THE LEWIS AND CLARK EXPLORING EXPEDITION CHAPTER I THE PURPOSES AND ORGANIZATION OF THE MISSION FEW chapters in the annals of American discovery in the once dark places of the New World Continent are more interesting to the modern-day reader, or more full of venturesome daring and hardy adventure, than the story told in the narrative of the Lewis and Clark Exploring Expedition in the years 1804-06. That notable expedition, fruitful in high and useful achievement, for the first time. threw light upon the wilderness region that at that early era stretched from the mouth of the Missouri River to where the waters of the Columbia River enter the Pacific Ocean. The vast region now to be opened to civilization, and then known as the Louisiana Territory, came into the possession of the United States, at the farsighted instigation of President Jefferson, by a rare stroke of American diplomacy. It consisted of nearly a million square miles, and embraced what is now the States of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, with parts of Colorado, Minnesota, and Idaho, and all of what is now the Territory of Oklahoma. At the period, it was the abode, almost exclusively, of warring Indian tribes, most of whom lived in a state of nature, and were, moreover, hostile to all intruders on their wild domain. The civilized peoples sparsely inhabiting its trackless spaces did not exceed 50,000, chiefly French coureurs de bois, or of French descent, with a sprinkling of Spanish, Germans, English, and Americans, and about 40,000 negro slaves. Almost solely on the Atlantic slope, at the era of the Revolutionary War and up to the close of the eighteenth century, the people of the New World Republic were confined, the region west of the Alleghanies being an almost unbroken wilderness, known only to the hardy Western frontiersman and to the roving employees of the two great Fur Companies. Up to the opening year of the new (nineteenth) century, the Louisiana Territory had been the possession of Spain, the United States enjoying only as a privilege, by a lapsed treaty with that declining peninsular Power, the free navigation of the Mississippi, with a provisional right of deposit for their commerce at its seaport on the island of New Orleans. But a change of ownership came in 1800, when Spain ceded to France all of Louisiana by the secret treaty of St. Ildefonso. This acquisition by France was naturally a matter of alarm to the then Administration of the American Republic, the one man who was most alive to the gravity of the change of ownership being President Jeffer son, who, when the transfer to France became known, instructed the nation's ambassador at Paris to treat with France for the purchase of New Orleans and the Floridas and the control of the Mississippi. Luckily, Bonaparte at the time was not only fearful lest he should not be able to utilize the Louisiana Territory for colonization purposes or be secure in holding it in the prospect of renewed war with Great Britain, but was also in urgent need of money. The consequence was the sale by France. to the United States, in 1803, of the entire Louisiana Territory for the consideration of 80,000,000 francs, or $15,000,000. The negotiation came as a surprise to our American people, and even to the Jefferson Administration, which had only thought to obtain, and had only directed the purchase of, West Florida and the port of Mobile, with enough of lower Louisiana to give American commerce on the upper waters of the Mississippi the right of way to the sea. The transaction, which added the area of an empire to the possessions of the United States, was subsequently confirmed by the Washington Government and ratified by the United States Senate (July 31, 1803), and the occupation of the region was presently entered upon. The purchase by this country of the enormous added area to the possessions of the nation, at what was then a heavy expenditure of money, did not at first please all parties, either in or out of the Union. The Federalists at home opposed it, as a negotiation unwarranted by the Constitution, and tending greatly to qualify New England influence in the political affairs of the Republic. Spain also resented its transfer to the United States since her agreement on the cession of the territory to France was that the latter should not subsequently alienate it—a matter that gave Napoleon no trouble-; but also because she hotly protested against the loss of West Florida, and in consequence refused to pay the United States her claim upon Spain of sums due her for the spoliation of American commerce. The matter, for the time, went into the limbo of diplomatic negotiation, as far as Spain was concerned, though afterwards in our relations with the Power that had discovered America the trouble was amicably settled in our favor. Peaceful adjudication of our differences with Spain was materially helped in 1819, when, under Madison's régime, East Florida was ceded to the United States for a payment of $6,500,000 with the renunciation of all claims by Spain north of the forty-second parallel as far west as the Pacific. Before these difficulties had been removed and settled, this country, by treaty with France, entered formally into possession of the Louisiana purchase on Dec. 20, 1803; and President Jefferson at once set himself the task of raising a moiety of money ($2,500) to defray the cost of an expedition into the Territory, and of calling into existence the organized band of scientists and others who were to conduct and give effect to the exploratory movement. In this epic of exploration, which it now becomes our purpose to narrate, it is gratifying to find it throughout highly creditable to all parties concerned in it. From the first, it was ideally harmonious as well as perfect in its organization, thanks not only to the loyalty and good sense of the men who were chosen to conduct it, but especially to President Jefferson, whose statesmanlike project it was, and who took so hearty and intelligent an interest in its achievement and success, besides elaborately planning the scope and purposes of the exploratory mission. The obstacles to be surmounted in carrying out the purposes of the Expedition were known to be great; but great also were the objects sought to be gained by the undertaking, and, to the nation, important were the interests at stake. South of the international boundary line, more than a third of the Continent, as yet shrouded in darkness, was to be looked upon and explored. Beyond the little that was known of the region to the happygo-lucky fur trader and wandering nomad of the woods, practically the entire stretch of country from the upper waters of the Missouri to the Pacific was geographically a blank. Even the salient physical features the barrier of the Rocky Mountains, to wit-were unknown; the whole interior, then a desolate waste, was supposed to be a vast undulating plain, seamed with rivers, and occasionally broken by hill lines of uncertain altitude and extent of stretch, with no accurate knowledge of where they lay, or of the formidable character of the barrier they interposed between the interior plains and the Far Western sea. In this new domain of the nation, many Indian tribes were inferred to exist that had never come into contact with the white man; while |