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LEWIS AND CLARK: THE CORPS OF DISCOVERY
Today, we are going to use maps, primary sources, and computer resources to learn about
the Louisiana Purchase and the expedition of Lewis and Clark (1804-1806). As you go
through this sheet, please answer the questions in each section on a separate sheet in
complete sentences and/or paragraphs. Be thorough and thoughtful in your answers.
PART ONE: THE STAGE, or NORTH AMERICAN POLITICAL AND PHYSICAL
GEOGRAPHY (You’ll need your atlas.)
1. Look at the "French, Spanish, and English Settlements to 1776" map on page
10 of your atlas.
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Describe the division of North America. Who has the most land? Who has the least?
Does anything else interest or surprise you after studying this map?
2. Look at the "Louisiana Purchase and Western Exploration, 1804-1807" map
on page 14 of your atlas.
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Describe the changes that have happened to North America’s political map since
1776. What is significant about these changes?
How does the land size of the United States change with the Louisiana Purchase?
What do you think might be the advantages/disadvantages of the Louisiana
Purchase?
Who might be affected by the Louisiana Purchase? How?
3. Look at the "Native American Cultures, 1500s" map on page 5 and compare it to
the map on page 14.
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Who can Lewis & Clark expect to encounter along their expedition from St. Louis to
the Pacific Ocean?
What other challenges might Lewis & Clark face along their expedition?
PART TWO: THE GOALS, MESSAGES, AND SIGNIFIERS OF THE LOUIS AND CLARK
EXPEDITION
In his book, Undaunted Courage, Stephen Ambrose writes about the Corps of Discovery and
their journey. Early on, Ambrose describes the reasons for the expedition. President
Jefferson (the third president of the United States) wrote to Lewis: “The object of your
mission is to explore the Missouri river & such principal streams of it, as, by it’s course and
communication with the waters of the Pacific ocean, whether the Columbia, Oregan,[sic]
Colorado or any other river may offer the most direct & practicable water communication
across this continent for the purposes of commerce” (Ambrose 94). In addition to these
direct orders, Jefferson instructed Lewis to make maps, learn about the Indian nations he
would encounter, and make scientific examinations of the country through which he
traveled.
1. Based on these instructions, how would you explain Jefferson’s goals for Lewis and
Clark’s journey?
Approximately halfway between the Platte River junction and the Little Sioux River was
Council Bluff, the Corps of Discovery’s first meeting with Indians (the Oto and Missouri
tribes). This is the spot where Lewis delivered a half-hour long speech to the Indians about
President Jefferson. This is a speech that Lewis gave many times along the journey, to the
many different groups of Indians the expedition encountered. Stephen Ambrose described
it this way (ANNOTATE THE FOLLOWING EXCERPT):
Lewis then stood to deliver his speech. It was some twenty-five hundred words, so
it took him at least half an hour to deliver it, and the translator at least as long to put it into
the Oto language. How accurately it was being translated, Lewis of course had no way to
judge. Nor could he tell how much of what he was saying the Indians could understand, or
how much of what they understood they accepted.
Lewis opened by advising the warriors to be wise and look to the true interests of
their people. “Children,” he continued, as Clark recorded his speech, “we have been sent by
the great Chief of the Seventeen great nations of America to inform you… that a great
council was lately held between this great chief and your old fathers the French and the
Spaniards.” There it was decided that the Missouri River country now belonged to the
United States, so that all those who lived in that country, whether white or red, “are bound
to obey the commands of their great Chief the President who is now your only great father.”
“Children,” Lewis went on, the president was now “your only father, he is the only
friend to whom you can now look for protection, or from whom you can ask favours, or
receive good counciles, and he will take care to serve you, & not deceive you.”
After giving out the good news about this wonderful new father the Otos had
suddenly acquired, Lewis tried to explain the purposes of the expedition. No easy task,
since the only white men the Plains Indians had ever seen were traders, whose purpose
was obviously to do business. The expedition had more goods than any trader any Indian
of the Plains had ever seen—yet the captains did not wish to trade. What on earth were
they going to do with all those goods? The Indians had to wonder.
“Children,” Lewis explained, the great chief “has sent us out to
clear the road, remove every obstruction, and to make it the road of
peace between himself and his red children residing there, to enquire
into the Nature of their wants.” When the expedition returned home,
Lewis would tell the president what the Otos wanted, and the
president would see those wants were satisfied.
“Lewis and Clark were advance men and traveling salesman, in
short, representing American business and the American people,
whose numbers and skills were all but unlimited. In the seventeen great nations of
America, Lewis declared, “cities are as numerous as the stars of the heavens.”
What the Americans were doing, Lewis went on, was untainted by any base or selfserving motive. The great chief “has commanded us his war chiefs to undertake this long
journey, which we have so far accomplished with great labour and much expence, in order
to council with yourselves and his other red-children on the troubled waters, to five you his
good advice; to point out to you the road in which you must walk to obtain happiness.”
As a good father, the president told his children how to behave. They should not
block or obstruct in any way the passage of any boat carrying white men, ever. They
should make peace with all their neighbors.
Now came the threats. Lewis told the Otos that they must avoid the council of bad
men “lest by one false step you should bring upon your nation the displeasure of your great
father, who could consume you as the fire consumes the grass of the plains.” The Great
Father, “if you displease him,” would stop all traders from coming up the river.
Do as we say, in other words, or no white man will come to you again, ever. That
was an extreme threat, strange as it sounds to modern ears. Without contact with
European trade goods, the Otos would suffer a severe setback in their living conditions and
would be seriously vulnerable to their neighbors who had access to guns and powder.
That was a flat ending. How Lewis’ first oratorical experience went over with his
audience cannot be said, although Private Gass recorded in his journal that the
announcement about a new father was “well received.” Clark claimed “Those people
express great Satisfaction at the Speech Delivered,” but he also noted that Lewis’s speech
consisted primarily of “Some advice to them and Directions how They were to Conduct
themselves” words that would have served well as the title for the speech.
When Lewis concluded, the captains distributed presents. They weren’t much. Each
chief received a breech clout, a bit of paint, and a small medal with the new father’s likeness
on it or a comb (Ambrose 156-7).
2. Sum up what you see as the main messages Lewis intended to deliver to the Otos
and other nations. List at least four messages and provide a quote from Lewis (not
Stephen Ambrose) that shows each of these messages.
3. How does Lewis demonstrate to the Indians the relationship he wants to create,
other than stating it directly? What are his actions? What are the signifiers (think
about the cape and crown that Columbus and the Taino exchanged) that convey
Lewis’s message? Cite and explain two examples.
4. What does this speech suggest about the United States’ early goals for the
Louisiana Territory?
PART THREE: A CORPS OF “DISCOVERY”
1. While we have focused on the pragmatic concerns of “extending [America’s]
external commerce, “ Lewis and Clark’s journal was an astounding scientific
exploration. They discovered some 300 species unknown to science, nearly 50 native
tribes, and were the first people of European descent to encounter the Rocky
Mountains. Take a look at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s archive of the
journals. Go here: http://lewisandclarkjournals.unl.edu/. Click on Images >> From
the Journals. Make a list of the types of things Lewis and Clark were recording in
their journals. What things are they interested in recording? Organize your list by
categories. How can your categories help you explain the sorts of things the
explorers were looking for?