What Animals Did Lewis And Clark Discover – Between May 1804 and September 1806, the Lewis and Clark Expedition traveled up the Missouri River, across the continental divide to the Pacific Ocean, and back to St. It is remarkable that during the often perilous journey of eight thousand miles, the little military party commanded by Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark suffered only one casualty, and that was probably the result of a ruptured appendix. While their overland journey was filled with incidents involving extreme weather, treacherous terrain, rushing rapids and menacing grizzlies, these adventurous episodes are only a small part of the expedition’s story. Lewis and Clark were explorers in search of new discoveries, agents of empire and harbingers of conquest. The geographic, scientific, and ethnographic information they collected added to the existing stock of knowledge and sparked dreams of American territorial expansion that changed the American West forever. Some of the byproducts of the expedition were too expensive for the Native Americans who allowed the Corps of Discovery to pass through their neighborhoods largely without incident. Successive waves of post-mission settlers seized tribal homelands, attempted to disrupt indigenous lifestyles and cultures, and reshaped the western landscape.
The future state of Missouri and its people loom large in the stories of Lewis and Clark’s voyage of discovery and the westward march of the American nation. The region then known as Upper Louisiana was the expedition’s starting point, the place where the intrepid crew members of the exploration party first tested their survival skills and learned to navigate the western waters. the place where Lewis and Clark, after returning from the Pacific Ocean, assumed responsibility for the administration of the newly acquired Louisiana Territory. and the port that served as an outfit and supply for generations of Western travelers, traders and settlers.
What Animals Did Lewis And Clark Discover
Thomas Jefferson, who had long considered the benefits of exploration and discovery, chose Captain Lewis, who was then serving as his private secretary, to lead an army westward, expecting, among other things, to discover a road that would deck. the water. the sea. President Jefferson instructed Lewis to gather information about the geography of the country through which the expedition passed. identify the names and locations of indigenous nations; describe their manners and customs, languages, occupations and trades; and record useful information about plants, animals and minerals. Jefferson’s proposal was a product of his grounding in Enlightenment thought and exploratory science, his passion for scientific inquiry, and his vision of an agrarian empire where liberty would flourish. He acknowledged that Spain, France, Great Britain and Russia all had plans for the American West, but it was a passage in Sir Alexander Mackenzie’s Travels from Montreal that urged Great Britain to seek a land route to the Pacific to develop which finally spurred him into action. Eager to assuage international concerns and obscure the larger goals of the American government, Jefferson described the proposed American enterprise as purely scientific.
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In January 1803, three months before France offered to sell the Louisiana Territory to the United States, Jefferson drafted a confidential memorandum seeking congressional approval for a western expedition. Once Congress gave its approval, Lewis began ordering the necessary equipment and supplies. At Jefferson’s behest, he traveled to Philadelphia, where some of America’s leading scientists tutored him in botany, zoology, medicine, mathematics, and astronomy, and with the president’s approval, he asked William Clark to join him as co-head of the mission. They had previously served together as junior officers during the 1790s in the army’s campaigns in the Ohio country. Clark, who has since resigned his commission and returned to private life, welcomed the invitation. Louis promised him the rank of captain, but when the commission arrived it was for a lieutenant. Despite the confusion, Lewis always addressed Clark as captain, and the men under their command were unaware of the contradiction in their ranks.
Steadfast and reliable Clark was an ideal partner and companion for the brilliant and mercurial Lewis. Their skills and talents were complementary. Lewis was an intrepid explorer, a gifted writer, a keen observer and a pioneering naturalist with a knowledge of plants and animals. Clark was a natural leader, a skilled draughtsman, cartographer and surveyor, an experienced waterman, a loyal friend with a talent for native diplomacy, and above all a steadying influence to his sometimes troubled companion.
After Lewis completed his preliminary arrangements in the East, he headed west to join Clark at the Falls of the Ohio, where they compared notes and recruited additional recruits for their journey. York, an African-American slave of Clark’s and youthful companion, was among those who joined the traveling party, but the decision to leave his family in Louisville was not his. Whatever he thought, Yorke could never have dreamed that his exploits on this great excursion would one day bring him unlimited fame.
At the end of October 1803, the newly assembled corps went to the Ohio River on its way to the Mississippi and from there slowly advanced to the Mississippi. When they reached the mouth of the Missouri in mid-December, Lewis and Clark chose to make their winter camp on the American bank of the Mississippi at the Dubois River (Wood River). Spanish officials then in charge of Louisiana refused to allow them to establish a camp on the banks of the Missouri. During their stay at Camp River Dubois, which lasted from December 1803 to May 1804, both Lewis and Clark made frequent trips to St. Besides being a welcome distraction from camp life, the visits also gave them opportunities to purchase additional goods and learn more about the vast Mississippi region they were about to traverse. On March 9 and 10, 1804, Captain Lewis and probably his companion Clark performed the ceremonies in St.
Who Were The Explorers Lewis And Clark
Two months later, the Corps of Discovery broke camp on Wood River, and their small fleet consisting of a 55-foot keel and two flat-boom dugouts entered the Missouri River and headed upstream with Clark at the helm. Lewis, who lives in St. Louis stayed and made the final arrangements, attended the party at St. Charles joined, and on May 20, 1804, they started on their historic journey to the applause of the well-wishers who had gathered to see them off. . The first few weeks amounted to a rough ride as the teams tried to acclimate themselves to the vagaries of the unpredictable Missouri. The journey was arduous and slow, the heat oppressive and the ubiquitous mosquitoes bothersome.
From the mouth of the Platte, the captains arranged to meet a delegation from Otto and Missouri in present-day Nebraska at a place they called Council Bluff. The gathering was the first of many such carefully orchestrated diplomatic gatherings designed to impress Native American leaders and assure them of the US government’s peaceful intentions and desire to initiate trade. These meetings of mutual discovery were generally friendly and respectful, but in late September a dramatic four-day battle with the Lakota on the Bad River in present-day South Dakota was a notable exception. In a series of bellicose exchanges, exacerbated by the absence of a competent interpreter, each side struggled to assert its primacy without much success. Complex diplomatic maneuvers allowed the warring parties to avoid bloodshed and save face without further impeding the Corps of Discovery’s upstream journey.
When the expedition reached the Mandan and Hidatsa villages in what is now central North Dakota in late October, winter was fast approaching. After consultation with tribal representatives, the chiefs selected a site on the north bank of the Missouri for their winter headquarters. Work soon began on a fortified wooden structure they called Fort Mandan. The new establishment attracted many visitors, including Toussaint Charbonneau, a French-Canadian trader from a nearby Hidatsa town who was looking for work for himself and his young wife, Sacagawea. The decision to engage the couple as interpreters unexpectedly added a woman to the ranks of the male party. Sacagawea, a native Shoshone, was captured in a war with the Hidatsa, and her language skills were the main reason for their recruitment. Before the expedition left the following spring, Sacagawea gave birth to a son, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau. The child, named Clark Pob, traveled with his mother for the duration of the trip.
While in their winter camp, the chiefs often received Mandan and Hidacha villagers who fed them well with corn in exchange for the blacksmith’s services. They also conferred with merchants of the Northwest Company to learn more about the British government’s intentions. All the while, Lewis and Clark spent the icy days at the fort gathering information and working on their journals, maps, and natural history specimens. At the end of March, the breakup of the river ice and the return of the pesky insects meant it was time to continue their westward journey. Before they leave, they
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