Transcript 2 Industry and Westward Expansion Lewis and Clark

VOCABULARY
Meriwether Lewis –
William Clark –
Corps of Discovery Expedition –
Continental Divide –
Sacajawea –
Fast Forward . . .
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George Washington has been elected the first President of
the United States.
John Adams has been elected the second President of the
United States.
The United States has been functioning rather well for
about twenty-five years.
Thomas Jefferson is now the third President of the United
States and buys from Napoleon the Louisiana territory
doubling the size of the United States.
• Livingston and Monroe arrived in
France and carefully debated the large
territory Napoleon was now willing to
sell.
• Monroe and Livingston had no
authority to buy all of Louisiana.
However, they knew that Jefferson
wanted control of the Mississippi River.
• They thought that Napoleon might
withdraw the offer at any time, along
with the port of New Orleans, so they
signed the Louisiana Purchase Treaty
on April 30, 1803.
Jefferson wanted to
purchase New Orleans and
West Florida for 10 million.
Instead, Jefferson
purchased 827,000 square
miles of land west of the
Mississippi River for $15
million dollars.
• In 1803, shortly after the United States purchased Louisiana,
Congress provided money to study the new lands.
• The expedition consisted of a group of U.S. Army volunteers under
the command of Captain Meriwether Lewis and his close friend
Second Lieutenant William Clark.
1. Study the climate,
wildlife, and mineral
resources of the land
2. Find a route across the
western half of the
continent to the Pacific
Ocean (a northwest
passage)
3. Learn about the Indian
nations who lived in the
Louisiana territory.
• Some maps described the west as a
landmass of erupting volcanoes and
mountains of undissolved salt.
• Other readings stated that Virginia’s
Blue Ridge Mountains might be the
continent’s highest.
• It was reported that fanciful creatures
such as: unicorns, gargantuan woolly
mammoths, seven-foot-tall beavers,
and friendly, skinny buffalo lived in the
west.
• Before 1803, the geographic details in maps of the West were
very inaccurate.
• European geographers had depicted California as an island.
• Other maps showed the Rocky Mountains to be narrow and
easy to travel.
• The Lewis and Clark expedition was literally charting new territory.
• The land that lay between the Mandan Indians west was blank, and
even the best scholars around the world had no idea what lay
beyond this region.
• It would prove to be unknown until Lewis and Clark walked the land,
charted, mapped, and measured the area.
• Their description of the plants, rivers, mountains and people would
prove to be invaluable.
If you were asked to join the Lewis and Clark expedition
what THREE items would you bring on your two year
journey?
 The items CAN be from this time period (but remember there is
no place to charge your cell phone in 1803!).
 The items must be travel-friendly (something that will fit in a
backpack). No, you can’t bring a Jeep!
Would the expedition have
changed with the items you
brought along? How?
• Meriwether Lewis was born on August 18, 1774 near
Charlottesville, Virginia. He grew up in the Shenandoah Valley
where he developed a love of hunting and exploring the
wilderness.
• Lewis became a soldier and fought in the Whiskey Rebellion of
1794. He battled against Native Americans in the Northwest
region and even learned some of their languages.
• Meriwether Lewis was appointed Thomas Jefferson’s personal
secretary when he was sent to explore the Louisiana territory.
• When he returned, Meriwether Lewis was named the new
governor of the Louisiana territory.
• On October 11, 1809, Lewis was on his way to Washington
D.C. when he mysteriously died at a hotel.
• Many believe he committed suicide, but others believe he was
murdered.
• William Clark was born on his family’s Virginia plantation on
August 1, 1770. At nineteen years old he joined the U.S. militia
to help fight the Native Americans in the Ohio Valley.
• Clark was made an officer in the U.S. Army but retired from
service shortly after and went back to Virginia to manage his
family’s estate.
• In 1803, Meriwether Lewis, a friend of Clark’s from the army,
asked him to explore the Louisiana territory. Clark agreed and
was made responsible for the expedition’s records and map
making.
• When Clark returned two years later, he was appointed
principal Indian agent and Brigadier General of the Louisiana
Militia by Thomas Jefferson.
• After Sacajawea died, Clark adopted her children and became
governor of the Missouri Territory in 1813.
• In 1822, he became Superintendent of Indian Affairs and held
that position until his death on September 1, 1838.
• For decades, Native Americans living in the Louisiana territory
had carried on a very busy trade with England, France and
Spanish merchants.
• Jefferson hoped that the Native Americans might trade with
American merchants instead.
• He urged Lewis and Clark to tell the Indians of “our wish to be
neighborly, friendly, and useful to them.”
• The Corps of Discovery Expedition, an established
unit of the United States Army, formed the core of the
Lewis and Clark Expedition - departed from Camp Dubois at
4pm on May 14, 1804.
• They met up with Meriwether Lewis in St. Charles, Missouri, a
short time later to continue their trip that would take them to the
Pacific Ocean.
• The expedition followed the Missouri River through what is now
Kansas City, Missouri, and Omaha, Nebraska.
• At first, the expedition’s boats made slow progress against the
Missouri’s swift current.
• On August 20, 1804, Sergeant Charles Floyd, a member of the
expedition, died of an apparent acute appendicitis.
• He was the only member of the expedition to die along the two
year journey.
• His burial site (in what is now Sioux City, Iowa) was marked with
a cedar post where his name was inscribed and the day of his
death.
• During the final week of August, Lewis and Clark reached the
edge of the Great Plains.
• Both men kept journals of their travels where they wrote about
the broad, grassy plains that stretched, “as far as the eye can
reach.”
• Everywhere, they saw “immense herds of buffalo, deer, elk and
antelopes.”
• Lewis and Clark and the Lakota nation (called Sioux by the
Americans) had a disagreement that could have ended badly.
• Clark wrote that one of their horses had disappeared and they
believed the Sioux were responsible. The Sioux told the
Americans they had to give more “gifts” before being allowed to
pass through their territory.
• They came close to fighting but both sides backed down and
the expedition continued. Clark wrote that the Sioux were
“warlike” and were the “vilest miscreants of the savage race.”
• Trade was very important among the
Native American Indians and Lewis and
Clark came prepared!
• They brought many gifts, specifically
medals stamped with the United States
seal.
• They also brought mirrors, beads, knives,
blankets, and thousands of sewing
needles and fishhooks to trade.
• As winter descended the expedition made camp in the
Mandan nation’s territory in present day North Dakota. Many
Mandan Indians came to visit the newly arriving Americans.
• It was during this winter that the expedition also met a FrenchCanadian fur trapper named Toussaint Charbonneau and his
young Shoshone wife named Sacajawea.
• Charbonneau began to serve as the expedition’s translator
providing communications with the Mandan chiefs and helping
to establish peace.
• In the early Spring, the expedition set out again. They followed
the Missouri River to it headwaters, and over the Continental
Divide – A mountain range that separates river systems
flowing toward opposite sides of a continent.
• In canoes, they descended the mountains by the Clearwater
River, the Snake River and the Columbia River in what is now
Portland, Oregon.
• In the foothills of the Rockies, the landscape and the wildlife
changed. The expedition saw bighorn sheep that ran along the
rugged hills of the changing terrain.
• Plant life was also different, prickly pear cactus covered the
ground and grizzly bears were sighted.
• Sacajawea was a great help to the expedition as she advised
men where to fish and hunt. She also understood how to
create healing remedies using plants and herbs.
• Sacajawea was born in 1788 to the
daughter of a Shoshone chief in what is
present day Lemhi County, Idaho.
• When she was twelve years old she was
captured by the Hidatsa Indians, an enemy
to her tribe.
• She was taken to present day Washburn,
North Dakota where she was sold to the
French-Canadian trapper Toussaint
Charbonneau who made her one of his
wives.
• During the Lewis and Clark expedition
(February 1805), Sacajawea gave birth to a
son named Jean Baptiste Charbonneau.
• In 1809, three years after helping Lewis and Clark on their
journey, it is believed that her husband, Toussaint
Charbonneau traveled with their son to St. Louis to see William
Clark. For reasons unknown, he left the child in Clark’s care.
• Three years later, Sacajawea gave birth to her second child, a
daughter named Lisette. Only a few months after her
daughter's birth (1812), Sacajawea reportedly died at Fort
Manuel in what is now Kenel, South Dakota.
• After Sacajawea's death, Clark was also given custody of her
daughter.
1. She was skilled at finding edible plants and herbs for
medicine.
2. When an expedition boat capsized, she was able to save
some of its cargo, including important documents, journal
entries, and supplies.
3. Just her presence on the expedition helped to maintain
peace among the many tribes they met. A group of white
men traveling with a woman and a child were treated with
less suspicion.
• The expedition sighted the
Pacific Ocean for the first
time on November 7, 1805.
• Lewis wrote in his journal:
“Great joy in camp. We are
in view of the ocean, this
great Pacific Ocean which
we have been so long
anxious to see.”
• Now that Lewis and Clark had reached their destination they
still had the long journey back. The expedition faced its second
bitter winter camped on the north side of the Columbia River.
• Their biggest challenge was the lack of food, as the elk had
retreated and the party was too poor to purchase food from
neighboring tribes.
• On November 24, 1805, the party voted to move their camp to
the south side of the Colombia River.
• Sacajawea and Clark’s slave named York were both allowed to
participate in the vote. Interestingly, it may have been the first
time a woman and a slave were given the opportunity to vote.
What did Lewis and Clark achieve?
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They produced the first accurate maps of the Northwest.
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They documented natural resources and plants that had
been previously unknown to Euro-Americans.
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They were the first Americans to cross the Continental
Divide.
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They discovered many Indian tribes that had been
previously unknown.
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They did NOT find a continuous water source to the
Pacific Ocean.