Louisiana Purchase: By a treaty signed on April 30^th 1803, the United States purchased from France the Louisiana Territory, more than 800,00 square miles of land extending from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountain. The price was about $15 million.

In 1762, France had ceded Louisiana to Spain, but France regained the area by a secret treaty. Napoleon Bonapart envisioned a French empire in the New World, and he hoped to use the Mississippi Valley region as a center for trade. This supply of goods was to aid the island of Hispaniola (Haiti). Napoleon had sent and army to control the Haitian uprising. The French lost thousands of soldiers, mainly to yellow fever. Napoleon soon realized Hispaniola must be abandoned. Without this island there was little use for Louisiana Territory. He soon faced war with Great Britain, and knew he could not spare his troops to defend the territory. Napoleon needed funds to support his military efforts in Europe. Accordingly, in April 1803 he offered to sell the territory to the United States.

In the meantime President Thomas Jefferson had sent James Monroe and Robert Livingston to Paris in an attempt to purchase a tract on land on the lower Mississippi River or to at least allow free navigation on the river. The United States was surprised at the offer to purchase the whole territory and immediately set up negotiations to obtain it. The U.S constitution did not specifically give power to the government to obtain new territory by treaty, Jefferson concluded that the benefits to the nation far outweighed the possible violation of the Constitution. The Senate agreed with this decision and voted to ratify it on October 20^th, 1803. The Spanish, who never gave up physical possession of the territory to France, did so in New Orleans on November 30, 1803. In another ceremony, on Dec. 20, 1803, the French turned over Louisiana Territory over to the United States. This tract of land doubled the size of the present United States and opened the west up for expansion and trade.

Jefferson immediately called forth an expedition to find and map an all water route across the continent which was critical for the further commerce and expansion of the American Empire. Jefferson was aware of the expeditions by Alexander Mackenzie through Canada in 1789 and 1793 and the water routes discovered by him, which opened that region up for the trading of fur. Jefferson also wanted information about the natural sciences and Indian cultures of the west. Exploration of the west was critical to the creation of the American Empire that Jefferson had envisioned. Jefferson personally chose his friend Meriwether Lewis whom he tutored and was his secretary during 1801-1802. Lewis was chosen to command an expedition to the Pacific. Lewis was born in 1774 in Albermarle County Virginia. Meriwether became an officer in the militia at the age of 20 and later joined the regular army. Lewis spent a great deal of time at Jefferson's home reading books in his library and preparing for the expedition. He was taught botany by Jefferson and even studied medicine under Dr. Benjamin Rush.

Congress authorized the expedition in 1803 with the purpose of geographical, commercial, scientific, agricultural and ethnographic discovery for the United States. In March of 1803, Captain Lewis began his journey to Harper's Ferry; W. VA where he obtained arms, ammunitions, and an iron framed boat for the trip. Other supplies were obtained in Philadelphia. During his stay there he continued his studies with leading scholars and gathering medical supplies and scientific instruments. In the late spring he returned to Washington D.C. to receive final instructions from President Jefferson.

On July 5^th, 1803 the day after the purchase of the Louisiana Territory was made public, Captain Lewis set out for Pittsburgh, Pa. At Pittsburgh, Lewis was delayed because of problems with the construction of a 55-foot masted keelboat. Unreliable labor and many delays did not allow Lewis and his crew of 11 men to leave Pittsburgh until the end of August. Lewis acquired a Newfoundland dog he named Seamen who would accompany the expedition to the Pacific and back. Lewis departed with his crew down the Ohio River, which was very low with water. Their boat was constantly running aground and had to be constantly excavated or towed. Lewis obtained numerous supplies while enroute and conducted archaeological investigations for Jefferson at several sites. When Lewis and crew arrived at present day Louisville KY he joined with friend William Clark. Clark was born in Virginia in 1770 and was the youngest brother of General George Rodgers Clark of Revolutionary War fame. When he was 14, his family moved to Louisville, Kentucky. Clark served in the Kentucky militia and was commissioned a 2^nd lieutenant in the U.S. Army. Lewis appointed him co-leader when they met in Louisville, which then became the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The captains continued recruiting, training and preparing their men.

On November 11, the expedition arrived at Fort Massac in present day Illinois. While at the fort Lewis obtained military supplies for his men. Volunteers were also chosen from the troops stationed at the fort. They also obtained interpreter George Drouillard at the fort. The expedition left Fort Massac on November 13^th and reached the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. They camped here for nearly a week and then headed upstream toward St. Louis on the Mississippi River. They arrived at Camp Dubois on the opposite side of the river from St. Louis where they would stay the winter until their departure on May 14^th, 1804. The expeditions departure from that point on was all previously unexplored by European man and into newly purchased Louisiana Territory.

They became known as the Corp of Discovery. Their journey covered approximately 8000 miles to the Pacific Ocean and back. They traveled in dugout canoes called pirogues, a keelboat, road horses which they obtained from the Indian tribes they encountered and walked across large expanses of plains and mountains.

The first part of the expedition took them to the Mandan and Hidatsa Indian villages in present central North Dakota. They had traveled over 1600 miles from their departure point. They made their first winters quarters and named it Ft. Mandan. The winter was extremely cold with temperatures in the -40 degrees. The following spring they sent the keelboat and several men back to St. Louis with letters, information, and the plant and animal specimens they had so far collected. At Ft. Mandan they hired French fur trader, Toussaint Charbonneau and his wife Sacagewea, as interpreters to accompany them to the Pacific. Sacagawea was a Shoshone Indian who had lived in the Rocky Mountains at the headwaters of the Missouri. She had been abducted five years earlier by a band of Hidatsas and sold to Charbonneau. She would prove a very valuable member especially when bargaining for horses that would later been needed to cross over the mountains. When they departed Ft. Mandan on April 7,1805 there were two captains, three sergeants, 23 privets, and 5 non-military personnel. The civilians, in addition to Charbonneau and Sacagawea, were their infant son, Jean Baptiste (age 55days when they left Ft. Mandan), Clark's servant York, and an interpreter by the name of George Drewyer. The 33 members expedition set out in their two pirogues and the 6-cottonwood dugout canoes they had built during the winter.

When they arrived at present-day Montana the Corp passed a large body of water flowing in from the north. They were confused as to which was the Missouri. The river was very murky and many members insisted on it being the Missouri. Lewis and Clark disagreed saying the Missouri was the clearer river to the left. They named the tributary the Maria's River in honor of Lewis' cousin, Maria Wood. At this critical junction, Lewis and a small party left the boats and proceed on by foot in search of the Great Falls of the Missouri which was reported to have existed from stories told by the Indians. They discovered the falls on June 13^th, however they were a series of 5 cascades in which they would have to portage. Clark later arrived with the boats, and found the best and shortest route around the falls to be nearly 18 miles long. What was hoped to be a quick 1-day portage around the falls would become a month long ordeal. In order to haul 6 dugouts and gear around, they constructed two wagons from a cottonwood tree. Harnesses were made and strapped to the men who pulled the wagons. The pirogues were too heavy and long and were left on shore. The portage required four round trips and 2 weeks to complete. They remained at the fall an additional week completing the construction of an iron framed boat, which Lewis designed and had built at Harper's Ferry during the summer of 1803. The boat turned into another set back. They could not find adequate pine pitch to seal the hides, which were stretched over the iron frame of the boat. They also didn't have the proper needles to sew the hides. They had to abandon the idea of the iron boat and build two more dugout canoes and cache more gear at the falls.

As they proceeded up the Missouri, began to recognize the country they were traveling through. The passed through terrain which was more rugged than they had seen before with glimpses of the Rocky Mountains on the horizon. Clark's advance party reached the Three Forks of the Missouri on July 25^th. Lewis arrived a few days later and ascended a prominent rocky bluff to view the area, which he believed to be the essential point in the geography of the west part of the continent. They named the three forks in honor of Treasury Secretary, Albert Gallatin, the south fork in honor of Secretary of State James Madison, and the west fork in honor of President Jefferson. As they proceeded on up the Jefferson, the water was very swift, shallow and rocky. The men were extremely fatigued hauling the dugouts over the rocks. A few miles below the Ruby River, Sacagawea recognized a large rocky outcrop of land as the Beavers Head and informed the captains they were not far from the summer retreat of her people.

On August 9^th Lewis along with three men set out ahead of the main party in search of finding the Shoshone to obtain horses. After several days they reached what Lewis described as the headwaters of the Missouri River. They were joyous and thankful yet extremely fatigued.

What they achieved: The Lewis and Clark Expedition and the Corp of Discovery succeeded in mapping a route beyond the Mississippi River to the Pacific. They recorded plant and animals that were unknown previously, made scientific astronomical observations, and met peacefully with many Indian nations during the journey. The Corp of Discovery completed its difficult mission with only one fatality; Sergeant Floyd died of appendicitis and is buried near Sioux City, Iowa.

John Collins: (Md.) A hunter, broke into a whiskey keg one night while on guard duty, got drunk, and received 100 lashes for his misconduct.

Pierre` Cruzatte: Half-French and half-Omaha Indian. Was a fiddle player and master boatman. Blind in one eye and nearsighted in the other, he accidentally shot Lewis on the return journey.

George Gibson: (Pa. KY.) Helped as an interpreter through sign language with the Indians and may have stayed on in the army after the expedition.

Hugh Hall: (Mass) was a regular Army veteran. He had a drinking problem, which got him court-martialed.

Thomas Howard: (Mass) was the last member court-martialed during the expedition when he scaled the Ft. Mandan stockade wall when returning after hours from the Mandan Indian village.

Francois Labiche: Was a skilled boatman, frontier trader, and interpreter. He spoke English, French and several Indian languages.

George Shannon: (Oh, - Penn.) Was the youngest member of the expedition at 18 years. After the expedition he became a lawyer and senator.

John Shields: (Ky.) was the oldest to join at the age of 34. He was married, a skilled carpenter, blacksmith, and gunsmith.

Peter M. Weiser: (Pa.) was recruited as a soldier at Ft. Kaskaskia and was active in the fur trade after the expedition.

Joseph Whitehouse:

Moses B. Reed (expelled for desertion in 1804)

Tousauant Charbonneau (Husband of Sacagewea)

Sacagewea ( Sixteen year old Shoshone Indian interpreter and wife of Charbonneau)

Jean Baptiste Charbonneau (Pompey- Was only 55 days old when he departed Ft. Mandan)

York- Lewis' personal slave

Seaman: Clarks Newfoundland Retriever

Trade Goods for Indians: