Provided the video. Today we are looking at the lewis and Clark Expedition and discussing some of the ramifications of this most important expedition. Some people have classified the lewis and Clark Expedition and compared it to the odyssey of the greek tragedies, just like the civil war is sometimes seen , of thatas iliad great epic battle. This great voyage will be quite significant and important. A few years ago, the Atlantic Monthly did a survey of the top 100 most influential people in American History and lewis and clark make the list at 70. What i find interesting is they are the only names on the entire list listed together, so it is almost like they are inseparable. The smithsonian did one just five years ago on the 100 most significant americans, and clark oncelewis and again made the list, and sacagawea also made the list. This young teenage shoshone woman was considered one of the 100 most significant americans. There is an impression across the United States that the lewis and Clark Expedition was and that the people who went along were important for our countrys history. Today we are going to discuss the expedition and three main facets. , thee going to look at it causes and historical context, the event itself, and the significance of the expedition. I wanted to start out with this quote from Thomas Jefferson. Wroteas in a letter he George Rogers clark, the older brother of william clark. This was written in 1780, so just a few years after the declaration of independence and a few years before the constitution is ratified. He says we shall form to the American Union a barrier against the dangerous extension of the british province of canada and add to the empire of liberty and an extensive and fertile country, thereby converting dangerous enemies into valuable friends. Even during the time of the articles of confederation, jefferson is sending letters to various people to formulate this empire of liberty he had in mind. Jefferson was a child of the enlightenment. Significance of enlightenment through exploration. People on the ground seeing things and writing them down and recording those would be very valuable for science. His attempts to explore what became the United States are legendary. These are just three of the attempts he made. First was to George Rogers clark in the letter we just read. He was a military soldier who had run some campaigns during the American Revolution, and he said he wanted him to lead this expedition. Clark replied he was not in very good health, but if he decided to do it in the future, he should think about asking his little brother william, who will eventually join the expedition, so thats pretty cool. The second was john ledyard. This explorer had an interesting idea that you could explore the western part of the americas by coming from russia. He actually tried to cross russia and go through come chaka and alaska to come down the coast. He was stopped by catherine the great. Nas fromhe great czari russian history. Andre michaux was a french botanist. And jefferson, as a Founding Member of the American Philosophical Society in philadelphia, got enough support to try to get him to at least find the flora of the west and bring that knowledge back to the back to his friends at the Philosophical Society. Unfortunately, all three of these expeditions do not reach their zenith, nor are they successful in the terms jefferson hoped. When you look at a european depiction of north america in 1800, you see the spanish have been quite active along the california coast. There are some french and spanish communities through the indicatesand the pink areas established or settled by the british in the colonies area. Vision of this empire of liberty was very powerful. He may not have ever traveled west of the blue ridge mountains, but his mind certainly traveled all the way to the pacific. In 1800, he learned from his friends in france that there had been a secret treaty in which the french had regained all the areas that had formerly been known as the Louisiana Purchase that had been given to spain during the french and indian war. This was pretty significant because france had been a growing empire and now was led by one of the great modern military leaders, napoleon. Now there is not a crumbling, weak spanish empire on the western plains, but an aggressive, militaristic french opponent, or potential opponent, on the flanks. The other thing that changed his way of thinking was the publication of a book. Jefferson loved books, he collected thousands of them. He went into great debt to do so. When the library of congress burned down during the war of 1812, jefferson actually gave much of his private library to form the corpus of the new library of congress. You can visit it and see some of the collections that jefferson donated to the library. He was very keen on this book by alexander mackenzie. Because voyages from montreal to the pacific was a northwestern ers account of traveling along the rivers and streams to the Pacific Ocean. Even though it was too far north into canada to be effective for yearround travel, this greatly intrigued jefferson, because mackenzie had postulated to the british that they could take control of the entire for trade of north america if they put a monopolistic control into Something Like the Hudson Bay Company for the northwest company to take this over. Jefferson did not want america to miss out on the fur bounty of the american west. He also wanted to have this utilitarian knowledge the enlightenment demanded and expected. He he 1800 alexion, 1800 election, he had been catapulted into becoming the second president of the United States of america third president , excuse me. And his geopolitical issues and intrigues with outside and inside forces almost compelled him to do something about it. So he sends messages and diplomats to france to ask napoleon if he would be willing to sell what became known as the Louisiana Purchase. It took several years for this didappen, but eventually it on the 30th of april 1803. Stretchingof land from the gulf of mexico to the 828,000 shield was straddlings of land, much of what flowed into the mississippi and Missouri Rivers. This was a huge territory in which the native people still claimed the right of occupancy, but america was purchasing the right of discovery from france. Jefferson announced this to the American People on the fourth of july in 1803 and saw this as a great boon to the country. He said, i look to the duplication of this area as a great achievement to the mass of happiness that is to ensue. And then postulated, is it not better that the opposite bank of the mississippi should be settled by our own brethren and children than by strangers of another family . He is having this vision now of america expanding even beyond the boundaries of the been thepi, which had Boundary Line in 1783 at the conclusion of the American Revolution. This enlightenment through exploration was to take a number of turns. Werenificant worthy the scientific questioning, scientific method, and realtime reasoning that would occur with explorers who were on the ground. His idea for this empire of liberty was one in which america would spread perhaps from sea to shining sea, but at this time that was quite a dangerous proposition. Because there was a french philosopher i the name of thatsquieu who said republics could not exist in very large continental ways, because the further away you were from the periphery, the more prone or apt those fringes would spend all from the center. The question of how big a republic could get and still function was still undetermined. So america became this great experiment for the expansion of freedom and democracy and equality. There were a number of explorers that went west during jeffersons tenure in office. We will focus on this redline where the lewis and Clark Expedition embarked they embarked from really the fault of the ohio appear all the way down to st. Louis and then the st. Louis portion to the columbia. You will also notice the zebulon pike went on several expeditions. He explored the headwaters of the mississippi and also went on a southwestern expedition to find the headwaters of the red river. And eventually was arrested by the spanish and transported through spain and back around. The freemancustis expedition embarked up the red river and there was another expedition by a hunter in dunbar that went up the watch atop. There was another expedition proposed to go up the flat rather flat river, but it never happened. There were lots of designs to try to explore these major river systems. One of the reasons why the lewis and Clark Expedition is more famous than all of these others is because some of the others were actually turned back by the spanish. In the case of pike, he was arrested along with his men and taken under house arrest down to santa fe and down to chihuahua. The freemancustis expedition was turned back by the spanish. The hunter and dunbar expedition went to the hot springs in arkansas. They had some r and r there with minerals and returned home. Long expedition wont occur until 1819, so it is down the road. Are you aware that lewis and seven there were excuse me, there were four different attempts by the spanish to arrest lewis and clark. They sent out expeditions to apprehend them. And they came within a few hundred miles on two occasions to nearly arrest them. The jeffersons instructions to lewis were quite clear. The object of your mission is to explore the Missouri River and the principal stream of it as, by its cores and communication with the Pacific Ocean, may offer the most direct and practicable wider communication across this continent for the purposes of commerce. Jeffersons letter to lewis that became kind of his marching orders. That i mean, this letter to lewis was epic, it was over six pages long. Thingsa hole list of jefferson wants him to do. He writes the letter to his friend, william clark, who he had served under in a campaign in the 1790s, asking him to join him as cocommander. He says, if there is anything that would induce youtuber it with me in this with its fatigues, dangers, honors, there is no man on earth with whom i should feel equal pleasure in sharing them as with yourself. This was an invitation for clark to join him in equal capacity, even though the president and secretary of war had not given permission. Roback and said, clark wrote back and said, i cheerfully join you in an official character as mentioned in your letter to take all the dangers, difficulties, and fatigues, and i anticipate the honors and rewards of the enterprise should we be successful. This was a pretty exciting time for lewis and clark as they began preparing now that the official news had been released in july for the following years exploration. Thatan see this journey lewis and clark will head on. This was about 8000 miles. It is going to be a very long trip. 864 days. Expeditiona major and it required a lot of logistical preparation. One of the first things they did was try to find out about the region. So they gathered maps that had been published about the area. I love this map by nicholas king. It is called the map of the western part of north america. You can see that the Mississippi River and the great lakes, and even the route of canadians is quite well defined. Wherethe Pacific Coast, vancouver and captain cook and others had mapped and charted the Pacific Coast. I love this word in the middle. I have looked at hundreds of maps in my life. This is the only time i have found this word. I have blown it up so you can read it and it says conjectural. Basically that means we dont know what is there. This is amazing because lewis clarke are pretty much they know where their destination is, but they are not quite sure what they are going to encounter in the interim. There were all kinds of stories of what they might find. They might find exotic animals or blueeyed welshmen. Lost tribes of israel. Mountains of silver. Mountains of salt. A northwest passage. Large, furry beaver that were six feet long. I mean, who knew what to expect in this area . They are kind of exploring naturalists, so they are going to Pay Attention to the flora and fauna and landscape and the native people to try to understand better whats going on in that region. Ontoalso knew if they got the great plains and there were not any trees to build boats, that they may need to have another form of transportation. Lewis devised an erect or set ereccalled devised an tor set boat called the experiment that he could put together and cover in the event that they needed a boat and they did not have trees. The fact is, after they crossed the great falls of the missouri, they did need additional craft, and they put this boat together. Unfortunately they did not bring to keep tape or caulk the seams from leaking, so the boat ended up not being as useful for that purpose as they had hoped. He also made one of his important acquisitions when he bought a newfoundland dog. We dont know whether he was a the red and white ies, butf the newf seaman will play an Important Role as a mascot and pet along the journey. He and clark meet near the falls of the ohio near louisville, kentucky. In october they started discussing the kinds of things they will need to have a successful voyage. Clark has been in the military as a captain as a lieutenant, excuse me. And lewis was now formerly a captain. They kept up the charade they had both become captains, so they refer to one another as captain even though clark is not promoted until later on. His family a fond farewell. His family lived at the fault of the ohio in kentucky in the province or county of virginia until it became a state in 1790. They head down on this boat, or barge, that was about 55 feet long and could tow 10 to 12 tons of material. They also did some recruiting as they went to the forts. Some of the officers tried to give them the people they wanted fortut of the for vote off the island, so to speak. Lewis and clark were quite careful in who they chose. They wanted unmarried men that could participate in these dangers and fatigues. There were only one or married two men that went on the expedition. Almost all of the others are single. When all is said and done, about 55 members embarked in st. Louis in may of 1804. Sergeant gaffe was one of the noncommissioned officers. He passed inspection. And they built a winter encampment on the illinois side of the river because the transfer of the louisiana territory had not taken place for so they were waiting that formerly to occur. During the winter, they were quite busy. Louis tot to st. Procure supplies and clark spent most of the Time Training men in shooting and the other things they would need to be successful. There were at least five who cap records of this expedition. Lewis and clark were both some of the most important writers. There were several stretches in which lewis either did not write or we have lost those entries. , and wrote all but 10 days even those 10 days when he was gone on a hunting trip, he summarized. He basically accounted for every day of the expedition, quite remarkable. When you look at the words of lewis and clark and their enlisted men, they wrote more words than are contained in the holy bible, so this is a pretty extensive record. It has been digitized, available for free for the public at the university of nebraska press. It is a National Treasure because it can be keyword searched for almost any kind of topic you could think about. The expedition was kind of a village on the move. Lewis was the trained scientist. Jefferson had sent him to philadelphia to meet with his friends, the Philosophical Society in the university of pennsylvania, who received training on how to take astronomical observations, the equipment he would need and things like that. Clark was a soldier, the one who made the expedition happened, the one who daytoday was getting the boats up the river, making the maps, overseeing the men. York was his body servant. They had been lifelong companions and clark took him with him on the trip. They will meet sacagawea. Of the waya a third into the expedition. We will talk more about her when that happens. They had french voyagers who took them upstream. They had regular army. And they also had civilians who were hunters and interpreters, people like john coulter and george do yard they carried with them a huge amount of trade goods to give as gifts to the tribes they met. They also had tokens of sovereignty, like these peace dals with jefferson on the front and the hands clasped of a native and soldier on the back with the words peace and friendship. These are called jefferson peace medals and they are quite famous. The mint made replicas of them. I have some in my office that you could come see. They have textiles similar to the ones we have looked at before, and especially trade beads. Beads herend clark and here. The ones the natives liked the most seem to be the blue beads. They traded those at almost every stop that they went. They gathered 10 tons of material and put it inside this barge. Clark had also made some platforms that could be marched on by the men as they were pulling the boat upstream, and also raised as defensive shields if there boat ever came under attack, so what an ingenious way to do that. Here is a drawing of the barge. On the 14th of may 1804, they set out from st. Louis under a st. Le breeze, traveled up charles and the mighty Missouri River. It was a challenge to go upstream. 12 river flows at four to miles an hour, depending on what currents and eddies you are in. This was a very laborious