Rediscovering Lewis and Clark

June 1st - September 30, 2004

Meriwether Lewis Born August 18, 1774, Meriwether Lewis was only 29 years old when he was asked by President Thomas Jefferson to head the expedition. Lewis accepted and, in turn, asked his army friend, William Clark, to act as the expedition's captain.

President Thomas Jefferson On January 18, 1803, Jefferson sent a confidential message to Congress in which he discussed the need for the United States to strengthen through commerce their relations with the Indians who resided in the United States. In the final paragraph of the message he requested that Congress appropriate the sum of $2,500 'for the purpose of extending the external commerce of the United States.'

William Clark Born August 1, 1770, Clark was the youngest of six sons and the youngest brother of George Rogers Clark, the hero of the American Revolution in the West. He was 33 years old when asked by Meriwether Lewis to help head the expedition.

"The Corps of Discovery", as the Lewis and Clark Expedition was dubbed by one of the expedition members, was a turning point in American history. Between 1803, when Meriwether Lewis was appointed by President Thomas Jefferson to head the expedition, and 1806, when the expedition returned to St. Louis from its near-three-year adventure, Lewis and Clark explored the territory that had recently been acquired from France in the Louisiana Purchase. Their main objective was to find a water route that would connect the eastern United States with the Pacific Ocean.

 

In addition, Jefferson instructed them to study all aspects of the natural sciences such as the botanical, geographical (including longitude and latitude of rivers and mountain passes), and animal life. They were to bring back samples of as many items as they could manage along with detailed notes describing the item, where they were found and what, if anything, they may have been used for by the Indians. They were to meet with Native Americans and learn about their customs, their relations with other tribes, their language and anything else that could prove helpful in establishing good relations for trading. Within months of the Expedition's return in 1806, the "newly discovered" West would witness droves of individuals anxious to 'see for themselves' what the Expedition's members had exclaimed of their adventure upon their return.

 

Examples of expedition members' journal entries, items used to trade with the Indians, as well as "so-called discoveries" of flora and fauna, provide an intricate study of what the expedition members endured and encountered on their journey. Evans Library resources that include books, government documents, and Internet sites on the subject provide patrons with their own rediscovery of America's past.

One of several maps drawn by William Clark during the expedition

In preparation for the trip, "President Jefferson signed and gave Lewis a one-page letter pledging 'the faith of the United States' to reimburse anyone for any goods or services that Lewis needed. This gave the expedition a limitless line of credit. Even with the use of soldiers, army equipment, and supplies, the final actual cost of the Lewis and Clark Expedition was thirty-eight thousand seven hundred and twenty-two dollars.

On his return, Lewis petitioned Congress on behalf of the enlisted men. On the 3rd of March 1807, Congress authorized double pay and three hundred and twenty acres of land for each man, including Touissant Charbonneau, John Newman, and Richard Warfington...after his court martial, the conduct of John Newman had been exemplary. Lewis and Clark received double pay and sixteen hundred acres of land each. Despite their many contributions, York and Sacagawea received nothing.....not even a thank you. Several years later, Clark did grant York his freedom."

Source: http://www.thefurtrapper.com/historical_facts.htm

York

York wasWilliam Clark's slave."His unique features and great strength were viewed with astonishment and awe by Native Americans encountered across the continent. His presence was considered a remarkable phenomenon that enhanced the prestige of the white strangers, who never had been seen previously by the isolated Indian populations."

Source: http://www.pbs.org/lewisandclark/inside/york.html

All of the original party, except Captain Clark's slave, York, and George Drouillard, were in the army.

Enlisted men were paid $5/month

Sergeants - $8/month

Clark - $30/month

Lewis - $40/month

Drouillard, hired as a hunter and sign-talker, was paid $25/month.

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The following map shows the route Lewis and Clark took to and from the Pacific coast. The red line indicates the western route; the blue line, the homeward route. It would take the "Corps of Discovery" a period of 2 years, 10 months, and 4 days to complete their journey.

(May 14, 1804 - September 26, 1806).

May 14, 1804, Charles Floyd "Showery day Capt Clark Set out at 3 oclock P m for the western expidition the party consisted of 3 Serguntes and 38 working hands which maned the Batteow and two Perogues we Sailed up the missouria 6 miles and encamped on the N. side of the River"

 

They would travel by keelboat (a craft fifty-five feet in length by eight feet in width by 3 feet deep (draft) and two pirogues as their main mode of transportation upriver on the way to Ft. Mandan and some distance beyond when they were able to portage the pirogues.

Keelboat "The Departure from the Wood River Encampment" by Gary R. Lucy

Pirogue "The pirogues were painted different colors in order to make them easily distinguishable at a distance. The red pirogue may have been 41 feet 7inches long, with a beam of 9 feet 4 inches. It could have carried nine tons of cargo, plus crew." source: Discovering Lewis and Clark

Gifts and Trade Items

Among the items listed on the Corps of Discovery manifest for Indian gifts and trade items were 12 dozen pocket mirrors, 4,600 sewing needles, 144 small scissors, 10 pounds of sewing thread, silk ribbons, ivory combs, handkerchiefs, yards of bright colored cloth, 130 rolls of tobacco, tomahawks that doubled as pipes, 288 knives, 8 brass kettles, vermillion face paint, and 33 pounds of tiny beads of assorted colors.

source: http://www.thefurtrapper.com/historical_facts.htm

 

Evans Library resources on display include:

Lewis and Clark:The Journey of the Corps of Discovery	Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns	Interlibrary Loan
The Food Journal of Lewis and Clark: Recipes for an Expedition	Mary Gunderson	TX715.2.W47 G86 2003
The Lewis and Clark Companion: An Encyclopedic Guide to the Voyage of Discovery	Stephen Ambrose Tubbs with Clay Straus Jenkinson	F592.7 .T83 2003
Exploring Lewis and Clark: Reflections on Men and Wilderness	Thomas P. Slaughter	F592.7 S58 2003
Common to this Country: Botanical Discoveries of Lewis and Clark	Susan H. Munger	QK133 .M86 2003
The Essential Lewis and Clark	Landon Y. Jones, editor	F592.4 2000
Acts of Discovery: Visions of America in the Lewis and Clark Journals	Albert Furtwangler	F592.7 .F86 1999
Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West	Stephen E. Ambrose	F592.7 .A49 1996
Lewis and Clark: Historic Places Associated With Their Transcontinental Exploration	Roy Edgar Appleman	I29.2: H 62/9/v.13
In the Footsteps of Lewis and Clark	Gerald S. Snyder	F592.7 .S68 1970
History of the Expedition Under the Command of Lewis and Clark	Elliott Coures, editor	F592.4 1965A v.1
Meriwether Lewis in Blackfeet Country	Helen B. West	I 20.2:L 58
The Journals of Lewis and Clark	Bernard De Voto, editor	F592.4 1953
The Lewis and Clark Trail, an Interim Report to the President and to the Congress	The Lewis and Clark Trail Commission	Y 3.L 58: 2L 58
Snake River, Lake Sacajawea	map	C55.418/7:18545/2003
The U.S. Army and the Lewis and Clark Expedition	Center of Military History	D114.2:L 58/2003
The U.S. Army and the Lewis and Clark Expedition	Center of Military History	D114.2:L 58

 

Peace Medals

In their effort to inform the Indians of the "power" of the United States democracy, Lewis and Clark carried with them "peace medals" depicting President Thomas Jefferson on one side and hands shaking on the other. These were made in three different sizes. The medals were presented to various chiefs. The "rank" or importance of the Indian chief (decided by Lewis and Clark) determined the size medal presented to him.

On August 17, 1805, among Sacagawea's people, the Shoshone Indians, Meriwether Lewis wrote: We next inquired who were chiefs among them. Cameahwait pointed out two others whom he said were Chiefs. We gave him a medal of the small size with the likeness of Mr. Jefferson, the President of the U' States, in relief on one side and clasped hands with a pipe and tomahawk on the other. To the other Chiefs we gave each a small medal…which were struck in the Presidency of George Washington, Esqr. We also gave small medals of the last description to two young men whom the 1st Chief informed us were good young men and much respected among them.

 

Sacagawea, the Shoshone Indian woman who accompanied Lewis and Clark, had been kidnapped as a young child by the Hidatsa Indian tribe and raised by them. In her adolescent years, a traveling fur trader by the name of Jean Baptiste Charbonneau married Sacagawea. She was only 15 or 16 years of age at the time. Shortly thereafter, they would "sign on" with the expedition as interpreters and guides. When Lewis and Clark and the expedition members came upon the Lemhi-Shoshone village (Sacagawea's "birth" village), she was finally reunited with her brother, Cameahwait.

A supplemental brochure provides patrons with a listing of the Evans Library resources as well as other information on "Rediscovering Lewis and Clark".

The Corp members would encounter many different tribes of Native Americans enroute to and from the Pacific. Fortunately, most of the encounters were of a peaceful nature with one "close call" occuring with the Teton Sioux. This particular Indian nation had a reputation for their more aggressive ways. Lewis and Clark kept careful notes in their journals describing these encounters along with sketches of individual Native Americans, their attire, weapons, and other items of interest.

Source: Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition

 

August 13, 1805 Meriwether Lewis "From what has (already) been said of the Shoshones...they live in a wretched state of poverty. Yet...they are not only cheerful but even gay, fond of gaudy dress and amusements. Like most other indians they are great egotists and frequently boast of heroic acts which they never performed. They are also fond of games of risk. They are frank, communicative, fair in dealing, generous with the little they possess, extremely honest, and by no means beggerly."

President Jefferson had instructed Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to collect and catalog specimens of flora and fauna "...objects worthy of notice will be the soil & face of the country, it's growth & vegetable productions, especially those not of the U.S., the animals of the country generally, & especially those not known in the U.S., the remains or accounts of any which may be deemed rare or extinct; the mineral productions of every kind, volcanic appearances; climate . . ." To that end, Lewis and Clark excelled bringing back with them samples of items never before seen in the eastern United States: "nineteen plants, a prairie dog, mule deer, antelope, jack rabbit, elk, bighorn sheep, badger, coyote, and sharp tail grouse. These were all new to science or thought of not to have existed in America."

source: Historical Facts of Lewis and Clark and Native American Indians

A drawing of a sage grouse from the winter of 1805-1806 from Meriweather Lewis journal (Missouri Historical Society, Granger Collection)

Iris tenax Douglas ex Lindl (probably seen at Fort Clatsop but without the flowers)

 

Winter 1805, Ft. Mandan, Patrick Gass "Captin Lewis and eleven more of us went out ...and saw the prairie covered with buffaloe and the Indians on horseback killing them. They killed 30 or 40 and we killed eleven of them. They shoot them with bows and arrows, and have their horses trained that they will advance very near and suddenly wheel and fly off in case the wounded buffaloe attempt an attack."

 

 

June 26, 1804, William Clark I observed a great number of Parrot queets this evening.

 

Another "Native American" but...

...memories no more.... "Imagine the complete disappearance of the robin. The memories of this common song bird removed from the landscape would be haunting. Such is the story of the Carolina parokeet, only nobody living now keeps the memory of these once common birds. Hunted to extinction within a few years of the passenger pigeon, the Carolina parakeet remains etched into American history as a symbol of the populace's tendency to irradicate one-of-a-kind natural resources for short-term, individual gain. This bird was North America's only native parrot, brightly colored, social, and raucus-voiced, and yet two centuries ago, such a common sight that Clark mentioned seeing them along the Missouri River in a most ordinary voice. Carolina parakeets survived in the wild for around 100 years after Clark recorded seeing them in 1804. The last surviving bird died in captivity in the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914." Source: http://web4.si.edu/lewisandclark/index.html

 

After months on the trail...

 

Journal entry , November 7, 1805 "Ocian in View! O! the joy."

 

 

"In his 1813 letter, Jefferson wrote a one-sentence description of Lewis that is as fine a tribute to a subordinate as any president of the United States has ever written. It is impossible to imagine higher praise from a better source.

'Of courage undaunted, possessing a firmness & perseverance of purpose which nothing but impossibilities could divert from it's direction, careful as a father of those committed to his charge, yet steady in the maintenance of order & discipline, intimate with the Indian character, customs & principles, habituated to the hunting life, guarded by exact observation of the vegetables & animals of his own country, against losing time in the description of objects already possessed, honest, disinterested, liberal, of sound understanding and a fidelity to truth so scrupulous that whatever she should report would be as certain as if seen by ourselves, with all these qualifications as if selected and implanted by nature in one body, for this express purpose, I could have no hesitation in confiding the enterprize to him.'"

- Undaunted Courage by Stephen E. Ambrose

"Plains Indians knew that reflections can enhance our self-knowledge. They can help us to know ourselves more deeply than the superficial gaze that allows us - backwards - to comb our hair. When we reflect on Lewis and Clark, our culture and ourselves refract back. During the twentieth century, Americans - generally white, usually male, often mythically inclined Americans - accepted such reflections literally, much as we accept the image of the person whose hair we comb. They saw the explorers and their journals as 'facts' about 'us' which is the most superficial view of the expedition."

- Exploring Lewis and Clark by Thomas P. Slaughter

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Considering the hazards the expedition was up against, such as below-freezing temperatures in the winter, Indian war parties, and the usual day-to-day physical hardships and ailments, it is remarkable that only one man within the entire expedition died. Sergeant Charles Floyd succumbed to a ruptured appendix outside of Sioux City, Iowa in August, 1804. Even if he had been at the best hospital of the time, odds are he wouldn't have survived since doctors knew little on how to treat this ailment at the time.

Below is the last page of Sergeant Floyd's journal as written by either Captain Meriwether Lewis or Captain William Clark noting the men in attendance at his burial. Today outside Sioux City, a monument stands in honor of Sergeant Floyd.

 

On September 23, 1806, with their arrival in St. Louis, Meriwether Lewis wrote to President Thomas Jefferson:

" It is with pleasure that I announce to you the safe arrival of myself and party at 12 OClk. Today...In obedience to your orders we have penitrated the Continent of North America to the Pacific Ocean..."

 

 

 

 

 

We hope you have enjoyed

Rediscovering Lewis and Clark.

 

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