North Dakota still teaches about the Corps of Discovery in 4th grade as part of its North Dakota Studies program. When my wife taught in New Town there was a yearly trip to the Lewis & Clark interpretive center. There are also 2 state highways in western North Dakota named after the trip, 1804 and 1806.
This was a stupendous piece of historical writing, Dr. Martin! The Lewis and Clark Expedition was crucial to America growing from a small coastal nation to becoming a continental power! By navigating the Missouri to its headwaters, crossing the Rockies and reaching the Pacific via the Columbia River. They drew an invisible but unmistakable line from St. Louis to the Pacific. It was claim to the entire interior and to its exit. It was also a message to the British, French and Spanish: this is our land and it’s belongs to a new kind of a nation-a republic, where the people make the rules not Kings or Queens! The entire Mississippi-Missouri-Ohio River basin was now unified and knitted together with the rest of the continent. This meant no foreign blockades and no severing the country in two without first going many miles inland. What America achieved through the Louisiana Purchase and the legendary Lewis and Clark Expedition secured, a unified core, buffered on all sides, anchored at a single port, and was connected by rivers that needed no maintenance and ignored the seas.
The Lewis and Clark Expedition succeeded in chatting the terrain and rivers, identifying animal and plant species, established peaceful relations and trade with the Native peoples, collected geographic and ethnographic data, and staked a claim for the United States all the way to the Pacific Ocean. The expedition lost only one man Charles Floyd, who died of natural causes. Everyone else survived and came home to America for a heroes’ welcome. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were larger than life heroes without whom America could never have become a world superpower. Thomas Jefferson’s daring and ambitious Louisiana Purchase from Napoleonic France for the bargain price of fifteen million dollars was also crucial to America emerging as a world power. Without the Louisiana Purchase, America would have remained a little fifth rate power. Britain, France, Spain, Russia, and others would’ve come in and carved up the rest of North America. America would’ve been vulnerable to invasion or conquest. Perhaps we would be a British or French colony today if not for Jefferson, Lewis and Clark!
Some recommended reading on this topic for everyone:
* A Wilderness So Immense: The Louisiana Purchase and the Destiny of America by Jon Kukla
* Jefferson's Great Gamble: The Remarkable Story of Jefferson, Napoleon and the Men behind the Louisiana Purchase by Charles A. Cerami
* Jefferson: Architect of American Liberty by John B. Boles
* The Journals Of Lewis And Clark: A Historical Account of the Voyage of Discovery from the Louisiana Purchase to the Pacific by Meriwther Lewis & William Clark
* Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West by Stephen E. Ambrose
* Sacajawea by Joseph Bhuchac
* The Character of Meriwether Lewis: Explorer in the Wilderness by Clay S. Jenkinson
* Wilderness Journey: The Life of William Clark by William E. Foley
* William Clark and the Shaping of the West by Landon Y. Jones
* Lewis and Clark Through Indian Eyes: Nine Indian Writers on the Legacy of the Expedition by Alvin M. Josephy Jr.
* In Search of York: The Slave Who Went to the Pacific with Lewis and Clark, Revised Edition by Robert B. Betts
* The Accidental City: Improvising New Orleans by Lawrence N. Powell
North Dakota still teaches about the Corps of Discovery in 4th grade as part of its North Dakota Studies program. When my wife taught in New Town there was a yearly trip to the Lewis & Clark interpretive center. There are also 2 state highways in western North Dakota named after the trip, 1804 and 1806.
This was a stupendous piece of historical writing, Dr. Martin! The Lewis and Clark Expedition was crucial to America growing from a small coastal nation to becoming a continental power! By navigating the Missouri to its headwaters, crossing the Rockies and reaching the Pacific via the Columbia River. They drew an invisible but unmistakable line from St. Louis to the Pacific. It was claim to the entire interior and to its exit. It was also a message to the British, French and Spanish: this is our land and it’s belongs to a new kind of a nation-a republic, where the people make the rules not Kings or Queens! The entire Mississippi-Missouri-Ohio River basin was now unified and knitted together with the rest of the continent. This meant no foreign blockades and no severing the country in two without first going many miles inland. What America achieved through the Louisiana Purchase and the legendary Lewis and Clark Expedition secured, a unified core, buffered on all sides, anchored at a single port, and was connected by rivers that needed no maintenance and ignored the seas.
The Lewis and Clark Expedition succeeded in chatting the terrain and rivers, identifying animal and plant species, established peaceful relations and trade with the Native peoples, collected geographic and ethnographic data, and staked a claim for the United States all the way to the Pacific Ocean. The expedition lost only one man Charles Floyd, who died of natural causes. Everyone else survived and came home to America for a heroes’ welcome. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were larger than life heroes without whom America could never have become a world superpower. Thomas Jefferson’s daring and ambitious Louisiana Purchase from Napoleonic France for the bargain price of fifteen million dollars was also crucial to America emerging as a world power. Without the Louisiana Purchase, America would have remained a little fifth rate power. Britain, France, Spain, Russia, and others would’ve come in and carved up the rest of North America. America would’ve been vulnerable to invasion or conquest. Perhaps we would be a British or French colony today if not for Jefferson, Lewis and Clark!
Thank you!
Some recommended reading on this topic for everyone:
* A Wilderness So Immense: The Louisiana Purchase and the Destiny of America by Jon Kukla
* Jefferson's Great Gamble: The Remarkable Story of Jefferson, Napoleon and the Men behind the Louisiana Purchase by Charles A. Cerami
* Jefferson: Architect of American Liberty by John B. Boles
* The Journals Of Lewis And Clark: A Historical Account of the Voyage of Discovery from the Louisiana Purchase to the Pacific by Meriwther Lewis & William Clark
* Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West by Stephen E. Ambrose
* Sacajawea by Joseph Bhuchac
* The Character of Meriwether Lewis: Explorer in the Wilderness by Clay S. Jenkinson
* Wilderness Journey: The Life of William Clark by William E. Foley
* William Clark and the Shaping of the West by Landon Y. Jones
* Lewis and Clark Through Indian Eyes: Nine Indian Writers on the Legacy of the Expedition by Alvin M. Josephy Jr.
* In Search of York: The Slave Who Went to the Pacific with Lewis and Clark, Revised Edition by Robert B. Betts
* The Accidental City: Improvising New Orleans by Lawrence N. Powell
* Louisiana: A History by Bennett H. Wall
Only a tormented man like Napoleon could sell at a demolition price knowing the collateral damage. Great deal for the buyer.
Wow. WHY is this not taught in depth in schools? Thank you so much for this history lesson!