Going to be 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 as americas iliad, of that 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 figures 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 where they are listed together. So, it is almost like they are inseparable. And the smithsonian did one just five years ago on the 100 most significant americans, and Meriwether Lewis and William Clark once again made the list, and sacagawea also made the made it. This young teenage shoshone woman was considered one of the 100 most significant americans. So, there is an impression across the United States that the lewis and Clark Expedition was significant and that the people who went along are important for our countrys history. Today we are going to discuss the expedition in three main facets. We are going to look at it, the causes and historical context, the event itself, and the significance of the expedition. I wanted to start out with this quote from Thomas Jefferson. This was in a letter he wrote George Rogers clark, the older brother of William Clark. This was written in 1780, so after the a few years declaration of independence and a few years before the constitution is ratified. And 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 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. Now, jefferson was a child of the enlightenment. He knew the significance of enlightenment through exploration. That people on the ground seeing things and writing them down and recording those would be very valuable for science. So, 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 that letter we just read. He was a military soldier who had won 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 lewis and Clark Expedition, so that is 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. So, he actually tried to cross sia and both through jim come chaka and alaska to come down the coast. He was stopped by catherine the great. One of the great czarinas from 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 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 had hoped. When you look at a european depiction of north america in 1800, you see that the spanish have been quite active along the california coast. There are some french and spanish communities throughout the south and southeast. The pink indicates areas established or settled by the british in the colonies area. Jeffersons 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 figures, napoleon. Now there is not a crumbling, weak spanish empire on the on americas western flank, 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. You know jefferson loved books, he collected thousands of them. He went into great expense and 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. As you go there, 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 fur traders 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 fur trade of north america if they put a monopolistic control into Something Like the Hudson Bay Company or the northwest company to take this over. Jefferson did not want america to miss out on the fur bounties of the american west. He also wanted to have this utilitarian knowledge the enlightenment demanded and expected. And with the 1800 election, he had now 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. And it took several years for this to happen, but eventually it did on the 30th of april , 1803. This tract of land stretching from the gulf of mexico to the Canadian Shield was 828,000 land, straddling 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 for the country, to double its size like this. 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 mississippi, which had been the Boundary Line in 1783 at the conclusion of the american revolution. And this enlightenment through exploration was to take a number of turns. Most significant were the scientific questioning, scientific method, and realtime reasoning that would occur with explorers that 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 by the name of montesquieu who said that 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 spin off 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 red wine line where the lewis and Clark Expedition embarked they embarked from really the fault of the ohio appear all the up here come 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 hunter and dunbar that went up wichita therel. Was another expedition proposed to go up the 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 then 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 the minerals and returned home. The stephen long expedition wont occur until 1819, so it is down the road. Are you aware that lewis and clarke there were seven 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. Jeffersons instructions to lewis were quite clear. The object of your mission is to explore the Missouri River and such, the principal stream of course and communication with the Pacific Ocean, may offer the most direct and practicable wider communication across this continent for the purposes of commerce. This was jeffersons letter to lewis that became kind of his marching orders. Lewis knew that i mean, this letter to lewis was epic, it was over six pages long. It has a whole list of things jefferson wants him to do. So he writes a letter to his friend, William Clark, who he had served under in a campaign in the 1790s, asking him to join him as a cocommander. He says, if there is anything under these circumstances, in this enterprise that would induce you to participate 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 an equal capacity, even though the president and secretary of war had not given permission for that rank. 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 result of such an 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. And you can see this journey that lewis and clark will head on. This is about 8000 miles. It is going to be a very long trip. 864 days. So this is a major expedition 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. As is the Pacific Coast, where vancouver and captain cook and others had mapped and charted the Pacific Coast. But i love this word right in the middle. I have looked at hundreds of maps in my life and 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. And this is amazing, because lewis and 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 . So, they are kind of exploring naturalists, they going to Pay Attention to the flora and fauna and landscape and the native peoples to try to understand better whats going on in that region. They also knew if they got onto the great plains and there were not any trees to build boats, that they may need to have another form of transportation. An erector setd boat called the experiment that he could put together and cover with hides 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. But unfortunately they did not bring any duct tape or caulk to keep 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 named seaman. We dont know whether he was a black dog or the red and white colors of the newfies, but seaman will play an Important Role as the mascot and pet along the journey. He and clark meet near the falls the ohio on clarks point clarkspoint 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 formally 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. Clark bids his family a fond farewell. His family lived at the fault of the ohio in kentucky, had been a which had been a 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 to get out of the fort. 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. And there were only one or two married men that went on the expedition. Almost all of the others are single. And 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 yet, so they were waiting for that formal ceremony to occur. During the winter, however, they were quite busy. Lewis went to st. Louis to procure supplies and clark spent most of the Time Training the men in shooting and the other things they would need to be successful. Now, there were at least five journalists who kept records of this expedition. Lewis and clark would be some of the most important writers. There were several stretches in which lewis either did not write or we have lost those entries. Clark wrote all but 10 days, and even those 10 days when he was gone on a hunting trip, he summarized. He basically accounted for every day of the expedition, which is 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. It is 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 can think about. Now, 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 to receive training on how to take astronomical observations, the equipment he would need and things like that. Clark was the soldier. He is the one who made the expedition happen. He is 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 a third of the way into the expedition. We will talk more about her when that happens. They had french voyageurs that who who took who took them upstream. They had regular army. And they also had civilians who were hunters and interpreters, people like john coulter and ard. Ge do yard gerlli 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 medals 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 has actually made replicas of them. I have some in