Lewis and Clark Expedition

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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.

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Message to Congress

The 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... Template:Citation needed

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Mission statement

"The 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." -Thomas Jefferson Template:Citation needed

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Louisiana Purchase and a western expedition

Image:Lewisclarkrussell.jpg Image:Mandan&Arikara.jpg Image:Map of Lewis and Clark's Track, Across the Western Portion of North America, published 1814.jpg Lewis and Clark traveled for twenty-eight months and traveled across over 8,000 miles.

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, 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 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 past what is now Portland, Oregon. At this point, Lewis spotted Mt. 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"<ref name="deVoto">Bernard deVoto (1962), The Course of Empire (Boston:Houghton Mifflin); p. 552</ref>

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".<ref name="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. 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, the 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. 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.

See Timeline of the Lewis and Clark Expedition for more detail

Also for a better journal kept by the Corps of Discovery

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Achievements

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  • 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)
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Expedition members

  • Captain Meriwether Lewis (1774 – 1809) was private secretary to President Thomas Jefferson and leader of the Expedition.
  • Captain William Clark (1770 – 1838) shared command of the Expedition, although technically second in command. His carved date is the only physical remains of the expedition that can be seen today.
  • York (ca. 1770 – 1831) as Clark's manservant (slave), he shared the dangers of the journey, but not the rewards.
  • Sergeant Charles Floyd (1782 – 1804) was the Expedition's quartermaster, but died early in the trip. He was the only person who died during the expedition.
  • Sergeant Patrick Gass (1771 – 1870) was chief carpenter, promoted to Sergeant after Floyd's death.
  • Sergeant John Ordway (ca. 1775 – ca. 1817) was responsible for issuing provisions, appointing guard duties, and keeping records for the Expedition.
  • Sergeant Nathaniel Hale Pryor (1772 – 1831) was leader of the 1st Squad; he presided over the court martial of privates John Collins and Hugh Hall.
  • Corporal Richard Warfington (1777 – ?) conducted the return party to St. Louis in 1805.
  • Private John Boley (dates unknown) was disciplined at River Dubois and was assigned to the return party.
  • Private William E. Bratton (1778 – 1841) served as hunter and blacksmith.
  • Private John Collins (? – 1823) had frequent disciplinary problems; he was court-martialed for stealing whiskey which he had been assigned to guard.
  • Private John Colter (ca. 1775 – 1813) charged with mutiny early in the trip, he later proved useful as a hunter; he earned his fame after the journey.
  • Private Pierre Cruzatte (dates unknown) was a one-eyed French fiddle-player and a skilled boatman.
  • Private John Dame (1784 – ?) killed a pelican.
  • Private Joseph Field (ca. 1772 – 1807) was a woodsman and skilled hunter, brother of Reubin.
  • Private Reubin Field (ca. 1771 – 1823?) was a woodsman and skilled hunter, brother of Joseph.
  • Private Robert Frazer (? – 1837) kept a journal that was never published.
  • Private George Gibson (? – 1809) was a fiddle-player and a good hunter; he served as an interpreter (probably via sign language).
  • Private Silas Goodrich (dates unknown) was the main fisherman of the expedition.
  • Private Hugh Hall (ca. 1772 – ?) was court-martialed with John Collins for stealing whiskey.
  • Private Thomas Proctor Howard (1779 – ?) was court-martialed for setting a "pernicious example" to the Indians by showing them that the wall at Fort Mandan was easily scaled.
  • Private François Labiche (dates unknown) was a French fur trader who served as an interpreter and boatman.
  • Private Hugh McNeal (dates unknown) was the first white explorer to stand astride the headwaters of the Missouri River on the Continental Divide.
  • Private John Newman (ca. 1785 – 1838) was court-martialed and confined for "having uttered repeated expressions of a highly criminal and mutinous nature."
  • Private John Potts (1776 – 1808?) was German immigrant and a miller.
  • Private Moses B. Reed (dates unknown) attempted to desert in August 1804, convicted of desertion and expelled from the party.
  • Private John Robertson (ca. 1780 – ?) was a member of the Corps for a very short time.
  • Private George Shannon (1785 – 1836) was lost twice during the expedition, once for sixteen days.
  • Private John Shields (1769 – 1809) was a blacksmith, gunsmith, and a skilled carpenter; with John Colter, he was court-martialed for mutiny.
  • Private John B. Thompson (dates unknown) may have had some experience as a surveyor.
  • Private Howard Tunn (1770 – ?) was a hunter and navigator.
  • Private Ebenezer Tuttle (1773 – ?) may have been the man sent back on June 12, 1804; otherwise, he was with the return party from Fort Mandan in 1805.
  • Private Peter M. Weiser (1781 – 1828) had some minor disciplinary problems at River Dubois; he was made a permanent member of the party.
  • Private William Werner (dates unknown) was convicted of being absent without leave at St. Charles, Missouri, at the start of the expedition.
  • Private Isaac White (ca. 1774 – ?) may have been the man sent back on June 12, 1804; otherwise, he was with the return party from Fort Mandan in 1805.
  • Private Joseph Whitehouse (ca. 1775 – ?) often acted as a tailor for the other men; he kept a journal which extended the Expedition narrative by almost five months.
  • Private Alexander Hamilton Willard (1778 – 1865) was a blacksmith and assisted John Shields. He was convicted on July 12, 1804, of sleeping while on sentry duty and given one hundred lashes.
  • Private Richard Windsor (dates unknown) was often assigned duty as a hunter.
  • Interpreter Toussaint Charbonneau, Sacagawea's husband, served as a translator and often as a cook.
  • Interpreter Sacagawea, Charbonneau's wife, translated Shoshone to Hidatsa for Charbonneau and was a valued member of the expedition.
    • 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.
  • Interpreter George Drouillard (? – 1810) was skilled with Indian sign language and was the best hunter on the expedition.
  • Dog Seaman, Lewis's black Newfoundland dog.
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Popular histories and documentaries

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In 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.

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In popular culture

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See also

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References

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Further reading

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History

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Notable fiction

These 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.

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External links

fr:Expédition Lewis et Clark nl:Lewis en Clark expeditie

  • fr.chickwing.com/chicken/Main_Page
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