Welcome to lecture 22, History 2111, the first
half of U.S. History. We talked about the
code of honor last time. Of course, this takes
place within the Burr-Hamilton duel, taking
place in 1804, right in the middle of Thomas
Jefferson’s administration.
Jefferson will serve 2 terms, elected in 1800,
and then again in 1805. I want to concentrate
on just 2 things during the Jeffersonian time
period, and quite often historians use the
term, the Jeffersonian era to point to more
than just Jefferson’s 2 terms. Sometimes
James Madison and James Monroe’s terms are
kind of lumped in with this Jeffersonian era,
but here we’re going to talk about Lewis
and Clark, their expedition in the Louisiana
Territory, and we’re going to talk about
Jefferson’s embargo, in his 2nd term, against
the warring parties in Europe.
So let’s start with Lewis and Clark and
I want to give you context first, and there’s
more than one.
The first context is the exploration of the
American West. Included in this is the search
for the legendary Northwest Passage. Jefferson,
running back in history all the way to Columbus,
believed that there was a water route through
North America whereby you could reach North
America from the East on the Atlantic, sail
through the continent into the Pacific, and
then on to the riches of China and the markets
in Asia. Columbus looked for this, other explorers
looked for it. In the early 19th century,
Thomas Jefferson still held out hope that
the mysterious Northwest Passage existed.
So that was one of the purposes of this expedition.
A second context is the encounter between
the Americans and the Indians west of the
Mississippi River.
A third context – Who did this land belong
to?
We have this image of Thomas Jefferson and
Napoleon Bonaparte doing a real estate deal
whereby Napoleon grants Jefferson this Territory
in exchange for 15 million dollars. Do either
one of these men have any rights to this Territory?
We sometimes view the Louisiana Territory
as being empty much like the myth of the pristine
continent, which we talked about when we talked
about American Exceptionalism as North America
being empty just waiting for the European
Christians to arrive, and of course, this
is nonsense. The Louisiana Territory was full
of people – a variety of Indian nations,
Frenchmen, Englishmen, Russians, Spanish,
so on and so forth. So whose land is this?
You get the sense that what Jefferson purchased
from Napoleon was the legal right to explore
this Territory and to make a claim for it.
So we have these larger contexts to keep in
mind.
I want to give you a couple of significances
here.
Lewis and Clark, this expedition of the Corps
of Discovery, it establishes an American presence
across the North American continent. It begins
the establishment of American sovereignty
across this continent, over both Indian nations
and European competitors.
Another significance, the Lewis and Clark
expedition proved the feasibility of an overland
route to the Far West. It added a great deal
of scientific knowledge as the Corps of Discovery
encountered new animals, new plants, and of
course, Jefferson as sort of the ultimate
Renaissance man, enjoyed very much receiving
these packages with these specimens.
And of course, the Lewis and Clark expedition
will stimulate what we would later refer to
as Manifest Destiny. In fact, you can think
of Lewis and Clark as the sharp point of that
longer spear that we might call Manifest Destiny
– that drive westward to the Pacific.
The purpose of the expedition?
According to Jefferson in his notes to Meriwether
Lewis, his secretary, he says, quote, “to
explore the Missouri River and by its course
in communication with the waters of the Pacific
Ocean that may offer the most direct and practical
water communication across the continent,
for the purpose of commerce, and to learn
as much as possible about the life and culture
of the Indians,” who lived along this route
and who were crucial to the success of the
fur trade, the principal commerce that the
President referred to, and again, the fur
trade is a long-standing trade, we saw this
when we talked about the Middle Ground with
the French and the Huronian Indians in New
France, what today we would call Canada. The
fur trade was certainly an allure for French
colonists, and here, Jefferson is still seeking
connections with a lucrative fur trade with
the Indians of this area.
A bit of chronology – In January of 1803,
Jefferson requested funds from the Congress
to finance this expedition. The expedition,
of course, is called the Corps of Discovery,
led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.
There are 48 other people, including interpreters.
They begin their ascent up the Missouri River
in May of 1804. They cross the Rockies in
April of 1805, and in November of 1805 the
Corps of Discovery comes within sight of the
Pacific Ocean. The expedition will return
to St. Louis in September of 1806. So this
is about 2 years total for the time to travel
all the way to the Pacific and then back again.
Now let’s characterize the Corps of Discovery
a bit.
Lewis and Clark, recognizing that reciprocity
was a key part of Indian culture, took with
them various trinkets to trade with the Indians
– metals and needles and mirrors and ribbons
and just a variety of junk really – with
the understanding that the Indians would find
some usefulness in this stuff and might exchange
food or information or aid in some way, for
these trinkets. Of course, we see this going
all the way back to Columbus. Remember Columbus
was amazed that the Indians would give a lot
for what Columbus considered just junk lying
around the boat. So this Western sort of stereotype
of Indian ignorance of the value of things
continues on here.
Impediments for the Corps of Discovery – I’m
going to mention a few.
The Missouri River - In summer, after the
winter snows had melted, you get into late
summer and early fall, the Missouri River
becomes quite shallow, and this of course,
requires the men of the Corps of Discovery
to take their boats and barges out of the
river and march them over land until they
reached some deep point in the river where
the boats could then be reintroduced to the
river portage, this is called. Can you imagine
unloading these barges, carrying all the gear
and the barges upriver and over land, until
you can find a deep point to get back into
the river?
So in late summer and early fall, you face
this problem. And then of course, in spring
and early summer, you face the problem of
flooding as the Missouri River collects all
the melting snows creating a flooding hazard.
So here again, you may have to pull your boats
out of the water to keep from being overturned.
Other impediments – In the brief summers
here, you find the emergence of black flies
and mosquitoes that will eat you alive. I
think we talked about this, again during the
Middle Ground, a few lectures ago.
And of course, they encounter a new and very
aggressive species of bear, the grizzly bear.
The men of the Corps of Discovery discovered
that even direct hits with their muskets would
often be ineffectual. These bears were territorial
and aggressive and sometimes it would take
multiple shots to slow one of these bears
down or to kill it.
Let’s talk about ownership here for a moment,
as we further characterize Lewis and Clark.
Jefferson urged Lewis and Clark to carve their
names on rocks and trees to leave traces of
themselves as they moved through the territory
to make improvements on the land, if possible,
to name things, name the creeks, name the
rivers, name the mountains, give them American
names. Again, this is just good real estate
practice in establishing your presence on
the land. Of course, if you can establish
your presence on the land, then you begin
to establish ownership of the land.
Let’ continue with this idea of ownership,
and I touched on this earlier, many Frenchmen
lived there, many Indians lived there, and
as the Americans come through this territory,
these French and these Indians and others
are not going to recognize them as establishing
sovereignty over this land. This is going
to be a contested area for some time. So ownership
is still ambiguous, even as Lewis and Clark
move through the territory.
I want to talk about the Indian point of view
here for a moment, and let me give you a quote
from one of the Indian chiefs. He says, quote,
“We had philosophy, laws, order, and religion.
We were not uncivilized or wild. We lived
according to our laws and the order established
in our homes and homeland,” unquote. This
of course, is part of the ongoing struggle
between the white Christians and the Native
Americans as Europeans and the Americans view
the Indians as savage because they’re not
Christian. They view them as barbarians because
their dress and their culture is quite different
from Western Europeans and Americans and the
Indians, of course, do not see it this way
at all; they view their culture as superior
and their religion as superior, their gendered
roles as superior to the white men. So this
is a constant and ongoing struggle between
the 2 sides. Of course, the ultimate tragedy
for the Indians is that they will simply be
removed and shunted onto reservations; their
culture destroyed.
Jefferson, of course, had in the back of his
mind 2 ideas regarding the Indians. One, assimilation,
whereby the Indians would become more and
more like white Christians; or two, annihilation,
whereby the Indians would simply be moved
aside to make way for superior white culture.
I want to just make one remark here about
Sacagawea. Most people are familiar with this
legendary figure, a young Indian maiden, who
accompanied Lewis and Clark on their expedition
west. It’s interesting, Sacagawea had originally
lived in the Rocky Mountains and had, as a
young girl, traveled eastward to the Mandan
Village, where Lewis and Clark first found
her. So she had a memory of the route, having
already traced it once as a much younger girl.
So she was very helpful in taking Lewis and
Clark along that route, westward this time,
and she, of course, has gone down in history
much in the way of Pocahontas in Virginia
as a mediator between the savage Indians and
the civilized whites.
Also from the Indian point of view, think
about the fact that Lewis and Clark, for the
Indians, just looked like another group of
white men moving through the territory. The
Indians would have no way of knowing that
their way of life was now tick-tick-ticking
away, and Lewis and Clark are the beginning
of the end for these Western Indians.
Again, I want you to think of Lewis and Clark
as sort of a spearhead of Manifest Destiny.
So let’s draw some conclusions here. This
expedition, this Corps of Discovery, it established
or at least staked a claim for the American
Republic all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
It advanced scientific knowledge, geographical
knowledge; it allowed us to create a map that
could accurately depict much of the continent.
It is a forerunner of Manifest Destiny, which
will emerge in full flower in the 1840s, and
I think it’s safe to say it’s the beginning
of the end of the Middle Ground. The Middle
Ground, of course, had already ended east
of the Mississippi in many places. This is
the beginning of the end of the Middle Ground
west of the Mississippi, as the indigenous
peoples of the North American continent are
now going to become diminished and decline.
Thank you.
