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Lewis and Clark The Lewis and Clark expedition (1804–1806) was the first United States overland expedition to the Pacific coast and back, led by Captain Meriwether Lewis and Second Lieutenant William Clark, of the US Army.
Message to CongressThe River Missouri and Indians inhabiting it, are not as well known as rendered desirable by their connection with the Mississippi and consequently with us...and intelligent officer with 10 or 12 chosen men...might explore the whole line, even to the western ocean... Mission StatementThe object of your mission is to explore the Missouri River, and such principals stream of its, as, by its course and communication with the waters of the Pacific Ocean...may offer the most direct and practicable water communication across this continent for the purpose of commerce. Louisiana Purchase and a western expeditionLewis and Clark on the Lower Columbia by C.M. Russell Mandan and Arikara delegation. (NB this photograph dates well after the 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.The Louisiana Purchase, in 1803, sparked interest in expansion to the west coast. A few weeks after the purchase, United States President Thomas Jefferson, an advocate of western expansion, had the U.S. Congress appropriate $2500, "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 to the Pacific Ocean, in 1793. Jefferson selected Captain Meriwether Lewis to lead the expedition, afterwards known as the Corps of Discovery; Lewis selected William Clark as his partner. Due to bureaucratic delays in the US 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" ([1]). The group, initially consisting of 33 members, 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 approximately forty men followed the Missouri River westward. Soon they passed La Charrette Missouri, 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 first and 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 along the Missouri River, the Teton Sioux. 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 headed upriver until winter stopped them at the Mandan tribe's territory. In the winter of 1804–1805, the party wintered at Fort Mandan, near present-day Washburn, North Dakota. The Shoshone/Hidatsa native woman Sacagawea and her husband, French Canadian Toussaint Charbonneau, joined the group there and guided them westward. Sacagawea and her Shoshone tribe came from further west. Not only did Lewis and Clark feel that she could aid them in translation, but they also thought that when they got to that part of the country, she could take them to her native home. 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, 68 mineral specimens, and Clark's map of the United States. The expedition continued to follow the Missouri to its headwaters and the Continental Divide. In canoes, they descended the mountains by the Clearwater River, the Snake River, and the Columbia River, past Celilo Falls and through what is now Portland, Oregon until they reached the Pacific Ocean in the December of 1805. At this point, Lewis spotted Mt. Hood, a mountain known to be very close to the ocean. On a big pine, Clark carved
Clark had written in his journal, "Ocian [sic] in view! O! The Joy!". One journal entry is captioned "Cape Disappointment at the Enterance of the Columbia River into the Great South Sea or Pacific Ocean".1.deVoto 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. Interestingly, York (Clark's manservant), a slave, and Sacagawea, an Indian and a woman, voted along with the men of the party. 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. Mostly they just endured the persistent rain. The explorers started their journey home on March 23, 1806 and arrived on September 23. On the way home, Lewis and Clark used four dugout canoes they bought from the Native Americans, plus one that they stole [2]. Less than a month after leaving Fort Clatsop, they abandoned their canoes because crossing across all the falls proved too much a challenge. On July 3, Lewis and Clark split into two teams so Lewis could explore the Marias River. Lewis' group of four met the Blackfeet Indians. Their interview was cordial, but during the night, th Blackfeet tried to steal their weapons. In the struggle, two Indians were killed. The group of four--Lewis, Drouillard, and the Field brothers fled over 100 miles 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, when 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. 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.
Also for a better journal kept by the Corps of Discovery AchievementsBlack tailed Prairie Dog
Expedition members
Popular histories and documentariesPiegan-Blackfoot tipisIn the 1997 Ken Burns documentary Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery, historian Stephen E. Ambrose, author of the book Undaunted Courage about the expedition, compared the significance and impact of the Lewis and Clark Expedition to Americans of that era with the American landing on the moon for subsequent generations. The expedition not only answered questions about vast uncharted areas of North America (everything between the Missouri River in North Dakota to Mount Hood in western Oregon) but also gave Americans an electrifying sense of the vastness of their new country after the Louisiana Purchase and America's almost limitless natural resources and potential as an emergent nation. He also views the expedition as a quintessential American saga, with a cast of characters that included a French Canadian trapper, President Thomas Jefferson, the heroic personalities and camaraderie of both Captain Lewis and Captain Clark, a platoon of American soldiers reminiscent of Rogers' Rangers, the muscular Black American servant of Clark named York, colorful Indian tribes (Sioux, Mandans, Nez Percé, Blackfeet), Captain Lewis' shaggy dog named Seaman, numerous close shaves with death for everyone on the expedition, quick "think-on-your-feet" diplomatic innovation to defuse hostility and enlist the support of exotic tribes, scientific observation of awe-inspiring naturalistic phenomenon, a case of close combat with Indians, encounters with grizzly bears, harrowing navigation of wild rivers amidst magnificent scenery, and a difficult passage through the snow clad Bitterroot Mountains of Western Montana and Idaho. Despite all the trials, tribulations, and close calls, the expedition did not lose a person between North Dakota and Oregon and lost no one on the return trip. Undaunted Courage reads like real life imitating Hollywood, which makes it all the more surprising that Hollywood has never made a feature motion picture about the epic journey. In popular culture
See also
Notes1. p. 552, Bernard deVoto (1962), The Course of Empire (Boston:Houghton Mifflin) Further readingHistory
Notable fictionThese popular fictionalized historical novels have varying degrees of historical accuracy, which is unfortunate as they shaped much of the popular American understanding of the expedition.
External links
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