LEWIS
& CLARK EXPEDITION
Personalities
on the Trail
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Captain Meriwether Lewis was born in Albemarle
County, Virginia, on August 18 1774, the second child and
first son of William and Lucy Meriwether Lewis. His father, who had
served as a lieutenant in the Continental Army, died when Meriwether was
five years old, after his horse fell into an icy stream.
Mrs. Lewis remarried six months later to Army officer, Captain John
Marks. The two raised Meriwether and his two siblings while
managing a 1,000 acre plantation about 10 miles from Monticello, Thomas
Jefferson's home. The young Lewis was said to have an eye for
plants, which was encouraged by his mother Lucy, a noted herb doctor.
Lewis joined the Army in 1794 and quickly rose
to the rank of Captain after just six years. In early 1801, he was
appointed by President Jefferson to be his personal secretary.
Lewis possessed many intellectual and physical qualities, which were
refined during additional training prior to the expedition.
Physically, he was a superb specimen, over six feet tall with a lean
frame. He was fiercely loyal, disciplined, and flexible, yet he
was prone to being moody, speculative and melancholic. His keen
sense of observation and knack for writing everything down proved him
invaluable for the expedition.
After completing the expedition in September
1806, Lewis drafted the first few letters which served as a preliminary
report to President Jefferson. Lewis was rewarded for his success
with double pay while on service with the Corps (amounting to $1,228), a
warrant for 1,600 acres of land, and a naming as Governor of the
Territory of Upper Louisiana, which was put into effect in early March
1807. Shortly thereafter, Lewis traveled to Philadelphia to seek out
editors and publishers for his and Clark's journals. At the same
time, other efforts to publish the accounts of Sergeant Gass and Private
Frazer discouraged Lewis, and he never followed through with providing
the publishers with the manuscript. The following summer, a couple
of attempts at marrying were unsuccessful, and his alcohol consumption
became more prevalent. His relationship with Jefferson became
problematic, due to his drinking and his delay in returning to St. Louis
to take up his duties as governor. It was March 1808 before Lewis
made it to St. Louis one full year after his appointment.
In September 1809, after much difficulty in
trying to mediate between the Natives and commercial interests, Lewis
fled St. Louis for Washington to plead his case before the new
administration. He caught a riverboat to Memphis, during which his
feelings of melancholy were enhanced by his continued drinking and he
twice attempted to take his own life. Later while staying in a
roadhouse along the Natchez Trace, Lewis took his own life by shooting
himself.
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Captain William
Clark, the red-haired co-captain of the Corps of Discovery, was born
August 1, 1770, the sixth son and ninth child from a family of 10
children. All of Clark's brothers were Revolutionary War veterans,
including the famed George Rogers Clark, who commanded Virginia's troops
in the Kentucky region during Jefferson's term as Virginia
governor. After the war was over, the Clark family migrated across
the Allegheny Mountains and down the Ohio River to Mulberry Hill, near
Louisville. Clark learned about wilderness skills and natural
history from his older brother, George.
Clark began his military career at age 19 when
he joined the Kentucky Militia. He later joined the regular army
and was promoted to lieutenant. During this strenuous time, Clark
"learned how to build forts, draw maps, lead pack trains through
enemy country, and fight the Indians on their ground." He was
also a proficient at eliciting information from native tribes during the
expedition, which he recorded in his journal-writing and sketches.
With less formal educational training than Lewis, Clark filled his
journals with frequent grammatical and spelling errors, and long and
confusing language.
In mid-January 1807, Clark visited Washington
to receive his rewards for having successfully completed the
expedition: double pay while on service with the Corps (amounting
to $1,228); a warrant for 1,600 acres of land; and a double appointment
as Brigadier General of Militia and Superintendent of Indian Affairs for
the Territory of Upper Louisiana, which was put into effect in early
March 1807.
On January 5, 1808 Clark married Julia Hancock
in Fincastle, Virginia. Julia would later bear Clark a son, whom
they would name Meriwether Lewis Clark in honor of his father's closest
partner. That summer, Clark became a business partner in the
newly-formed Missouri Fur Company. Upon hearing of Lewis'
death on October 11, 1809, Clark traveled to Washington to visit the grieving
Jefferson and Lewis family members. He would later go to
Philadelphia to arrange for the rewriting of their journals, which were
finally published in 1814 with Clark's map as a supplement.
Clark's final years were the opposite of
Lewis'. In 1813, Clark was named Governor of the Missouri
Territory until the state of Missouri was created in 1820.
Although he was defeated in the first election for state governor, Clark
continued to enjoy his Brigadier General rank, and serve as the
Superintendent of Indian Affairs. Throughout the remainder of his
life, he garnered the respect of Native Americans, traders and trappers
alike. They brought new information to him regularly, which he was
able to use to update his master map of the American West, a map that
reflected the fast-changing face of a nation that now stretched from
coast to coast. Clark died of natural causes in St. Louis,
September 1, 1838.
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Sacajawea
(1787?-1812 or 1884) was probably
born in Idaho. She was captured by members of an enemy tribe and
was sold as a slave to the Missouri River Mandans when she was around
eleven years old. The Mandans in turn sold her to a Canadian
trapper named Toussaint Charbonneau. She became one of his wives
and gave birth to a son in February 1805. Explorers William Clark
and Meriwether Lewis, who had spent the winter of 1804 and 1805 with the
Mandans, hired Charbonneau as an interpreter and guide for the rest of
their trip west. Sacajawea and her young son were allowed to go
with the expedition when it set out in April 1805. Leaving North
Dakota and traveling through present day Montana, Idaho, Washington, and
Oregon, Sacajawea proved to be invaluable. When the expedition encountered
a tribe of Shoshone led by her brother, Sacajawea obtained food, horses,
and guides, which allowed the explorers to continue. Sacajawea,
carrying her young son on her back, was legendary for her perseverance
and resourcefulness. She and Charbonneau remained in North Dakota
when the expedition returned to Missouri in 1806.
There are many questions surrounding
Sacajawea's death. One of the two Native American wives of
Charbonneau died in 1812 during childbirth and was thought to be
Sacajawea; however, an old Native American woman who died on a Shoshone
Indian Reservation in 1884 also claimed to be Sacajawea and displayed
considerable knowledge of the Lewis and Clark expedition.
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Toussaint
Charbonneau, born near Montreal around 1759, was a French Canadian
fur trader who had lived among the Hidatsa and Mandan Indians since
1796. In October, 1804, when the Lewis and Clark Expedition
arrived at the upper Missouri villages, Charbonneau worked as and
independent "free" trader living among the Hidatsa near
present day Bismarck, North Dakota.
The 45-year-old Charbonneau applied to be a Hidatsa
interpreter. Having been told that Sacajawea's Shoshone tribe
lived at the headwaters of the Missouri and were well-equipped with
horses Lewis and Clark foresaw that Charbonneau and Sacajawea's
interpreting skill would be instrumental when the expedition reached the
mountains.
Charbonneau knew how critical Sacajawea would
be to Lewis and Clark when dealing with the Shoshone, so he attempted to
dictate the terms of his employment. When the captains told him he
would have to perform the duties of enlisted men and stand regular
guard, Charbonneau flat out refused their offer. They told
Charbonneau to move out of the fort. Four days later, for whatever
reason, Charbonneau offered his apologies and the captains signed him
on.
On August 14, 1806, the Corps arrived back at
the Mandan villages. Charbonneau was given a voucher in the sum of
$500.33, his payment for his interpreter duties and "public
services," plus the price of a horse and a lodge. Charbonneau
resided among the Hidatsa and Mandans from 1806 until late fall of
1809. Then, he, Sacajawea and Pomp (Baptiste) boarded a Missouri
Fur Company barge and traveled to St. Louis, where he cashed in his
voucher, and he, together with all of the enlisted men, were granted
land warrants for a total of 320 acres each.
Toussaint was not suited to tilling the soil,
and moreover, both he and Sacajawea longed to return to their former
lives on the upper Missouri. Selling his land to Clark for
$100.00 Charbonneau ended his visit the spring of 1811 and took
employment with the Missouri Fur Company. He and Sacajawea
departed up the river, leaving their son Baptiste in the care of Clark,
who would see to the boy's education.
Toussaint Charbonneau visited St. Louis to
collect back pay that was owed to him in 1839. The next year at
age 80, he vanished from recorded history, probably enroute to his upper
Missouri home. His estate was settled in 1843 by his son Jean
Baptiste Charbonneau.
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York, Captain
William Clark's life-long black "manservant, " accompanied the
Lewis and Clark expedition to the Pacific Ocean and back to the East.
York's alleged first name, "Ben,"
cannot be found in the Lewis and Clark journals, nor any other primary
source contemporary with his life. its first known appearance was
in the magazine National Geographic, November 1965. It is
explained that National Geographic based the name on information given
by a Mr. Jack E. Hodge of Fort Worth, Texas. No records were found
to support Mr. Hodge's opinion. Alternatively, he was alleged to
have "made it on his authority."
York is virtually unknown to almost all blacks
and whites alike. Yet as the journals of the expedition testify,
this first black man to cross the continent north of Mexico played a
meaningful role in our young nation's first exploration of the American
West. He faithfully performed his share of the duties required of
every member in order for the expedition to reach the Pacific and
return. His unique features and great strength were viewed with
astonishment and awe by Native Americans encountered across the
continent. His presence was considered a remarkable phenomenon
that enhanced the prestige of the white strangers, who never had been
seen previously by the isolated Indian populations.
Arriving back in St. Louis in 1806, despite his
ebony complexion, he was looked upon with admiration and was considered
a hero along with the rest of the expedition. But when York
returned to daily life, he again became a slave. He asked Clark
for his freedom, or to be hired out near Louisville to be closer to his
wife, who had a different owner. At first Clark refused, but in
1809, he sent York to Kentucky. Eventually, at least 10 years
after the expedition, Clark granted York his freedom. York went
into the freighting business in Kentucky and Tennessee, and died of
cholera sometime before 1832.
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George Shannon was
born in Pennsylvania in 1787, of Irish-Protestant ancestry. One of
the "Nine young men from Kentucky," Captain William Clark
enlisted Shannon at Louisville on October 19, 1803, he was a relative of
Governor Shannon of Kentucky, and at age 18, was considered mature for
his years. George Shannon was the youngest member of the
expedition.
Enroute, Shannon, the "tenderfoot" of
the expedition, showed a talent for getting lost. On August
26, 1804, the party was nearing modern Yankton, South Dakota.
Shannon was detailed to search for the expedition's two accompanying
pack horses, which had strayed during the night. Shannon
recaptured the horses, but upon returning to the river, he proceeded
upstream, expecting to join his comrades at one of their night camps.
Shannon, who actually had been ahead of the
boats for more than two weeks, finally rejoined the party on September
11. Clark wrote that that Shannon "nearly Starved to Death,
he had been 12 [of the 16] days without any thing to eate but Grapes
& one Rabbit, which he Killed by shooting a piece of hard Stick in
place of a ball...the man had like to have Starved to death in a land of
plenty for the want of Bullitts or something to kill his meat."
After completing the expedition Shannon signed
on to return Chief She-he-ke to his tribe. On this trip Shannon
lost a leg in a fight with Indians. In later years he became a circuit
court judge and died at Palmyra, Missouri, while holding court.
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John
Colter was born about 1774, near Staunton, Augusta County,
Virginia. When he was about five years old his parents moved to
Maysville, Kentucky. He was 5 feet 10 inches tall, rather shy, had
blue eyes, was quick minded, courageous and a fine hunter. He was
recruited by Captain Lewis, one of the "Nine young men from
Kentucky."
In February 1804, while Lewis was in St. Louis
attending ceremonies transferring Upper Louisiana to the United States,
Colter, along with three other Corps members stationed at Camp Dubios,
defied Sergeant Ordway's orders not to visit a local grog shop.
Upon returning, Lewis punished their insubordination by confining them
to the camp area for 10 days.
In mid-August 1806, Colter was granted an early
discharge from the Corps to become a fur trader in partnership with two Illinois
trappers, Forest Hancock and Joseph Dickson. The two men had
followed the explorers as they drifted the Missouri downstream to the
Mandan camp.
In 1807, Colter joined Manuel Lisa's newly
formed Missouri Fur Company on an expedition to the Rocky
Mountains. The party was successful getting up the Missouri and
establishing Fort Raymond. That winter, Lisa sent Colter out to
all the winter Indian camps to alert them of his presence and desire to
trade. Alone, with only his rifle and a 30lb pack, Colter traveled
an estimated 500 miles that winter with the help of Indian guides.
His route has been disputed, but general consensus is that he was the
first white man to see Jackson's Hole and Yellowstone Lake. He
also saw part of the thermal wonders of Yellowstone and through the
tales he told it would come to be called "Colter's Hell."
The next year, while trapping beaver he and a
partner were attacked by Blackfeet Indians. The attackers swarmed
on Colter, stripping him naked and taking all his possessions.
They killed his partner and Colter awaited his own execution. To
his puzzlement, they set him free and told him to run. He took off
and soon realized this was a game of "human hunt". After
running a couple of miles, Colter turned around and killed the only Indian
around him with the Indian's own spear. He stole his blanket and
continued running until he came to a river. By hiding in the river
under a pile of logs until night fall, Colter was able to evade his
pursuers. He walked the 200 miles back to Fort Raymond with only a
blanket for warmth and bark and roots to eat. After eleven days,
he stumbled into the stockade, more dead than alive.
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