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Mysteries of the American West When Thomas Jefferson was elected President in 1801, two out of three Americans lived within fifty miles of the Atlantic coastline. The United States did not exist beyond the Mississippi River.
To the north lay British Canada, Spain controlled a large part of North America, stretching from California to Mexico. The lands west of the Mississippi were owned by French monarch, Napoleon Bonaparte, but were entirely unknown to the people of the United States.
Oregon Territory
Louisiana Territory New Spain
The United States
The mystery behind the untamed American West was inspirational and motivating for President Jefferson, whose personal library was filled with books on the region. In a secret proposal to Congress, Jefferson requests funds to establish a recorded route across the unknown lands.
Wa s h i n g t o n
The captain’s compass.
Lewis The President chose his personal secretary to serve as Captain for the Corps of Discovery.
Jefferson The President wrote out countless detailed instructions on record keeping, taxidermy, and cartography for Captain Lewis to carry along on his journey.
Jefferson’s library at this home in Monticello had the largest collection of books on the West.
Wa s h i n g t o n
The Northwest Passage Most of the preconceptions about the nature of the lands westward were conjecture and fanciful rumors, concerning the existence of woolly mammoths, violently erupting volcanoes, mountains of salt, and tribes of blue-eyed Indians who spoke Welsh.
One great motivational factor for funding the expedition for Jefferson and the members of Congress was to establish a water route for trade across the country. This was thought by most people to be possible through a series of connecting North American rivers, and was commonly referred to as the Northwest Passage.
The geography of the Missouri and the most convenient water communication to the Pacific ocean is a desideratum not yet satisfied. Thomas Jefferson
Jefferson was particularly eager to discover the Northwest Passage, by establishing a trade route from the east to the west coast, direct trade with the Orient could be established. Jefferson believed the first nation to discover this passage would control the destiny of the continent.
The Louisiana Purchase With the support of Congress, Jefferson turned to his Presidential Secretary, Merriwether Lewis, to lead what he refferred to as the Corps of Discovery. In addition to finding and mapping the Northwest Passage across the continent, it was Lewis’s charge to familiarize the nation’s leaders with the cultures and natural conditions of the unfamiliar territory.
Not only was Lewis expected to serve as Captain and leader for the expedition, but also as a representative of diplomacy for the United States. Jefferson was eager to establish positive relationships with Indian tribes, who could grant the United States access to their lucrative fur trade.
On July 4th of 1803, the day before Lewis departed from Washington, the country recieved news from Europe that expanded the importance of the expedition’s success. In 1802, Jefferson had sent ministers to France offering to buy the port of New Orleans. Napoleon Bonaparte surprised Jefferson by offering to sell the entire Louisiana Territory, some 820,000 miles to the U.S. for $15 million dollars. For only three cents per acre, the President more than doubled the size of his country with just a stroke of his quill.
Eastern Woodlands
The Keelboat Commissioned for the Corps of Discovery expedition as their main method of transport across the rocky rapids of the Missouri, the boat was fifty-five feet long and eight feet wide, and was capable of supporting up to ten tons of supplies.
Eastern Woodlands
The Corps of discovery As Lewis gathered supplies and rations for the coming journey, Lewis wrote to his friend William Clark to ask him to accompany him as co-commander.
Dear Lewis, This is an undertaking fraited with many difeculties, but my friend I do assure you that no other man lives whith whome I would perfur to undertake such a trip. William Clark After collecting the expedition’s keelboat from Pittsburgh, Lewis set out to collect his friend Clark, and recruited almost fifty men on his way. Some of the permanent party included: Sargeants Charles Floyd, Patrick Gass, John Ordway and Nathaniel Pryor, Privates Joseph and Reuben Field, brothers from Kentucky, Francois LaBiche and Pierre Cruzette, both half Omaha and excellent rivermen, and Joseph Whitehouse. There was also George Droulliard, the 28-year-old son of a French Canadian father and Shawnee Indian mother who was hired as a translator, York, who was Clark’s slave since childhood, and Seamen, Lewis’s Newfoundland dog.
After about travelling down the Ohio River, the Corps made their first winter camp on the Illinois side of the Mississippi, upriver from St. Louis. The Captains drilled their men, purchased final supplies and gathered information from fur traders about the trail ahead.
Lewis and Clark Set Sail
On May 14, 1804 Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set sail wi in 3 boats. Their mission was to explore the western part of the
Up the Missouri River As they traveled, Clark spent most of his time on the keelboat, charting the course and making maps, while Lewis was often ashore, studying the rock formations, soil, animals, and plants along the way.
The members of the expedition were always on the lookout for Indians, hoping they would be peaceable, armed in case they weren’t. By the end of July of 1804 they had traveled more than 600 miles (1,110 kilometers) up the river. Still they had not met a single Indian.
The expedition marks the first Fourth of July ever celebrated west of the Mississippi by camping near a stream they named Independence Creek, firing keelboat’s cannon, and drinking extra ration of whiskey.
Washington
Camp Wood
Eastern Woodlands
Seaman Lewis bought a Newfoundland dog in the summer of 1803 for twenty dollars. Seaman proved himself a capable hunter and guide, catching squirrels, beavers and even an antelope.
York Clark William Clark grew up on the Kentucky and Ohio frontiers, and was intimately familiar with negotiations with Indians. His practical experience, combined with an outgoing and jovial personality, made him the perfect companion for Lewis.
York was a slave in Clark’s childhood home, roughly the same age, they were close friends. York accompanied Clark on the expedition as one of his men. His unique appearance and great strenght fascinated the native tribes, who attributed his black skin to some special power, granting him the name “Big Medicine.”
Eastern Woodlands
Eastern Woodlands
Joseph Whitehouse Initially expelled from the expedition for misconduct, but allowed to return after repenting. He kept a journal and often acted as a tailor for the other men.
Whiskey The most cherished ration on the trek, and a valuable commodity for trading.
Patrick Gass A highly skilled Irish carpenter who served in the army on the Illinois frontier. His skills aided in the construction of the many camps and canoes built and used by the corps along the way.
o o d la n d s W n r e East
Council Bluff On August 2, a small group of Oto and Missouris arrived at the Corps’ camp site, which Clark had named Council Bluff. With great ceremony, Lewis and Clark held the first formal meeting between representatives of the United States and western Indians. The Indians observed as the soldiers marched in full regalia and demonstrated their skills with weaponry. The Corps’ show of decorum and military strength would establish the routine for subsequent councils.
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During the council, the Indians were told they were the “children” of a new “great father” who would provide them with trade and protection in place of their unreliable commerce with the French and the Spanish. It was a speech Lewis would deliver to numerous tribes throughout the journey. The Corps of Discovery suffered it’s first fatality in modern-day Iowa on August 20th, 1804. Sargeant Charles Floyd became the first United States soldier to die west of the Mississippi. The captains named his gravesite Floyd’s Bluff.
Eastern Woodland Animals Elk Bison
Eastern Woodrat Missouri Beaver Northern Raccoon
Unfortunately, Floyd’s contributions to the journey, together with his journal, ended with his premature death. As “Diagnosed” by the captains, Floyd’s illness was considered to be a “bilious cholic.” They could not be faulted for preventing his death, which medical historians have concluded was from a ruptured appendix.
Channel Catfish White Tailed Deer
Sgt. Flo yd
at P l The Gre ai
Counc
il Bluff
ns
On the Bad River As the party moved farther up the Louisiana Territory, they began to notice the absence of trees in the new landscape, they had emerged onto the Great Plains. As the trees turned to grasslands, the Corps began discovering altogether new species to observe and describe.
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The Corps was under special instruction from Jefferson to seek out the Teton Sioux, who occupied two villages near the Missouri River, one was situated off a tributary, the Bad River. Tetons were known for their aggression, intent on controlling traffic through their portion of the river, they would demand large gifts from passing merchants.
At the first council with the leaders of the Teton tribe, the expedition went through its practiced ritual for meeting Indians, parading in uniform and demonstrating an air gun. The display did little to impress the Tetons, who perceived the Americans as competitors for control of trade in the region. Tensions increased between the two sides, nearly resulting in an armed conflict. Fortunately, the Teton chief Black Buffalo intervened and brought things back to a more diplomatic level.
Great Plains Animals Pronghorn Antelope Prairie Horned Lark Black Billed Magpie Mule Deer
Coyote Prairie Dog Bull Snake Least Tern
Desert Cottontail White Tailed Jackrabbit Long Tailed Weasel Common Poorwill
Sunday, September 23, 1804 Three Souex boys Came to us Swam the river and informd. that the Band of Seauex called the Tetongues (Tetons) of 80 Lodges were Camped at the next Creek above, & 60 Lodges more a Short distance above, we gave those boys two Carrots of Tobacco to Carry to their Chiefs, with directions to tell them that we would Speek to them tomorrow. William Clark
T h e G r e at P l a i n s
Oto Part of the southern Sioux tribes who lived along the Missouri River. They were buffalo-hunters and farmers who lived in earthcovered houses grouped into towns.
The Great Plains
Fort Mandan Lewis and Clark were keen to cover as many miles as possible before the Missouri froze. Four days after the first snowfall, they reached the Mandan tribe’s villages, where they planned to spend the winter. Relations between the Mandans and the Corps were friendly throughout the duration of the expedition’s stay. The Mandans supplied the Americans with food throughout the winter at their newly constructed home, Fort Mandan, in exchange for a steady stream of trade goods. When food became scarce, members of the Corps accompanied the Mandans on a buffalo hunt.
Each of the Mandan villages was centered on a cedar post on an open plaza. The permanent earthen lodges each held about 10 people. A wall enclosed the complex for protection from enemy raids. During the winter months, when the frigid winds blew across the Dakota plain, these lodges were abandoned for temporary, more sheltered structures nearer the river.
Fort Mandan
Corps Translators
February 11, 1805 about five Oclock this evening one of the wives of Charbono was delivered of a fine boy. it is worthy of remark that this was the first child which this woman had boarn, and as is common in such cases her labour was tedious and the pain violent; Mr. Jessome informed me that he had freequently admininstered a small portion of the rattle of the rattlesnake, which he assured me had never failed to produce the desired effect, that of hastening the birth of the child; having the rattle of a snake by me I gave it to him and he administered two rings of it to the woman broken in small pieces with the fingers and added to a small quantity of water. Whether this medicine was truly the cause or not I shall not undertake to determine, but I was informed that she had not taken it more than ten minutes before she brought forth perhaps this remedy may be worthy of future experiments, but I must confess that I want faith as to it's efficacy. M. Lewis
Toussaint Charbonneau was a French Canadian fur trader living among the Mandan Indians. Charbonneau had two captive Shoshone Indian “wives�. Both had been captured by a Hidatsa war party about 1800, and sold as slaves to Toussaint. One wife was Sacagawea, approximately 16 years old in 1804. Lewis and Clark settled in Fort Mandan in the hopes of acquiring useful information from the Indians and to harden their fellow explorers to living in Indian country. What the expedition needed most were Indian interpreters, especially any who were familiar with the western terrain.
Sacagawea spoke both Shoshone and Hidatsa; Toussaint spoke both Hidatsa and French. The captains, however, did not speak French. To solve this dilemma, the officers called upon Private Francois Labiche, who spoke both French and English. This interpreter chain would require the captains to speak to Labiche in English; he to Toussaint in French; he to Sacagawea in Hidatsa, and she to speak in Shoshone to her tribal people.
T h e G r e at P l a i n s
Fort Clatsop
The Great Plains
At the end of their journey, The Corps of Discovery members vote on where to build their 1805 winter fort. When it came time for the departure home, Lewis presented the fort to the local Clatsop Indian Tribe.
Toussaint Charbonneau
Fort Mandan
After being instructed to trade with the Mandan tribe by Thomas Jefferson, the Corps decided to build their 1804 winter camp near their village. The fort was built of cottonwood lumber cut from the riverbanks. It was triangular in shape, with high walls on all sides and a gate facing the riverbank.
Sacagawea
T h e G r e at P l a i n s
Mandan Warrior Teton Sioux
Coyote The Corps of Discovery recorded a total of 122 species of fauna that have come to symbolize the American West. Lewis was without question the principal biologist and zoologist of the expedition.
Prairie Dog
The Great Plains
Into Grizzly Country The Corps departed fort Mandan in April of 1805, pushing into what is now Montana, farther west than any white man had gone before. Once again they began to see changes in the landscape, and the animals inhabiting it.
The Indians had warned them about the fearsome Grizzly Bear, but Lewis remained unimpressed. He thought that while grizzlies posed a real danger to Indians armed only with bows and arrows, they would prove no match for a man with a rifle.
As they were discovering and charting the features of the country, the Captains were in the habit of naming features of the land after expedition members. When homesick Clark came across a tributary to the Missouri, he names it the Judith River, after a sweetheart from his hometown in Virginia, Judith Hancock.
maze activity
Can you help Seaman catch the beaver?
Three Forks of the missouri In June of 1805, the Corps of Discovery reached the Great Falls of the Missouri—five massive cascades around which the men must carry all of their gear, including the canoes.
More than a month would pass before the expedition was around the Great Falls and onto the next stretch of navigable water. Beyond rose the Rocky Mountains.
On the 15th of July, the Corps pushed their canoes onto the Missouri once more, they entered a canyon that lewis referred to as the Gates of the Rocky Mountains. Although there was still no sign of the headwaters to the Pacific Ocean.
The expedition reaches the Three Forks of the Missouri near the end of July, they name the three tributaries Jefferson, Gallatin, and Madison in honor of the President, Secretary of the Treasury, and Secretary of State.
Great Falls
Jefferson
Gallatin Madison
The Rocky Mountains
Judith Hancock
Clark’s future wife, after whom Judith River was named.
The Rocky Mountains An abundant resource for both meat and fur for the Corps members, who engaged in Buffalo hunts and ceremonies with the Mandan and Hidatsa Indians.
Buffalo
The Rocky Mountains
A Monster Captain Lewis and his men knew nothing of bears before encountering this Grizzly in modern day Montana on May 5th 1805. Weighing an estimated 600 pounds, it took five corps men ten bullets to bring it down.
The Rocky Mountains
Beaverhead rock The closer the captains came to the mountains, the more formidable the snow-covered peaks became. Once across the Continental Divide, they could ride the westward-flowing Columbia River. But the trek from the Missouri River to the Columbia River was going to require horses.
Back at Fort Mandan, the Hidatsa had told Lewis and Clark that they would meet up with the horse-rich Shoshone. But so far, to the captains’ great concern, they had not encountered any of the tribe.
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Finally, on August 8, 1805 Sacagawea recognizes a landmark, Beaverhead Rock and knows they are close to Shoshone lands. Three days later Lewis spots an Indian on horseback. It was a Shoshone at last, the first Indian they had seen since Fort Mandan. On August 11th, Lewis finds the headwaters of the Missouri River, then crosses the Continental Divide and Lemhi Pass to discover that there is no Northwest Passage.
Can you help Sacagawea find horses for the Corps of Discovery?
camp fortunate The Shoshone led the expedition to his chief, who in a dramatic stroke of luck turned out to be Sacagawea’s brother. Soon the captains—with Sacagawea translating—were bargaining with the chief, Cameahwait, for horses. Without these horses, their chances of reaching the Pacific would likely have been quashed. The captains also secured information from the Shoshone. An old man of the tribe described a trail that led across the Continental Divide. The trail was used by the Nez Perce, who lived on the far side of the Rockies. Now the expedition had a way over the mountains.
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Rocky Mountain Animals Great Horned Owl Loggerhead Shrike Northern Bobcat Hutchins Goose
Short Tailed Shrew Black Tailed Deer Northern Flicker Grizzly Bear Moose
Audubons Mountain Sheep North American Porcupine Northern Pocket Gopher American Goldfinch Striped Skunk
The pacific northwest
Shoshone Gifts When the Corps reached Camp Fortunate on August 17th, 1805, Chief Cameawhait and his tribe traded Lewis three horses for an old uniform, a pair of leggings, a couple of handkerchiefs, and three knives. The horses were of great use to the travelers, both for transportation and sustanence in desperate times.
The Pacific Northwest
The pacific northwest
Chief Twisted Hair
Chief of the Nez Perce, Twisted Hair proved himself a helpful guide a generous host.
Chief Cameawhait Chief of the Shoshone tribe, who coincidentally turned out to be Sacagawea’s long lost brother.
The Pacific Northwest
With the Nez Perce After struggling for eleven days in the Bitterroot mountains, the horses were near starvation, the men—who resorted to eating three of the colts— not much better. Starving, the men emerge from the mountains near present-day Weippe, Idaho, at the villages of the Nez Perce Indians.
word search activity The Nez Perce were not frightened of the white men and treated them to a filling meal of buffalo, dried salmon, and camas bread. The Indians told Clark about the route ahead. Among those offering guidance was Twisted Hair, a chief that Clark described as “a Cheerful man with apparant siencerity.”
Pacific Northwest Animals Mountain Lion Harbor Seal Garder Snake Blue Catfish Swift Fox
After learning a new method to make dugout canoes from the Nez Perce, the men push off down the Clearwater River on October 7th of 1805. It is the first time they’ve traveled with the current at their back in almost two years. Finally, on October 16, 1805 The expedition reaches the Columbia River, the last waterway to the Pacific Ocean.
White Sturgeon Common Crow Cutthroat Trout Water Terrapin Pinyon Jay Ermine
Long Billed Curlew Lewis Woodpecker Clark Nutcracker Pacific Nighthawk Mountain Goat Sea Otter
Bushy Tailed Woodrat Western Meadowlark Western Hognose Snake Yellow Bellied Marmot Roosevelt Elk
Fort Cl atsop Having reached the Pacific, the entire expedition— including Sacagawea and York—take a vote on where to build their winter quarters. They chose the Clatsop Indian side of the Columbia, and the encampment came to be called Fort Clatsop. The Clatsops aided the Corps both in preparing for and dealing with the Northwest winter. They informed Lewis and Clark that there was a good amount of elk on the south side of the Columbia, information that influenced the Corps to build Fort Clatsop where they did. When the expedition’s food supplies were running low, the Clatsops informed the Corps that a whale had washed ashore some miles to the south. Relations between the Clatsops and the expedition went well through the duration of the Americans’ stay. At the expedition’s departure from Fort Clatsop on March 22, 1806, Because of their friendship with the expedition, the Clatsops were left Fort Clatsop and all its furniture by Lewis and Clark.
Fort Clats
op Great Falls Traveler’s Rest Fort Manda
n
Camp Fort
unate Teton Siou
x
Sgt. Floyd Council Bl
uff Washingt on
Camp Woo
d