Exploration

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Exploration

Mapping the Continent . Well before Meriwether Lewis and William Clark’s monumental journey from

Saint Louis to the mouth of the Columbia River, explorers were mapping what would soon become the western coast of the United States. British Capt. George Vancouver explored and mapped the Pacific coast in 1790–1792, and published an atlas with the first accurate maps of that region in 1798. The federal government started mapping with the creation of the U.S. Coast Survey (today known as the Coast and Geodetic Survey) in 1807. In addition to such government-sponsored expeditions, private trade missions were often the driving force behind geographic exploration. Robert Gray of Boston, on a fur-trading mission to China, commanded the first ship to travel around the world under the American flag (1787–1789). On his next voyage (1790–1793) he was the first to explore the Columbia River, which he named after his ship. American statesmen would later use Gray’s short voyage up the Columbia as the basis for the United States claim to Oregon, which was not included in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803.

The Great Von Humboldt . The most famous explorer of the age was the German Alexander von Humboldt, whom Ralph Waldo Emerson called “one of those wonders of the world … who appear from time to time as if to show us the possibilities of the human mind, the force and range of his faculties—a universal man.” His extraordinary five-year journey throughout South America and Mexico (1799–1804) resulted in the classification of thirty-five hundred new botanical species; a better understanding of Native American cultures; the first link between volcanoes and the dynamic structure of the earth; the discovery of declining magnetic intensity from the poles to the equator; and more important, detailed maps of the Pacific coast. Humboldt was drawn to the political principles of the United States, which he described as “the only corner of the earth where man possesses liberty and where the small evils are compensated by the great goods,” although he added that slavery was detestable. He also greatly admired Thomas Jefferson and visited him at Monticello in 1804. Jefferson was always pleased to meet fellow scientists, and doubly so in this case because of Humboldt’s intimate knowledge and maps of the northern portion of Mexico, which bordered the newly acquired Louisiana Territory. At the time of Humboldt’s visit, in fact, Lewis and Clark were on the outbound portion of their own long and extraordinary journey through the million-square-mile expanse of uncharted land.

Lewis and Clark Expedition . The greatest American scientific expedition of the time was Meriwether Lewis and William Clark’s journey through the wilderness of northwestern America between 1804 and 1806. Like Humboldt’s expedition, Lewis and Clark’s goal was scientific discovery, but political purposes were equally important. President Thomas Jefferson planned the expedition, which resulted in an enormous increase in knowledge of American flora, fauna, geography, and native culture. It also opened up the vast Louisiana Territory, stretching from New Orleans to the headwaters of the Missouri River, to further exploration, trade, and eventual civilization. Jefferson and the American Philosophical Society had wanted to do such an expedition for years, but since the United States did not own this territory, they had been prevented. Still, the Lewis and Clark expedition had been planned before Jefferson knew he might be able to purchase this vast area. When the federal government acquired the region from France, it doubled the size of the United States, and Jefferson was prepared to find out what was there, and not just in scientific and geographical terms. The president also wanted to know the extent of the Missouri River watershed, which the United States could legally claim as part of Louisiana. If it extended far to the North, he could push the British out of the profitable western fur trade.

Journey to the Pacific . Lewis and Clark’s epic journey took twenty-eight months. The company consisted of thirty-four permanent members plus fifteen soldiers and experienced rivermen for the first leg up the Missouri. The main boat, fifty-five feet long, with a sail and twenty-two oars, and two smaller open boats were crammed with supplies: firearms, gunpowder, medicine, and whiskey, plus a large supply of coats, plumed hats, glass, beads, and knives to trade with the Indians. Two horses, led along the riverbank, would be used for extended hunting trips. Leaving Saint Louis on 14 May 1804, the party traveled up the Missouri as far as the season would permit, spending the winter near the friendly Mandan Indians in what is now North Dakota. In the spring they pushed on to the headwaters of the Missouri, where they were forced to abandon their canoes and trade for horses to carry them over the Rocky Mountains in search of the “River of the West.” A young Shoshone woman named Sacajawea played a vital role as interpreter for Lewis and Clark. Many legends have sprung up around her, investing her with magical powers. She was an indispensable member of the expedition and made this incredible journey carrying her infant child on her back. With help from Sacajawea and Nez Percé Indians the white explorers made it to the Snake River, then to the Columbia River, which carried them to the Pacific Ocean. After spending the rainy winter of 1805–1806 in a collection of huts they called Fort Clatsop near the mouth of the Columbia River, they retraced their steps but with notable variations, including splitting the party into two groups for several weeks, which could have left them vulnerable to hostile Indians. But they survived the return journey to arrive in Saint Louis on 23 September 1806. Along the way they had peacefully negotiated with dozens of Indian nations—many at war with each other—and recorded valuable scientific, geographical, and cultural information, including the sad state of many of the Indian villages that had been decimated by smallpox. They had traveled almost eight thousand miles amid Indians both friendly and hostile, raging rivers, bears, bitter cold, and near starvation—all with the loss of only one man.

No Northwest Passage . Lewis and Clark did not achieve one of their main goals: they did not find an all-water route from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean. Between the point at which the Missouri River became too shallow for navigation and the start of the westward flowing river system were hundreds of miles of wild country, and instead of the “Stony” mountains shown on early maps were the almost impenetrable Rockies. Jefferson’s hope of a Northwest Passage had been shattered, yet the West had been opened and the stage set for the expansion of the United States to the Pacific.

Exploring the East . The West was not the only scene of adventurous expeditions, for there was still much to be explored in the East. In 1791 William Bartram published his Travels Through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, The Cherokee Country, The Extensive Territories of the Muscogulges, or Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Chactaws, an account of his journey through the forests of the Southeast from 1773 to 1777. In addition to rich descriptions of the beauty of nature in the United States, and detailed drawings of a wide variety of plants and animals, Bartram also portrayed with unusual empathy the Native Americans that he encountered along the way. Son of the British natural scientist John Bartram, William was the first American-born botanist of international stature. His writing inspired,

among others, William Wordsworth, James Fenimore Cooper, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Tho-reau.