After the purchase of the Louisiana territory from the french, Thomas Jefferson has sent Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore this new land, in hopes of locating useful resources, mapping territory and setting out a trade route toward the pacific ocean. So then set the long, treacherous trail Lewis and Clark has embarked on, encountering foreign environment and Native Americans. Who they eventually have started to disrespect them, by their act of violence, and motivation of cultural cleansing, therefore causing an act against different tribes.
In 1607, Hudson was hired by the Muscovy Company, created in part by his grandfather Henry Hudson I, to find the Northwest Passage, a route to Asia by going west. They provided him with a ship, the 80-ton Hopewell,
The long travel along the Oregon Trail was a very long and strenuous experience. The trail stretch out to 2000 miles and it took the pioneers 2-6 months just to travel 12 to 16 miles per hour. The travelers usually traveled in large groups to help deal with obstacles that they stabled into along the way such as snow storms, thunder storms and rivers. All the travelers’ played an important part in order for survival. The men did the hunting and navigating.
Members chosen for the expedition were sought after for skills that included hunting, blacksmithing, and gunsmithing, making United States Army soldiers a good option for crew who traveled by land, water and horseback, for nearly 8,000 miles over mountains, through plains and by rivers (The Lewis and Clark Expedition, 2016). The success of the Lewis and Clark expedition was important to science, as they made important observations about the land of North America that lead to creation of maps with Captain Clark having the duty of mapping the landscape because of his experience: the result of maps made by Clark became one of the most important achievements of the western exploration. (The Lewis and Clark Expedition, 2016). The scientific information collected on geography, meteorology, cultures, and animal life and plant life were greatly important to the nation (Corps of Discover, 2016). The trip also was partially useful in creating peaceful relations with the American Indians in territories of the Northwest, although not all tribes were accepting of the gestures, giving gifts was important to building peaceful relationships with the American Indians (The Corp of Discovery, 2016). In Corps of Discover, 2016, “Although it was not successful, “Lewis and Clark achieved an impressive record of peaceful cooperation with the Indians and generated American interest in the fur trade” (Corps of Discover, 2016). On April 7, 1805 the Lewis and Clark exploration provided all gathered information from the trip and sent it to Missouri making the expedition results vitally important to the nations growth by providing information from the crews hard work (Corps of Discover, 2016). As rightfully noted in The Lewis and Clark Expedition, 2016, “The Lewis and Clark Expedition are often called the greatest adventure in American history.”(The Lewis and Clark Expedition, 2016), and as
They had about thirty-four people in their exploration when they started but when they ended the exploration they had about twenty-seven people. Lewis and Clark travelled through ten states and went back through all ten states. When the Spanish heard about Lewis and Clark and their exploration they tried to arrest them because the Spanish were worried about Lewis and Clark taking the Spanish’s land.
Prior to the Purchase of the Louisiana Territory, Thomas Jefferson was desired to explore the area to see if there was an all-water route to the Pacific Ocean and claim that land for the United States. The main goals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition was to map the region, collect information on new species, and to establish contact with the Native groups and make peace with them.
After receiving his education, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were asked by Thomas Jefferson to find a water route to the Pacific Ocean but, instead that lead to the Louisiana Purchase.
This book is a good resource for the American History students. There are many things that I learned and that I take for granted today. This book would help students to learned the risk of travel and that it isn’t as easy as it is now, that you have to plan for the worst because anything could happen in 2,170 miles. Also many people take medicine for granted but this book expresses the lack of medicine the indians had. The book would help students learned the worth of medicine because if someone that got sick that was traveling along then it would spread to the people around that sick one, and most they would all be affected by the disease. After reading the book, they will have learned a lot from this document, I do think it is important for other students should think about reading about the Oregon Trail and how it affected others at the time and how it is still affecting
For example, “the Nez Percés provided….horses….to the party, both in the fall of 1805 and the spring of 1806” (Klepeis, 39). Those provisions certainly cut much time off the journey; traveling by foot is much more exhausting than by horse, and takes much longer. More time means more chance for danger to occur, and since danger in the wild often causes severe injury, the expedition members would have been less likely to avoid enough danger to reach all of their goals and make the exploration a success. Also, in order to cross the Bitterroot Mountain Range (part of the Rocky Mountains), the Corps needed transport; Captains Lewis and Clark knew that, come winter, traveling through the mountains would cause great problems for the Corps of Discovery, such as hypothermia and starvation. Fortunately, they soon reached a tribe of Shoshone Indians, whose chief, Cameahwait, provided a grand total of 29 horses to the Corps (Marcovitz). This transportation was essentially the reason why the expedition was able to pass through the Bitterroots at all; without horses, their travel through the mountains would have been much slower, and their food supply would have run out. After all, it was a 160 mile-long journey—the team would have starved to death (Isserman, 114). So, if the expedition had been left without the Nez Percé and Shoshone horses, they may not have made it far
“The Lewis and Clark Expedition paddled its way down the Ohio as it prepared the Expedition to be launched officially from Camp Wood, just outside St. Louis, in the summer of 1804” (2), and the Corps of Discovery’s official mission would commence near the outskirts of St. Louis in 1804 where they would move upstream of the Missouri River to a place called Fart Mandan that was used at a trading post where they would wait out the winter. The Corps were tested with several bumps in the road that would slow and threatened the journey like the insects they would encounter, heat they would have to endure and injuries that were unavoidable given the working conditions they were under. There was a man by the name of Charles Floyd, that Lewis and Clark liked the most out of the crew, died of what was labeled as his appendix bursting and was “the only person to die on the two and one-half year journey.” As they continued forward in their quest they eventually make it to a village inhabited by the Mandan Indians whom belonged to a large trade network in the West. This is where they recruited a Frenchman by the name of Toussaint Charbonneau, that they would use as a means of translation between their current
It is September of 1806, we finally got back from the two year and four months expedition, it began on May of 1804. This expedition is a fact finding mission, the expedition began in St. Louis traveled to Pacific Ocean and back to St. Louis. I don’t know how we made it through these years I am so happy I went through this expedition with Meriwether Lewis, Sacagawea, William Clark, and more. We were commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson the third president of the United States of America. Lewis and Clark expedition was commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson. The expedition was to find and map a water route across North America from Atlantic to Pacific Ocean (Northwest Passage). Establish good relations with Native Americans and announce territory is controlled by government. Plus collect information about plants and land along the route.
The Lewis and Clark expedition is arguably the most courageous and adventurous exploration effort ever made in American history. The Lewis and Clark took place after the Louisiana Purchase as an effort to find a northwest passage, map the newly purchased land, make scientific discoveries in the area, and to establish contact with the natives and set up a strong trade network with them. Through efforts of Thomas Jefferson, Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, Sacagawea, and many others, the United states was radically changed through the exploration of these new uncharted areas.
Once again, according to Discovering Lewis and Clark, they state [and connect with my last paragraph point] that another reason why the group isn’t that well known in Native history is because the “Native Americans were inundated with move pressing matters than memorializing the explorers.” Later on they go on to explain themselves, talking about how Lewis and Clark’s expedition caused Americans to believe that they suddenly knew everything about the land, and start extending their territory and their settlements into Native’s land, bringing epidemics such as smallpox, which devastated the Native Americans, and taking them from their rightful lands and placing the Natives to reservations. Honestly, them just enduring that is an act of heroism all in
Lewis and Clark were two explorers who were chosen by Thomas Jefferson to go on an exploration into the western territory they just bought from Napoleon Bonaparte. While they were exploring they came across the Shoshone tribe and met Sacajawea, who had her baby with her at the time and became their guide. Then they worked their way to the pacific ocean.
They were an amicable group of people who lived on the upper Missouri River. The Mandan were instrumental in the expedition’s survival during the winter of 1804 by allowing the group to build a fort; Fort Mandan. This fort supplied the group with shelter and the tribe provided them with food throughout the winter. In contrast, the Teton Sioux’s interaction with the group were quite the opposite of the former tribes. Instead of welcoming the explorers with open arms they were met with a war party. The Teton Sioux had the military force to devastate the expedition, however, conflict was narrowly avoided. The Sioux ended up hosting the group for a number of days before the expedition group moved on due to multiple confrontations between the two. Many of the group were frightened and suspicious of these “savages”. Much of this fear escalated with the descriptions introduced by Lewis and Clark’s journals, upon their return. The full extent of the impact of the journey took effect in the mid 1830’s. Indians were removed from their homeland and killed. This was directly attributed to the Lewis and Clark expedition which spurred the movement. Although it most likely was not the intentions of the group, their effects on Westward Expansion was the beginning to an end for Native Americans, and has left impressions on history that are still present