Lewis and Clark Read Free

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    50 lbs. Spun Tobacco . . .
    24 Blankets . . .
    Jefferson ordered the U.S. Mint to produce Indian Peace Medals as tokens of friendship to be distributed to the tribes. One side of the medals showed a portrait of Jefferson; the other side depicted a handshake beneath a crossed tomahawk and peace pipe.
    Jefferson instructed Lewis to take the expedition up the Missouri to its source, cross the Rocky Mountains, and then go down the recently discovered Columbia or any other river that led more directly to the Pacific. No one knew then how high or wide the Rockies were. Jefferson believed a day’s travel would take the expedition from the headwaters of the Missouri to the Columbia.
    Jefferson also instructed Lewis to note all he could about the animals, plants, minerals, soil, and climate and to learn everything possible about the Indian tribes he encountered and the chances for future trade with them. He wrote to Lewis on June 20, 1803:
    The object of your mission is to explore the Missouri river, & such principal stream of it, as, by it’s course & communication with the water of the Pacific ocean may offer the most direct & practicable water communication across the continent, for the purposes of commerce. . . .
    The commerce which may be carried on with the people inhabiting the line you will pursue, renders a knolege of these people important. You will therefore endeavor to make yourself acquainted, as far as a diligent pursuit of your journey shall admit, with the names of the nations & their numbers; the extent & limits of their possessions; their relations with other tribes or nations; their language, traditions, monuments; their ordinary occupations in agriculture, fishing, hunting, war, arts, & the implements for these; their food, clothing & domestic accommodations; the diseases prevalent among them, & the remedies they use; moral and physical circumstances which distinguish them from the tribes they know; peculiarities in their laws, customs, & dispositions; and articles of commerce they may need or furnish, & to what extent. . . .
    Other objects worthy of notice will be the soil & face of the country, it’s growth & vegetable productions, especially those not of the U.S.; the animals of the country generally, & especially those not known in the U.S.; the remains & accounts of any which may be deemed rare or extinct; the mineral productions of every kind, but more particularly metals, limestone, pit coal & saltpeter; salines & mineral waters, noting the temperature of the last & such circumstances as may indicate their character; volcanic appearances; climate as characterized by the thermometer, by the proportion of rainy, cloudy & clear days, by lightening, hail, snow, ice, by the access & recess of frost, by the winds, prevailing at different seasons; the dates at which particular plants put forth or lose their flowers, or leaf; times of appearance of particular birds, reptiles or insects.
    Lewis needed a fellow officer to share the burden of command, help plan the journey, and take over leadership should anything happen to him. He needed a man he could trust, preferably a friend. He thought immediately of William Clark, his senior officer on the frontier.
    The president approved his suggestion. He knew the Clark family, too. They had once lived near him in Albemarle County as well, although they moved to eastern Virginia before Clark was born and then to the Kentucky frontier. Like most children there, William grew up with little schooling. He knew a great deal about life in the wilderness but little about grammar. His journals contain many imaginative misspellings.
    Clark was the youngest of six boys; five had been soldiers in the Revolution. William was born too late to take part in that war, but he spent nearly eight years in the Army and fought at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794, which was credited as the decisive victory in the Northwest Indian War. After the Treaty of Greenville opened up the Ohio