The
Corps of Discovery, better known
as the
Lewis and Clark expedition (1804-1806), was the first American
overland expedition to the Pacific coast and back. The Louisiana Purchase
in 1803 sparked the interest of United States expansion to the west coast.
A few weeks after the purchase, United States President, Thomas Jefferson,
an advocate of western expansion, had Congress appropriate $2500, "to send
intelligent officers with ten or twelve men, to explore even to the western
ocean." They were to study the Indian tribes, botany, geology and wildlife
in the region. He selected Captain Meriwether Lewis to lead the expedition
and William Clark as his lieutenant.
Lewis and Clark, with about forty men followed the Missouri River westward
out of Saint Louis, Missouri in the spring of 1804. The followed the Missouri
through what is now Kansas City, Missouri and Omaha, Nebraska, crossed
the Rocky Mountains and descended by the Clearwater River, the Snake River,
and the Columbia River through what is now Portland, Oregon until they
reached the Pacific Ocean in the summer of 1805. The explorers started
their journey home on March 23, 1806.
In the Ken Burns documentary aired on PBS about Lewis and Clark, historian
Stephen E. Ambrose, author of the book "Undaunted Courage" about the expedition,
compared the significance and impact of the Lewis and Clark Expedition
to Americans of that era to the American landing on the moon for subsequent
generations. The expedition not only answered questions about vast uncharted
areas of North America (everything betweeen the Missouri River in North
Dakota to Mount Hood in western Oregon) but also gave Americans an electrifying
sense of the vastness of their new country after the Louisiana Purchase
and America's almost limitless natural resources and potential as an emergent
nation. He also views the expedition as a quintessimal America saga, with
a cast of characters that included a French Canadian trapper, the Indian
woman Sacajawea who carried her infant throughout the trip, President Thomas
Jefferson, the heroic personalities and comaraderie of both Captain Lewis
and Captain Clark, a platoon of American soldiers reminiscent of Rogers
Rangers, the muscular Black American servant of Lewis named York, colorful
Indian tribes (Souix, Mandans, Nez Perce, Black Feet), Captain Lewis' shaggy
dog, numerous close shaves with death for everyone on the expedition, quick
"think-on-your-feet" diplomatic innovation to defuse hostility and enlist
the support of exotic tribes, scientific observation of awe-inspiring naturalistic
phenomenon, a case of close combat with Indians, encounters with grizzly
bears, harrowing navigation of wild rivers amidst magnificent scenary,
and a difficult passage through the snow clad Bitter root mountains of
Western Montana and Idaho. Despite all the trials, tribulations, and close
calls, the expedition did not lose a person between North Dakota and Oregon
and the return trip. "Undaunted Courage" reads like real life imitating
Hollywood, which makes it all the more surprising that Hollywood has never
made a feature motion picture about the epic journey.
A contemporary explorer was Zebulon Pike (as in Pikes Peak) who in 1805-1807
traveled the upper Mississippi river down to the Spanish territories near
the Rocky Mountains.
Books: "Undaunted Courage" by Stephen E. Ambrose
