Lewis and Clark Expedition

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Lewis and Clark

[edit] Background

Thomas Jefferson had long thought about such an expedition. He was concerned that an expedition like this one would be too dangerous. France from 1785-1789, he had heard of numerous plans to better explore the Pacific Northwest. In 1785, Jefferson learned that King Louis XVI of France planned to send a mission there, reportedly as a mere scientific expedition. Jefferson found that doubtful, and evidence provided by John Paul Jones confirmed these doubts. In either event, the mission was destroyed by bad weather after leaving Botany Bay in 1788. In 1786 John Ledyard, who had sailed with Captain James Cook to the Pacific Northwest, told Jefferson that he planned to walk across Siberia, ride a Russian fur-trade vessel to cross the ocean, and then walk all the way to the American capitol. Since Ledyard was an American, Jefferson hoped him success. Ledyard had made it as far as Siberia when Czarina Catherine the Great had him arrested and deported back to Poland.^[1]

In a message to Congress, Jefferson wrote^[2]

In a letter dated June 20, 1803, Jefferson wrote to Lewis^[3]

[edit] Louisiana Purchase and a western expedition

The famous map of Lewis and Clark's expedition. It changed mapping of northwest America by providing the first accurate depiction of the relationship of the sources of the Columbia and Missouri rivers, and the Rocky Mountains.

In 1803, the Louisiana Purchase sparked interest in expansion to the west coast. A few weeks after the purchase, President Jefferson, an advocate of western expansion, had the Congress appropriate $2,500, "to send intelligent officers with ten or twelve men, to explore even to the Western ocean". They were to study the Indian tribes, botany, geology, Western terrain and wildlife in the region, as well as evaluate the potential interference of British and French Canadian hunters and trappers who were already well established in the area. The expedition was not the first to cross North America but was roughly a decade after the expedition of Alexander MacKenzie, the first European to cross north of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean.

Jefferson selected Captain Meriwether Lewis to lead the expedition, afterwards known as the Corps of Discovery; Lewis selected William Clark as his partner. Because of bureaucratic delays in the U.S. Army, Clark officially only held the rank of Second Lieutenant at the time, but Lewis concealed this from the men and shared the leadership of the expedition, always referring to Clark as "Captain". ^[4]

[edit] Journey

See also: Timeline of the Lewis and Clark Expedition

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark meeting at the falls of the Ohio River; statue at the Falls of the Ohio State Park in Clarksville, Indiana (across from Louisville)

"Left Pittsburgh this day at 11 o'clock with a party of 11 hands 7 of which are soldiers, a pilot and three young men on trial they having proposed to go with me throughout the voyage."^[5] With those words, written on August 31, 1803, Meriwether Lewis began his first journal entry on the epic Lewis and Clark Expedition to the Pacific Ocean.

Lewis declared the mouth of the river Dubois (on the east side of the Missisippi across from the mouth of the Missouri river) to be the expedition's official point of departure, but the two and one-half months spent descending the Ohio River can be considered its real beginning.

Often referred to as the recruitment phase of the expedition, it was that, but so much more. The Ohio was where the all-important foundation—the nucleus—of what became the Corps of Discovery was formed. On the Ohio, Lewis and Clark met to form their partnership in discovery. On the Ohio, the famous "Nine Young Men" from Kentucky were recruited and enlisted. On the Ohio, York,Clark's slave, George Drouillard, and at least two others joined the expedition. While on the Ohio, these men began forming relationships and friendships, and a dedication to their mission and to each other that would carry them, through dangers and hardships, to the Pacific and back. Some of these men were also among the most important members of the Corps.

Clark made most of the preparations, by way of letters to Jefferson. He bought two large buckets and five smaller buckets of salt, a ton of dried pork, and medicines.

The party of 33 included 29 individuals who were active participants in the Corps’ organizational development, recruitment and training at its 1803-1804 winter staging area at Camp Dubois, Illinois Territory. They then departed from Camp Dubois, near present day Hartford, Illinois, and began their historic journey on May 14, 1804. They soon met-up with Lewis in Saint Charles, Missouri, and the corps followed the Missouri River westward. Soon they passed La Charrette, the last white settlement on the Missouri River. The expedition followed the Missouri through what is now Kansas City, Missouri, and Omaha, Nebraska. On August 20, 1804, the Corps of Discovery suffered its only death when Sergeant Charles Floyd died, apparently from acute appendicitis. He was buried at Floyd's Bluff, near what is now Sioux City, Iowa. During the final week of August, Lewis and Clark had reached the edge of the Great Plains, a place abounding with elk, deer, buffalo, and beavers. They were also entering Sioux territory.

The first tribe of Sioux they met, the Yankton Sioux, were more peaceful than their neighbors further west along the Missouri River, the Teton Sioux, also known as the Lakota. The Yankton Sioux were disappointed by the gifts they received from Lewis and Clark—five medals—and gave the explorers a warning about the upriver Teton Sioux. The Teton Sioux received their gifts with ill-disguised hostility. One chief demanded a boat from Lewis and Clark as the price to be paid for passage through their territory. As the Indians became more dangerous, Lewis and Clark prepared to fight back. At the last moment before fighting began, the two sides fell back. The Americans quickly continued westward (upriver) until winter stopped them at the Mandan tribe's territory.

In the winter of 1804–05, the party built Fort Mandan, near present-day Washburn, North Dakota. There, the group found themselves trapped in their shelter without food when a violent rainstorm hit. The Shoshone/Hidatsa native woman Sacagawea and her husband, French Canadian Toussaint Charbonneau, joined the group, and saved the corp group's lives by bringing the starving men fish. Unfortunately, the men were not used to the fish, and became ill. However, the group recovered. Sacagawea (the chief's sister) enabled them to talk to her Shoshone tribe further west, and to trade food for gold and jewelry. (As was common during those times, she had been taken as a slave by the Hidatsa at a young age, and reunited with her brother on the journey.) She was able to aid them in translation, and she had some familiarity with the native tribes as they moved further west. The inclusion of a woman with a young baby (Sacagawea's son Jean Baptiste Charbonneau was born in the winter of 1804-05) helped to soften tribal relations since no war-party would include a woman and baby.

In April 1805, some members of the expedition were sent back home from Mandan in the 'return party'. Along with them went a report about what Lewis and Clark had discovered, 108 botanical specimens (including some living animals), 68 mineral specimens, and Clark's map of the United States. Other specimens were sent back to Jefferson periodically, including a prairie dog which Jefferson received alive in a box.

Lewis and Clark on the Lower Columbia by C.M. Russell

The expedition continued to follow the Missouri to its headwaters and over the Continental Divide at Lemhi Pass via horses. In canoes, they descended the mountains by the Clearwater River, the Snake River, and the Columbia River, past Celilo Falls and past what is now Portland, Oregon. At this point, Lewis spotted Mount Hood, a mountain known to be very close to the ocean. On a big pine, Clark carved

"William Clark December 3rd 1805. By land from the U.States in 1804 & 1805"^[6]

Clark had written in his journal, "Ocian [sic] in view! O! The Joy!". One journal entry is captioned "Cape Disappointment at the Entrance of the Columbia River into the Great South Sea or Pacific Ocean".^[6] By that time the expedition faced its second bitter winter during the trip, so the group decided to vote on whether to camp on the north or south side of the Columbia River. The party agreed to camp on the south side of the river (modern Astoria, Oregon), building Fort Clatsop as their winter quarters. While wintering at the fort, the men prepared for the trip home by boiling salt from the ocean, hunting elk and other wildlife, and interacting with the native tribes. The 1805-06 winter was very rainy, and the men had a hard time finding suitable meat. They never consumed much Pacific salmon because the fish only return to the rivers to spawn in the summer months.

The explorers started their journey home on March 23, 1806. On the way home, Lewis and Clark used four dugout canoes^[7] they bought from the Native Americans, plus one that they stole in "retaliation" for a previous theft. Less than a month after leaving Fort Clatsop, they abandoned their canoes because portaging around all the falls proved too difficult.

On July 3, after crossing the Continental Divide, the Corps split into two teams so Lewis could explore the Marias River. Lewis' group of four met some Blackfeet Indians. Their meeting was cordial, but during the night, the Blackfeet tried to steal their weapons. In the struggle, two Indians were killed, the only native deaths attributable to the expedition. The group of four: Lewis, Drouillard, and the Field brothers, fled over 100 miles (160 km) in a day before they camped again. Clark, meanwhile, had entered Crow territory. The Crow tribe were known as horse thieves. At night, half of Clark's horses were gone, but not a single Crow was seen. Lewis and Clark stayed separated until they reached the confluence of the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers on August 11. Clark's team had floated down the rivers in bull boats. While reuniting, one of Clark's hunters, Pierre Cruzatte, blind in one eye and nearsighted in the other, mistook Lewis for an elk and fired, injuring Lewis in the thigh. From there, the groups were reunited and able to quickly return home by the Missouri River. They reached St. Louis on September 23, 1806.

The Corps of Discovery returned with important information about the new United States territory and the people who lived in it, as well as its rivers and mountains, plants and animals. The expedition made a major contribution to mapping the North American continent.

[edit] Spanish reaction

On December 8, 1803, Lewis met with the Spanish lieutenant governor of Upper Louisiana, Colonel Carlos Dehault Delassus. Since France had never formally taken control of the territory, it was still governed by Spaniards. Delassus refused to let Lewis go up the Missouri until France formally took control of the territory, at which time France would formally give the territory to the United States. Lewis had intended to spend the winter in St. Louis since he needed to gain provisions for the trip and it was too late in the year to sensibly continue on the Missouri. Despite Lewis’ claims that the Expedition was solely a scientific one that would only travel the Missouri territory, Delassus wrote to his superiors that Lewis would undoubtedly go as far as the Pacific coast, citing that Lewis was far too competent for a lesser mission.^[8]

The Spanish felt this way because of the intelligence they gained from an American traitor turned Spanish spy. General James Wilkinson was the commanding general of the United States Army. He was also in the employ of the Spanish government. In March 1804, he sent a message to Madrid telling the Spanish government that the purpose of the Expedition was to journey as far as the Pacific.^[9].

While in Cincinnati, Ohio, Lewis had written to Jefferson about going to Santa Fe. This was done for political concerns; Lewis wanted "to give his party a winning issue" in the 1804 expedition. Jefferson was willing for Lewis to wait the winter in St. Louis rather than continue up the Missouri; Lewis could gain valuable information in St. Louis and draw from Army supplies rather than the Expedition’s. Jefferson knew how sensitive the Spanish were about their gold and silver mines and issued a direct order to Lewis not to go to Santa Fe. This also led Jefferson to question Lewis’ judgment. Jefferson’s concern was for naught; Lewis had already decided he had enough to do during the winter to get the Expedition ready for spring than to spend time traveling to Santa Fe.^[10]

The fact that the Expedition would travel as much as it could on the Missouri River was done for political reasons. For one, it was imperative to stay out of Spanish territory. Jefferson had told Lewis not to go into Spanish territory. By staying in higher latitudes, the Expedition would avoid crossing into Spanish territory. ^[11]

Spain had ceded Louisiana to France under the condition that France would not give it to a third party. Spain gave France the territory because Napoleon I had put his brother^{[citation needed]} in charge of Spain, and Napoleon’s brother gave Napoleon Louisiana in exchanged for the kingdom of Etruria in Northern Italy. Slaves rebellions in Haiti led by Toussaint L'Ouverture, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, and Henri Christophe in 1802-1803 also led to Haitian independence in 1804, and Haiti was so valuable to France that without it, France's whole colonial empire in the Western Hemisphere which Napoleon was trying to re-establish would not be sufficiently profitable to justify the cost to France.

Spain wanted to keep the territory as an empty buffer between the U.S. and the many mineral mines in northern Mexico. After the start of the expedition, Spain sent at least four different missions to stop Lewis and Clark. During the Expedition’s stay in the Shoshone’s camps, the expedition was told they were ten days away from Spanish settlements. This warning helped Lewis and Clark stay away from the Spanish, but they never knew the Spanish had sent missions to stop them until after they returned from the journey.^[12]

[edit] Achievements

Black Tailed Prarie Dog

• The U.S. gained an extensive knowledge of the geography of the American West in the form of maps of major rivers and mountain ranges
• Observed and described 178 plants and 122 species and subspecies of animals (see List of species described by the Lewis and Clark Expedition)

• Encouraged Euro-American fur trade in the West
• Opened Euro-American diplomatic relations with the Indians
• Established a precedent for Army exploration of the West
• Strengthened the U.S. claim to Oregon Territory
• Focused U.S. and media attention on the West
• Produced a large body of literature about the West (the Lewis and Clark diaries)

[edit] Expedition members

Statue of Lewis and Clark in Seaside, Oregon, near the expedition's end

1. Captain Meriwether Lewis — private secretary to President Thomas Jefferson and leader of the Expedition.
2. Captain William Clark — shared command of the Expedition, although technically second in command.
3. York — Clark's enslaved black manservant.
4. Sergeant Charles Floyd — the Expedition's quartermaster; died early in the trip. He was the one person who died during the Expedition.
5. Sergeant Patrick Gass — chief carpenter, promoted to Sergeant after Floyd's death.
6. Sergeant John Ordway — responsible for issuing provisions, appointing guard duties, and keeping records for the Expedition.
7. Sergeant Nathaniel Hale Pryor — leader of the 1st Squad; he presided over the court martial of privates John Collins and Hugh Hall.
8. Corporal Richard Warfington — conducted the return party to St. Louis in 1805.
9. Private John Boley — disciplined at Camp Dubois and was assigned to the return party.
10. Private William E. Bratton — served as hunter and blacksmith.
11. Private John Collins — had frequent disciplinary problems; he was court-martialed for stealing whiskey which he had been assigned to guard.
12. Private John Colter — charged with mutiny early in the trip, he later proved useful as a hunter; he earned his fame after the journey.
13. Private Pierre Cruzatte — a one-eyed French fiddle-player and a skilled boatman.
14. Private John Dame
15. Private Joseph Field — a woodsman and skilled hunter, brother of Reubin.
16. Private Reubin Field — a woodsman and skilled hunter, brother of Joseph.
17. Private Robert Frazer — kept a journal that was never published.
18. Private George Gibson — a fiddle-player and a good hunter; he served as an interpreter (probably via sign language).
19. Private Silas Goodrich — the main fisherman of the expedition.
20. Private Hugh Hall — court-martialed with John Collins for stealing whiskey.
21. Private Thomas Proctor Howard — court-martialed for setting a "pernicious example" to the Indians by showing them that the wall at Fort Mandan was easily scaled.
22. Private François Labiche — French fur trader who served as an interpreter and boatman.
23. Private Hugh McNeal — the first white explorer to stand astride the headwaters of the Missouri River on the Continental Divide.
24. Private John Newman — court-martialed and confined for "having uttered repeated expressions of a highly criminal and mutinous nature."
25. Private John Potts — German immigrant and a miller.
26. Private Moses B. Reed — attempted to desert in August 1804; convicted of desertion and expelled from the party.
27. Private John Robertson — member of the Corps for a very short time.
28. Private George Shannon — was lost twice during the expedition, once for sixteen days. Youngest member of expedition at 19.
29. Private John Shields — blacksmith, gunsmith, and a skilled carpenter; with John Colter, he was court-martialed for mutiny.
30. Private John B. Thompson — may have had some experience as a surveyor.
31. Private Howard Tunn — hunter and navigator.
32. Private Ebenezer Tuttle — may have been the man sent back on June 12, 1804; otherwise, he was with the return party from Fort Mandan in 1805.
33. Private Peter M. Weiser — had some minor disciplinary problems at River Dubois; he was made a permanent member of the party.
34. Private William Werner — convicted of being absent without leave at St. Charles, Missouri, at the start of the expedition.
35. Private Isaac White — may have been the man sent back on June 12, 1804; otherwise, he was with the return party from Fort Mandan in 1805.
36. Private Joseph Whitehouse — often acted as a tailor for the other men; he kept a journal which extended the Expedition narrative by almost five months.
37. Private Alexander Hamilton Willard — blacksmith; assisted John Shields. He was convicted on July 12, 1804, of sleeping while on sentry duty and given one hundred lashes.
38. Private Richard Windsor — often assigned duty as a hunter.
39. Interpreter Toussaint Charbonneau — Sacagawea's husband; served as a translator and often as a cook.
40. Interpreter Sacagawea — Charbonneau's wife; translated Shoshone to Hidatsa for Charbonneau and was a valued member of the expedition.
41. Jean Baptiste Charbonneau — Charbonneau and Sacagawea's son, born February 11, 1805; his presence helped dispel any notion that the expedition was a war party, smoothing the way in Indian lands.
42. Interpreter George Drouillard — skilled with Indian sign language; the best hunter on the expedition.

• "Seaman", Lewis' black Newfoundland dog.

[edit] In popular culture

• The episode Margical History Tour of the American TV series The Simpsons contains a fictional retelling of the Lewis and Clark expedition.
• The rescue ship in Science fiction/Horror film Event Horizon is named the Lewis and Clark.
• The Comedy Almost Heroes starring Chris Farley and Matthew Perry features a fictional party attempting to best Lewis and Clark in their journey to the Pacific Ocean.
• Often parodied in the comic strip The Far Side by Gary Larson.
• The Histeria! episode "Great Heroes of France" had one segment called "Lewis and Clark", which had Clark's animation style and voice based on the Superman: The Animated Series version of Clark Kent. The sketch's name spoofed the TV-series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman which in turn spoofed the original naming of Lewis and Clark.
• A song titled "Lewis and Clark" is found on The Mystery CD by Tommy Emmanuel.
• In 1955 the movie The Far Horizons was released, starring Fred MacMurray as Meriwether Lewis, Charlton Heston as William Clark, Donna Reed as Sacajawea, and Barbara Hale as Julia Hancock. The movie perpetuates the myth of a romantic relationship between Sacajawea and William Clark. The end has Sacajawea and Julia Hancock realizing they are both in love with the same man. Realizing she can never fit into white society, Sacajawea goes back to her people. The movie is based on Della Gould Emmons' novel "Sacajawea of the Shoshones" (Portland OR : Binfords and Mort, 1943).
• In the 1988 movie National Lampoon's European Vacation, the Griswalds won the game show when, while deciding how to answer the question about the "Lewis and what Expedition", the wife addressed her husband by his first name, "Clark?"
• The lead character in Robert Heinlein's space exploration classic science fiction novel Time for the Stars was posted on a ship called "The Lewis and Clark", or "Elsie" to the crew.
• In Harry Turtledove's World War and Colonization Series, the American Space Station which later turned into Earth's first Spaceship was named "The Lewis and Clark."

[edit] See also

• Timeline of the Lewis and Clark Expedition
• History of the United States
• USS Lewis and Clark and USNS Lewis and Clark
• Jefferson National Expansion Memorial

[edit] References

1. ^ Ambrose, Stephen. Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the opening of the American west. (Simon & Schuster, New York, 1996). p. 69.
2. ^ Jefferson's Secret Message to Congress. Retrieved on June 30, 2006.
3. ^ Jefferson's Instructions for Meriwether Lewis. Retrieved on June 30, 2006.
4. ^ http://lewisandclarkjournals.unl.edu/v02.appendix.a.html
5. ^ Lewis first journal entry Retrieved on March 24, 2007
6. ^ ^{a b} Bernard deVoto (1962), The Course of Empire (Boston:Houghton Mifflin); p. 552
7. ^ Dugout Canoe description Retrieved on March 24, 2007
8. ^ Ambrose, Stephen. Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the opening of the American west. (Simon & Schuster, New York, 1996). p122-123
9. ^ Ambrose 334, 335
10. ^ Ambrose 115, 116, 123
11. ^ http://www.isu.edu/~trinmich/Discoverers.html
12. ^ Brandt, Anthony. Reliving Lewis and Clark: Louisiana Purchase Ceremony. (National Geographic News, March 23, 2004.)

[edit] Further reading

[edit] History

• Lewis and Clark Among the Indians, James P. Ronda, 1984 - ISBN 0-8032-3870-3
• Undaunted Courage, Stephen Ambrose, 1997 - ISBN 0-684-82697-6
• National Geographic Guide to the Lewis & Clark Trail, Thomas Schmidt, 2002 - ISBN 0-7922-6471-1
• The Lewis and Clark Journals: An American Epic of Discovery (abridged), edited by Gary E. Moulton, 2003 - ISBN 0-8032-2950-X
• The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 13-Volume Set, edited by Gary E. Moulton, 2002 - ISBN 0-8032-2948-8
• The complete text of the Lewis and Clark Journals online, University of Nebraska-Lincoln (in progress)
• In Search of York: The Slave Who Went to the Pacific With Lewis and Clark, Robert B. Betts, 2002 - ISBN 0-87081-714-0
• Online text of the Expedition's Journal at Project Gutenberg
• Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery, Ken Burns, 1997 - ISBN 0-679-45450-0

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Lewis and Clark Expedition

• Full text of the Lewis and Clark journals online – edited by Gary E. Moulton, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
  • National Archives photos dating from the 1860s-1890s of the Native cultures the expedition encountered
• Lewis and Clark: The National Bicentennial Exhibition
• National Council for the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial
• Lewis & Clark Bicentennial in Oregon
• Lewis and Clark, Mapping the West - Smithsonian Institution
• Lewis and Clark - National Geographic - a variety of resources, including an Interactive Journey Log
• Lewis and Clark - PBS
• Trip's Journal Entry - Search Engine
• Discovering Lewis and Clark
• Lewis and Clark by Air - A book with a perspective of L&C from the air
• Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail - United States National Park Service
• Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail Interpretive Center in Great Falls, Montana
• A 21st Century pictorial of the original route
• C-SPAN American Writers, Lewis&Clark in three parts, RealVideo, 2001
• Lewis and Clark in Kentucky
• Lewis and Clark Expedition
• Journal kept by the Corps of Discovery
• View the Lewis and Clark Map of 1814 in Google Earth
• Lewis & Clark - All-Star River Explorers (University of Illinois Extension)