3–5 [2] Evidence from A Tour suggests that John Pope was well educated, and tax records imply that he was wealthy, with more than 700 acres of land in his name.
[3]: xxiii–xxiv [6]: 81–99 On the final leg of his journey, Pope traveled across New Jersey to Philadelphia, at that time the seat of government for the United States.
He told Secretary of War Knox that he had explored the southern country as an agent of the Virginia Yazoo Company, which speculated in lands claimed by the state of Georgia.
"[3]: xiii–xiv McGillivray, the Creek political leader who met Pope in June 1791, surmised that the Virginian was touring the South in order to spy on Spanish military posts and gain information about the Indians.
In response, the captain-general of Havana described Pope as a "despicable adventurer" and ordered reprimands for the Spanish commanders at Natchez, New Orleans, and Pensacola, who had let the strange American have unrestricted access to their posts.
The book's full title is A Tour through the Southern and Western Territories of the United States of North-America; the Spanish Dominions on the River Mississippi, and the Floridas; the Countries of the Creek Nations; and Many Uninhabited Parts.
A copy preserved in the University of Virginia library has a hand-written note on the last page, presumably left by an early reader: "Pope you are a damned fool.
"[3]: x Nevertheless, by the late 1800s, historians looking for scarce first-hand accounts of the colonial American South became interested in Pope's book, which by then had become very rare.
[3]: xxvi [8] In 1979 the University Press of Florida published a facsimile edition of Pope's Tour with an introduction and indexes by historian J. Barton Starr.