January 18, 1803, President Thomas Jefferson secretly requested $2,500.00 from Congress to outfit an expedition that would “explore the Missouri River, and such principal streams of it, as, by its course and communication with the waters of the Pacific Ocean…” and establish trade with the inhabitants of the land. Jefferson had fought with Congress for over a year to obtain the right to purchase the land west of the Missouri from the French. The new acquisition was bought for 12 million dollars. Less than 4 cents an acre. Plans for exploration began immediately . Leading the expedition would be Captain Meriwether Lewis and William Clark along with the Corps of Discovery.

Lewis & Clark Journey into the Unknown West with the

Corps of DiscoveryExpanding Jefferson’s America

Thomas Jefferson

Meriwether Lewis

William Clark

January 18, 1803, President Thomas Jefferson secretly requested $2,500.00 from Congress to outfit an expedition that would “explore the Missouri River, and such principal streams of it, as, by its course and communication with the waters of the Pacific Ocean…” and establish trade with the inhabitants of the land. Jefferson had fought with Congress for over a year to obtain the right to purchase the land west of the Missouri from the French. The new acquisition was bought for 12 million dollars. Less than 4 cents an acre. Plans for exploration began immediately . Leading the expedition would be Captain Meriwether Lewis and William Clark along with the Corps of Discovery.

Lewis & Clark Journey into the Unknown West with the

Corps of DiscoveryExpanding Jefferson’s America

Thomas Jefferson

Meriwether Lewis

William Clark

This is the 1803 Map that was used

by Lewis & Clark

The Nicholas King Map of N. Western United StatesThis is the Lewis and Clark map, with annotations in brown ink by Meriwether Lewis, tracing showing the Mississippi, the Missouri for a short distance above Kansas, Lakes Michigan, Superior, and Winnipeg, and the country onwards to the Pacific] Carried so far as the Mandan Village How much was known about the West?

Missouri River

Lake Superior

&Lake

Michigan

Mississippi River

Lake Winnipeg

The Corps of Discovery

The Corps of Discovery that accompanied Lewis and Clark included 24 military privates, 4 sergeants, 7 non military including Sacagawea and her infant son Jean Baptiste ( “Pomp”), her husband and oldest member ; interpreter and trader Toussaint Charbonneau, Lewis’s slave; York, and his dog Seaman. No likenesses of any of the Corps exist, these are interpretations.

ShoshoneWoman like Sacagawea-

Late 19th centaury

Sculpture of YorkBy Ed Hamilton

New FoundlandLike Seaman

ToussaintCharbonneau

Preparations

Your observations are to be taken with great pains and accuracy; to be entered distinctly and intelligibly for

others as well as yourself; to comprehend all the elements

necessary ..Thomas Jefferson – Letter to Meriwether Lewis explaining their

Mission

Map of 1803

How would youPrepare for anExpedition of this Magnitude?Keep a journal . Write down your ideas, thoughts, and feelings as this presentation Continues. Make a list of the items that you think will be needed. Add to it as the presentation continues.

What you know so far : You will use this map of 1803 as you prepare

• You will travel upstream on the Missouri River, cross rugged Indian country through the Bitter Root Mountains, then find a route to the Pacific.

• Jefferson portends that the mountain terrain will be like the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. You don’t know how long it will take. You must document and map this expedition with precision and in duplicate.

Lewis and Clark’s Trail Map published in1810

Follow along with the Corps of Discovery asThey begin at St. Louis and float up the

Missouri , across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean

Start Here

XFinish .

....

The trip begins:In St. Louis on the of the Missouri

River

The sextant proved to be complicated and difficult for Lewis to use. The Corps used dead reckoning to calculate their position on the map What is dead reckoning? At the end of the expedition it was found that the map reading s were less than 50 miles off\ How could that be? L

"All the preparations

being completed, we left our

encampment on Monday, May 14th,

1804. "Journal of Meriwether

Lewis

‘Lewis’s compass & Magnet

Sextant

May 1804

Winter 1804

The Corps of Discovery Overwinter in North Dakota with The Mandan Indians Until April

The weather to-day was colder than any we had yet

experienced, the thermometer at sunrise being 45º below 0, … "Read journal entry for December 17, 1804

"Mandan Village”By Karl Bodmer

This view of a Mandan village was executed in 1833, a generation after Lewis and Clark visited the upper Missouri River, but it captures a scene that closely matched the explorer’s description.

Lewis and Clark had spent much of the winter writing a report about what they had seen so far. They dispatched it and about a dozen expedition members—plus 108 botanical specimens, 68 mineral specimens, and Clark’s map of the United States—aboard the keelboat, which was bound for St. Louis and, eventually, President Jefferson.

Winter : December 1804 –April 1805

Lewis’s Woodpecker Reed

Reach the Great Falls of the Missouri

The River, in modern day Montana

This is a reproduction of one of the canoes

built for the expedition . What does portage mean? How is this canoe equipped for portage?

Lewis could hear the Great Falls from seven mile away!

Now began the great portage around the falls to put their boats in the river upstream from the falls. No European had ever entered this country.

June 16 – July

14, 1805

The Corps Cross the Continental Divide

at Lemhi Pass ,Idaho

The role of the Native Americans cannot be under

estimated. They provided the Corps with hand drawn maps that produced accurate representations of lands unknown to them like the one to the left.

August 13 – August 31, 1805

Lemhi Pass

"Lewis left us, withsergeant Gass, Charbonneau, and Drewyer, intending to go on in advance in search of the Shoshonees. "

journal entry for August 01, 1805 .

The Continental Divide

Over the Bitter Root Mountains

guided by “Old Toby” of the Nez Perce Indian Tribe

"We now dried our clothes and other articles, and selected some articles such as the Indians admire, in order to purchase some provisions, as we have nothing left except a little dried fish, which operates as a complete purgative. journal entry for October 01, 1805

By inserting a wick into the mouth of these oil-rich fish,

the dried fish could be used as candles. From Lewis’s Journal

September 1 – October 6, 1805

                                                     

Lewis & Clark reach this point of the Pacific Ocean , near Seaview, Washington

November 15, 1805

And Back Again, September 23, 1806

r

Lewis & Clark returned by the same route, often guided and helped

by numerous Indian tribes. The Corps spilt up to explore the Marias

River and the Yellow Stone River. They met up one month later

at the exact meeting place, only 1 day behind one anotther with all the original members except 1!

Reflect

• Compare your list of supplies with the list that Meriwether Lewis made in the next slides.

• Why is this expedition important ?• What made it difficult?• How would you experience this expedition if you saw it

through the eyes of :– A Native American– Sacagawea– A Corps member – Seaman

handkerchiefspowderMedicine and Medical Supplies:50 dozen Dr. Rush’s patented "Rush’s pills“

lancetsforcepssyringesTourniquets

1,300 doses of physic1,100 hundred doses of emetic3,500 doses of diaphoretic (sweat inducer)

other drugs for blistering, salivation and increased kidney outputTraveling Library:Barton’s Elements of BotanyAntoine Simon Le Page du Pratz’s History of Louisiana

Richard Kirwan’s Elements of MineralogyA Practical Introduction to Spherics and Nautical AstronomyThe Nautical Almanac and Astronomical Ephemerisa four-volume dictionary

a two-volume edition of Linnaeus (the founder of the Latin classification of plants)tables for finding longitude and latitudemap of the Great Bend of the Missouri River

yards of bright-colored cloth130 rolls of tobaccotomahawks that doubled as pipes

288 knives8 brass kettlesvermilion face paint33 pounds of tiny beads of assorted colors

Clothing:45 flannel shirtscoatsFrocks

shoeswoolen pantsblanketsknapsacksStockings

Arms and Ammunition:15 prototype Model 1803 muzzle-loading .54 caliber riflesknives500 rifle flints

420 pounds of sheet lead for bullets176 pounds of gunpowder packed in 52 lead canisters1 long-barreled rifle that fired its bullet with compressed air, rather than by flint, spark and

Partial Supply List for the Expedition

Congress approved A budget of $2,500.00 for supplies

•What would that be equivalent to today?•What do you know so far…..•Land in 1803 - $.04/ acre•Today app. Land prices?

Mathematical Instruments:surveyor’s compasshand compassquadrantsTelescope

thermometers2 sextantsset of plotting instrumentschronometer (needed to calculate longitude)

Camp Supplies:150 yards of cloth to be oiled and sewn into tents and sheetsplierschisels30 steels for striking to make fire

handsawshatchetswhetstonesiron corn mill

two dozen tablespoonsmosquito curtains10 1/2 pounds of fishing hooks and fishing lines12 pounds of soap