Lewis and Clark Expedition - explorer.

« took a small detachment into present-day north central Montana, thinking that the course of the Marias River might provide an American claim to fur-rich country inwhat is now the Canadian province of Alberta.

In August the groups reunited on the Missouri River, near the mouth of the Yellowstone.

They arrived in St.

Louis onSeptember 23, 1806. C Relations with the Native Americans and Spanish The Lewis and Clark Expedition made a journey through the homelands of native people.

What American explorers called “wilderness” and “unknown” was moreproperly Native American homes, gardens, and hunting territories.

Without the active support of native people, the expedition could not have accomplished its goals,much less survived in a sometimes-difficult country.

Native people provided Lewis and Clark with vital geographic information, food, shelter, and transportation.

In manyways Sacagawea symbolized the cooperation between native people and the Corps of Discovery.

While she was not a guide in the fullest sense of the word, herpresence assured many Native Americans that the Corps of Discovery was not a hostile war party.

At a key juncture Sacagawea was reunited with her brotherCameahwait, a Shoshone chief who provided vital assistance to the expedition. In two-and-a-half years of travel and exploration, there was only one fatal encounter between the Corps of Discovery and Native Americans.

The incident occurredduring Lewis’s exploration of the Marias River.

In late July 1806 Lewis’s party came upon a group of Piegan Blackfoot warriors.

When the Piegans attempted to takeguns and horses, Lewis’s men retaliated, killing two natives. While native people saw the expedition more as an opportunity for trade than as a threat to tribal sovereignty, Spanish officials in Mexico City had a different reaction toJefferson’s enterprise.

The Spanish had long been deeply suspicious of American ambitions in the West and since the end of the American Revolution (1775-1783) werecertain that the new American republic intended to reach across the continent to the Pacific.

Alerted to the Corps of Discovery, possibly by secret agent General JamesWilkinson, the Spanish made several unsuccessful attempts to stop the expedition and capture Lewis and Clark. D Relations Among the Explorers The explorers themselves were undoubtedly transformed by their journey.

What began as a diverse and unruly set of characters became in the course of the expeditiona tight-knit community.

At Fort Mandan, Lewis described the expedition members as enjoying “a most perfect harmony.” V AFTERMATH AND ACHIEVEMENTS Lewis and Clark received a hero’s welcome when they returned from the expedition, despite some disappointment that they had not found an easy water route to thePacific.

After Lewis’s death in 1809, Clark and American diplomat and financier Nicholas Biddle took over the task of compiling the report.

They finally published anabridged, two-volume collection of the journals in 1814.

This version left out most of the material the party had compiled about plant and animal life.

The most recentscholarly edition of the journals was edited in 11 volumes by historian Gary E.

Moulton under the title, The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition , and published from 1983 to 1997 by the University of Nebraska Press. Thomas Jefferson had repeatedly insisted that the Corps of Discovery had one central mission—to find what he called “the most direct and practicable watercommunication across this continent for the purposes of commerce.” However, Lewis and Clark did not find a Northwest Passage, nor did they pioneer the route thatbecame the Oregon Trail.

Although Lewis and Clark strengthened U.S.

claims in the West, American claims in subsequent diplomatic disputes with Britain were basednot so much on Lewis and Clark as on the Columbia River explorations of American explorer Captain Robert Gray in 1792 and the building of Fort Astoria in 1811.

ButJefferson was by no means disappointed with his Corps of Discovery.

The journals, maps, plant and animal specimens, and notes on Native American societiesamounted to a Western encyclopedia.

The expedition also established peaceful contact with many Native American peoples.

Finally, the expedition set a pattern forgovernment-sponsored scientific exploration in the United States. VI SCIENTIFIC FINDINGS The Lewis and Clark Expedition discovered 122 animal species and subspecies and 178 new plant species, and 223 plant specimens from the expedition survive.

Amongthe animal species and subspecies previously unknown to science were the grizzly bear, the California condor, the coyote, the black-footed ferret, the black-billedmagpie, the black-tailed prairie dog, the pronghorn, and the gray wolf.

The two explorers left their names imprinted on two bird species, Lewis’s woodpecker and Clark’snutcracker, and the scientific name for the westslope cutthroat trout ( Oncorhynchus clarki lewisi ).

Among the plant species they described for science for the first time were the western red cedar, eastern cottonwood, red flowering currant, the mountain hemlock, the whitebark pine, Sitka spruce, Oregon grape, and the Pacific yew. A trained naturalist, Lewis was especially noted for his meticulous observations and exacting measurements of new species.

Perhaps more important for the futuresettlement of the West, Lewis and Clark returned with stories of the rich abundance of wildlife. VII THE FATE OF THE EXPLORERS Following the expedition, President Jefferson appointed Lewis the governor of the new Louisiana Territory.

Lewis reportedly struggled with the demands of the position,fell into a depression, and three years after the expedition’s end, most historians agree, committed suicide.

In 1807 Clark was appointed as the U.S.

government’srepresentative to the Native American tribes living west of the Mississippi River, a role he retained until his death in 1838.

Clark initially refused York’s requests that hebe given his freedom in exchange for his service to the expedition but eventually relented in 1816.

York went into the freight business and reportedly died in 1832.Sacagawea died in 1812 at the age of 25 at Fort Manuel in present-day South Dakota.

Her two children, Jean Baptiste and a daughter Lisette who was born after theexpedition, were adopted by Clark.

Her husband Charbonneau continued living among the Mandan and Hidatsa.

His death date is unknown but his estate was settled in1843 by his son Jean Baptiste, the youngest member of the expedition. VIII BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATIONS More than 200 years after the Lewis and Clark expedition was first commissioned, the journey still captures the imagination of the American people.

It was not alwaysso.

The first history of the expedition, published in 1814, saw only 1,417 copies printed.

By the mid-1800s, the expedition was largely forgotten.

Since then, however,the fame of the expedition has grown considerably.

Bicentennial celebrations in the United States began in January 2003, the anniversary of Jefferson’s request toCongress for funding.

Over the course of the next four years, more than 30 million people were expected to travel to some part of the Lewis and Clark trail as part ofthe bicentennial commemoration.

Parts of the trail, such as the White Cliffs of the Upper Missouri River, the Lemhi Pass in the Rocky Mountains, along the Lolo Trail inIdaho, and portions of the Columbia River estuary are considered nearly unchanged since the time of the expedition. Contributed By:. »