Going East …..to West - 4

Lewis and Clark Expedition (May 1804 –Sept 1806): The Onward Journey

www.worldbook.com/.../lewis_and_clark/expedition

www.npca.org/stateoftheparks/lewis_clark_trail/

National Geographic maintains a comprehensive website on Lewis and Clark expedition http://www.nationalgeographic.com/lewisandclark/. This link is interactive and one can see the whole expedition in various phases; each phase has a map of the route,followed by a brief description of their journey but more importantly, it has an inter-active facility of looking at the present political map of the United States for understanding the progress of the expedition. This inter-active facility also extends to the flora and fauna, the various Indian tribes that the Expedition had come across and extracts from the journals and the maps written/made by Lewis and Clark during each phase of the expedition.

It may be mentioned that the description of the voyage as given below is primarily based on the National Geographic website mentioned above. I have also taken some pictures from Wikipedia and some other websites on Lewis and Clark expedition.

 

   www.ohs.org/.../focus/lewis_and_clark_oregon.cfm

Meriwether Lewis      William Clark 

The Journey Begins

 

www.archives.gov/calendar/features/2004/04.html

By 1800 St Louis, situated at the confluence of the Mississippi River and the Missouri River, had become the largest and most important town on the American frontier and was rapidly becoming the centre of the lucrative Missouri River fur trade. It was here that Meriwether Lewis set up his preparatory camp in the Fall of 2003. The “Corps of Discovery” comprising of Capt Lewis, Capt Clark and approx 45 men in a keelboat and two smaller pirogues set out on May 14, 1804 for traveling up the Missouri river as far as possible, then looking for a passage by water to the Pacific. Clark remained on the keelboat for most of the time, navigating and preparing maps while Lewis often walked along the shoreline studying flora and fauna. They had travelled for 600 miles when they met a party of Oto and Missouri Indians on August 2 for the first time. This first encounter with Indians went well, the two sides exchanging gifts. They entered the Sioux Indians territory many days later and encountered the peaceable Yankton Sioux who cautioned the Americans about the Teton Sioux that the expedition was likely to meet subsequently. The Teton Sioux greeted the expedition with “ill-disguised hostility”, but somehow a crisis was averted. “The Americans headed up the river—with a potential enemy behind them and a fast-approaching winter ahead.” 

Fort Mandan

 www.sidrichardsonmuseum.org/.../art/19

Expedition reached the villages of friendly Mandan but the winter had set in and the members began construction of Fort Mandan –protection against winter and attack by the Sioux. Lewis and Clark learned much about the countryside from the Mandan and their neighbors Hidatsa. They hired Toussaint Charbonneau. a French Canadian living among the Hidatsa as an interpreter. Charbonneau, his Shoshone wife, Sacagawea, and their baby son would travel with the expedition when it left Fort Mandan. Lewis and Clark spent much of the winter writing a report about what they had seen so far and the report and Clark’s map along with botanical and mineral specimens –aboard the keelboat with a dozen expedition members was dispatched to St Louis for their onward journey to President Jefferson. Six dugout canoes and the two larger pirogues were loaded with supplies and equipment. “The expedition was about to take a step into territory no American had ever entered.” 

   Front of the sculpture showing Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, Sacagawea and her baby. Kansas City.

www.boskydellnatives.com/lewisandclark.htm               (Wikipedia)