LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION
Facts, information and articles about the Lewis And Clark Expedition, an event ofWestward Expansion
from the Wild West
LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION FACTS
Born (Meriwether) Lewis: August 18, 1774; (William) Clark: August 1, 1770
Died: Merriweather Lewis: October 11, 1809; William Clark: September 1, 1838
Spouses: Lewis: none; Clark: Julia Hancock (1808 – 1820), Harriet Kennerly Radford (1820 –
1831)
Years Of Service: Lewis: US Army (1794 – 1801), Governor of the Louisiana Territory (1807 –
1809); Clark: US Militia (1789 – 1796), Governor of the Missouri Territory (1813 – 1820)
Ranks:Lewis: Captain; Clark: Lieutenant
Commands:Co-commanders of the Corps of Discovery
Achievements:Lewis: Persona Secretary to Pres. Jefferson; Clark: Appointed Brigadier General
of the Militia and Superintendent of Indian Affairs.
LEWIS AND CLARK ARTICLES
Lewis And Clark Expedition summary: The United States purchased Louisiana from France in
1803. The huge part of the land west of the Mississippi River was completely unknown to Americans
and needed to be examined first before it could be settled. President Jefferson decided to send an
exploratory expedition west so he appointed his own private secretary, Meriwether Lewis as a
Commander in charge of the expedition and finding appropriate guides for it. Lewis invited his former
superior officer from the Army, William Clark, to be his Co-commander.
The Lewis And Clark Expedition Begins
Their mission was to explore the unknown territory, establish trade with the Natives and affirm the
sovereignty of the United States in the region. One of their goals was to find a waterway from the US
to the Pacific Ocean. Lewis and Clark commanded the Corps of Discovery which consisted of 33
people, including one Indian woman and one slave.
Sacagawea Serves As A Guide
The expedition lasted from May 1804 until September 1806. They failed to find a waterway from the
Mississippi to the Pacific, but succeeded in documenting more than 100 new animals and 178 plants,
as well as providing 140 maps of the region. The expedition was so marked in history that the story of
the explorers was made into many films and many books have been written about them. Sacagawea
was a Native American who guided their mission because she knew the native land far better than the
European travelers. The travelers, Sacagawea and often her husband are depicted in many different
ways in paintings, carvings, and in media.
Chisholm Trail
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
1. The Chisholm Trail was a trail used in the post-Civil Warera to drive cattle overland, from ranches in Texas
to Kansasrailheads. The portion of the trail marked by Jesse Chisholmwent from his southern trading post near
the Red River, to his northern trading post near Kansas City, Kansas.
2. Texas ranchers using the Chisholm Trail started on the route from either the Rio Grande or San Antonio and
went to the railhead of the Kansas Pacific Railway in Abilene, Kansas, where the cattle would be sold and
shipped eastward
3. The trail is named for Jesse Chisholm, who had built several trading posts in what was then Indian Territory
and is now central Oklahoma, before the American Civil War. Immediately after the war, he and the Lenape
Black Beaver collected stray Texas cattle and drove them to railheads over the Chisholm Trail,[citation needed]
shipping them to the East to feed citizens, where beef commanded much higher prices than in the West.
Mormon Trail:
The history of the Mormon Trail cannot be understood without an awareness of the Mormon religion
itself. The great Mormon migration of 1846-1847 was but one step in the Mormons' quest for
religious freedom and growth.
The Mormon religion, later known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was founded
by Joseph Smith on April 6, 1830 in Fayette, New York. Smith experienced visions as a teenager
and would later be regarded as a prophet by the Mormons. In 1827, he claimed that an angel
showed him buried gold plates which he then transcribed into The Book of Mormon.
All who subscribed to the beliefs of this text became known as Mormons. Membership grew rapidly,
but not all were enthused about Smith's new religion. Persecution of the Mormons led to subsequent
moves westward for the church, first to Ohio, then to Missouri and then to Nauvoo, Illinois. Smith
envisioned a permanent settlement in Nauvoo. But both the Mormons' time in Nauvoo and Smith's
life were to be short-lived.
From 1839 until 1846, the Mormon church was headquartered in Nauvoo where church members
were able to prosper and practice their religion peacefully. But before long, tensions arose when
many citizens began to view the Mormons with contempt.
Mormon practices such as polygamy, in combination with the quick growth of the church, contributed
to a growing intolerance among some Illinois citizens. Hostilities broke out and on June 27, 1844,
Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were killed by an angry mob while jailed in Carthage, Illinois.
Brigham Young stepped in as Smith's successor and immediately began furthering Smith's plans for
a move to the Far West. By now, the Mormon population of Nauvoo neared 11,000, making it one of
the largest cities in Illinois. Yet the persecution of Mormons continued. In one month alone in 1845,
more than 200 Mormon homes and farm buildings were burned around Nauvoo in an attempt by
foes to force out the Mormons.
Possible locations for a new home for the Mormons included Oregon, California and Texas. But with
Smith's acquisition of John Fremont's map and report of the West in 1844, the Salt Lake region of
Utah was chosen as the Mormons' destination. Young and his devotees made plans for an exodus
to this new land. By 1846 the Mormon migration had begun.
TRAIL OF TEARS:
At the beginning of the 1830s, nearly 125,000 Native Americans lived on
millions of acres of land in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina and
Florida–land their ancestors had occupied and cultivated for generations. By
the end of the decade, very few natives remained anywhere in the
southeastern United States. Working on behalf of white settlers who wanted to
grow cotton on the Indians’ land, the federal government forced them to leave
their homelands and walk thousands of miles to a specially designated “Indian
territory” across the Mississippi River. This difficult and sometimes deadly
journey is known as the Trail of Tears.
THE “INDIAN PROBLEM”
White Americans, particularly those who lived on the western frontier, often
feared and resented the Native Americans they encountered: To them,
American Indians seemed to be an unfamiliar, alien people who occupied land
that white settlers wanted (and believed they deserved). Some officials in the
early years of the American republic, such as President George Washington,
believed that the best way to solve this “Indian problem” was simply to
“civilize” the Native Americans. The goal of this civilization campaign was to
make Native Americans as much like white Americans as possible by
encouraging them convert to Christianity, learn to speak and read English,
and adopt European-style economic practices such as the individual
ownership of land and other property (including, in some instances in the
South, African slaves). In the southeastern United States, many Choctaw,
Chickasaw, Seminole, Creek and Cherokee people embraced these customs
and became known as the “Five Civilized Tribes.”
But their land, located in parts of Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, Florida and
Tennessee, was valuable, and it grew to be more coveted as white settlers
flooded the region. Many of these whites yearned to make their fortunes by
growing cotton, and they did not care how “civilized” their native neighbors
were: They wanted that land and they would do almost anything to get it. They
stole livestock; burned and looted houses and towns;, and squatted on land
that did not belong to them.
State governments joined in this effort to drive Native Americans out of the
South. Several states passed laws limiting Native American sovereignty and
rights and encroaching on their territory. In a few cases, such as Cherokee
Nation v. Georgia (1831) and Worcester v. Georgia (1832), the U.S. Supreme
Court objected to these practices and affirmed that native nations were
sovereign nations “in which the laws of Georgia [and other states] can have
no force.” Even so, the maltreatment continued. As President Andrew Jackson
noted in 1832, if no one intended to enforce the Supreme Court’s rulings
(which he certainly did not), then the decisions would “[fall]…still born.”
Southern states were determined to take ownership of Indian lands and would
go to great lengths to secure this territory.
INDIAN REMOVAL
Andrew Jackson had long been an advocate of what he called “Indian
removal.” As an Army general, he had spent years leading brutal campaigns
against the Creeks in Georgia and Alabama and the Seminoles in Florida–
campaigns that resulted in the transfer of hundreds of thousands of acres of
land from Indian nations to white farmers. As president, he continued this
crusade. In 1830, he signed the Indian Removal Act, which gave the federal
government the power to exchange Native-held land in the cotton kingdom
east of the Mississippi for land to the west, in the “Indian colonization zone” that
the United States had acquired as part of the Louisiana Purchase. (This “Indian
territory” was located in present-day Oklahoma.)
The law required the government to negotiate removal treaties fairly,
voluntarily and peacefully: It did not permit the president or anyone else to
coerce Native nations into giving up their land. However, President Jackson
and his government frequently ignored the letter of the law and forced Native
Americans to vacate lands they had lived on for generations. In the winter of
1831, under threat of invasion by the U.S. Army, the Choctaw became the first
nation to be expelled from its land altogether. They made the journey to Indian
territory on foot (some “bound in chains and marched double file,” one
historian writes) and without any food, supplies or other help from the
government. Thousands of people died along the way. It was, one Choctaw
leader told an Alabama newspaper, a “trail of tears and death.”
THE TRAIL OF TEARS
The Indian-removal process continued. In 1836, the federal government drove
the Creeks from their land for the last time: 3,500 of the 15,000 Creeks who
set out for Oklahoma did not survive the trip.
The Cherokee people were divided: What was the best way to handle the
government’s determination to get its hands on their territory? Some wanted
to stay and fight. Others thought it was more pragmatic to agree to leave in
exchange for money and other concessions. In 1835, a few self-appointed
representatives of the Cherokee nation negotiated the Treaty of New Echota,
which traded all Cherokee land east of the Mississippi for $5 million, relocation
assistance and compensation for lost property. To the federal government, the
treaty was a done deal, but many of the Cherokee felt betrayed: After all, the
negotiators did not represent the tribal government or anyone else. “The
instrument in question is not the act of our nation,” wrote the nation’s principal
chief, John Ross, in a letter to the U.S. Senate protesting the treaty. “We are
not parties to its covenants; it has not received the sanction of our people.”
Nearly 16,000 Cherokees signed Ross’s petition, but Congress approved the
treaty anyway.
By 1838, only about 2,000 Cherokees had left their Georgia homeland for
Indian territory. President Martin Van Buren sent General Winfield Scott and
7,000 soldiers to expedite the removal process. Scott and his troops forced
the Cherokee into stockades at bayonet point while whites looted their homes
and belongings. Then, they marched the Indians more than 1,200 miles to
Indian territory. Whooping cough, typhus, dysentery, cholera and starvation
were epidemic along the way, and historians estimate that more than 5,000
Cherokee died as a result of the journey.
By 1840, tens of thousands of Native Americans had been driven off of their
land in the southeastern states and forced to move across the Mississippi to
Indian territory. The federal government promised that their new land would
remain unmolested forever, but as the line of white settlement pushed
westward, “Indian country” shrank and shrank. In 1907, Oklahoma became a
state and Indian territory was gone for good.
OREGON TRAIL
Facts, information and articles about The Oregon Trail, a part of Westward Expansionfrom the Wild West
Oregon Trail summary: The 2,200-mile east-west trail served as a critical transportation route for
emigrants traveling from Missouri to Oregon and other points west during the mid-1800s. Travelers
were inspired by dreams of gold and rich farmlands, but they were also motivated by difficult economic
times in the east and the diseases like yellow fever and malaria that were decimating the Midwest
around 1837.
Fur Trappers Lay Down The Oregon Trail
From about 1811-1840 the Oregon Trail was laid down by traders and fur trappers. It could only be
traveled by horseback or on foot. By the year 1836, the first of the migrant train of wagons was put
together. It started in Independence, Missouri and traveled a cleared trail that reached to Fort Hall,
Idaho. Work was done to clear more and more of the trail stretching farther West and it eventually
reached Willamette Valley, Oregon. Improvements on the trail in the form of better roads, ferries,
bridges and ‘cutouts’ made the trip both safer and faster each year. There were several starting points
in Nebraska Territory, Iowa and Missouri. These met along the lower part of Plate River Valley which
was located near Fort Kearny.
The many offshoots of the trail and the main trail itself were used by an estimated 350,000 settlers
from the 1830s through 1869. When the first railroad was completed, allowing faster and more
convenient travel, use of the trail quickly declined.
Santa Fe Trail
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United States > Migration > Trails and Roads > Santa Fe Trail
The Santa Fe Trail was an overland international trade route, military road, and
pioneer migration trail in central North America between the United States and
Mexico from 1821 to 1880. The Santa Fe Trail went from Missouri through Kansas,
Colorado, or sometimes Oklahoma to New Mex
Historical Background
Shortly after Mexican independence from Spain in 1821, William Bicknell, a
merchant-trader opened the Santa Fe Trail as a lucrative trade route from
Franklin, Missouri to Santa Fe, New Mexico. During most of its history the trail was
used to carry pack-trains or wagon loads of trade goods between Missouri and
New Mexico. In 1846 at the start of the Mexican War the United States Army used
the Santa Fe Trail to invade and later supply New Mexico. At the end of the war
Mexico ceded territory that would become California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado,
Arizona, and New Mexico to the United States. Some American forty-niners used
the Santa Fe Trail on the way to the California gold fields. Before long, ox teams
pulling wagons began to carry more and morepioneers from the expanding United
States into New Mexico and the western states. Eventually, in 1880, the old wagon
trail was replaced by the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway which roughly
followed the Santa Fe Trail Mountain Route from Kansas City into Colorado and
New Mexico.[1]
Part of the reason the Santa Fe Trail was a success was because it linked the
United States to two other significant trade routes, the Camino Real, and the Old
Spanish Trail, all forming a hub in Santa Fe. Since 1598 the Camino Real had been
used to carry settlers and goods from Mexico City and Chihuahua to Santa Fe.[2]
When the Santa Fe Trail opened these Mexican goods could be traded for goods
from the United States. In 1829-1830 the Old Spanish Trail also was opened
connecting Los Angeles to Santa Fe making even more merchandise available for
trade.[3]
Settlers followed trails because forests, mountains, rivers, lakes, or deserts
blocked other routes. If an ancestor settled near a trail, you may be able to trace
their place of origin back to another place along the trail.

Vernon, Joseph S. Along the old trail : a history of the old and a story of the
new Santa Fe Trail, online through FamilySearch Catalog.
Route
During much of its early history, the only permanant white settlement on the
Santa Fe Trail wasBent's Old Fort in Colorado. Many of the following places were
built later in trail history, or after the coming of the nearby Santa Fe Railway.
From east to west some of the more prominent places along or near the Santa Fe
Trail included:
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Franklin, Missouri
Independence, Missouri
Council Grove, Kansas
Fort Larned, Kansas
Fort Dodge (Dodge City), Kansas
Lakin, Kansas
Cimarron Route (60 miles shorter but drier and less-dependable water and forage
for livestock)
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Boise, Oklahoma
Clayton, New Mexico
Mountain Route (60 miles longer but wetter and more-dependable water and
forage for livestock)
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Bent's Old Fort near La Junta, Colorado
Raton Pass, New Mexico
Trails rejoin near:
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Fort Union, New Mexico
Las Vegas, New Mexico
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Settlers
American pioneer settlers who followed the Santa Fe Trail to Colorado, or northern
New Mexico would appear in land records, censuses, and possibly county histories.
Few appear in lists as the earliest settlers because the Spanish speaking pioneers
from old Mexico via the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro preceded them by many
years.
American settlers who travelled the Santa Fe Trail most likely would have come
from Kansas,Missouri, Iowa, Arkansas,Illinois, Kentucky, or Tennessee.