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1) Mission Statements of Three
Expeditions to the West
The pioneer corps
PRES. THOMAS
JEFFERSON’s Corps of Discovery set out in 1804 soon after the signing of the
Louisana Purchase which handed over the entire mid-West of the continent to the
United States. The expedition’s aim was
to find out what they had purchased from the French… and, to quote
Jefferson, to seek “a passage through
the north-west to the western ocean”.
The President
chose his private secretary, Capt Meriwether Lewis to lead the expedition into
the unknown interior.
Lewis insisted
that his former Commanding Officer, Capt. William Clark, be appointed as an
equal partner and co-leader. It was an unheard of arrangement in military history,
but Lewis feared that his personal bouts of acute mental depression would at
some stage render him unable to lead expedition.
The US
President debated it, but finally gave in to his request without demanding formal motivation.
Lewis, after months of briefings from the President,
wrote to Clark: “My plan is to
descend the Ohio in a keeled boat thence up the Mississippi to the mouth of the Missourie, and up that
river as far as it’s navigation is practicable with a keeled boat, there to
prepare canoes of bark or raw-hides, and proceed to it’s source, and if
practicable pass over to the waters of the Columbia or Origan River and by
descending it reach the Western Ocean.”
Sergeant John Ordway wrote in a farewell letter to his
mother: “We are to ascend the Missouri River with a boat as far as it is
navigable and then to go by land, to the western ocean, if nothing prevents,
&c.. . .I am so happy to be one of them pick’d Men. . . We expect to be
gone 18 months or two years. . .”
Sergeant Gass wrote in his journal that local residents
were warning that the party was to “pass through a country possessed by
numerous, powerful and warlike nations of savages, of gigantic stature, firece,
treacherous and cruel. . .” but
that the determination and resolution of the Corps, and the confidence in the
ranks “dispelled every emotion of fear”.
___________________
The second expedition – from
Europe
PRINCE MAXIMILIAN’’s expedition set out in 1833 to
travel where Lewis and Clark had been a generation before. Its aim: to voyage the Missouri as far as the Rocky Mountains and record
tribal histories, religious beliefs and social customs of the people. To keep extensive journals detailing the
party’s experiences as well as their observations about the territory through
which they passed.
Prince Alexander Phillip Maximilian was a 51-year-old
member of German royalty, and was accompanied by Karl Bodmer (24) a Swiss
artist whose depictions of traditional Indian lifestyles are the most accurate
in existence. Prince Maximilian said of
him: We passed rapidly through the Gates of the Stone Walls ... which would
perhaps have left but an indistinct and gradually fading impression had not the
skilful hand of the draftsman (Bodmer) rescued them from oblivion.
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The bicentennial expedition –
from Africa
THE TRAIL & TYSON
Corps of Re-discovery set out in the year 2000. Its aim: to travel along the entire trail across America - from
where Lewis and Clark’s boats were launched at Wood Camp on the Mississippi, to
where they built their fort on Columbia River near the Pacific shore. A
six-week journey of several thousand miles
Their
mission:
- To keep a journal, and to keep the peace in their
own party while recording changes in the social customs of the people.
- To detail the party’s experiences and offer guidance
and observations about the territory through which they passed.
2) A Picture of the world in 1800
Travel light. Travel with
truth. Travel with fresh eyes. That is the best way to follow the Lewis &
Clarke trail.
If you wish to enter the world
of the Corps of Discovery you must get rid of your quaint 21st century
preconceptions and see what Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and
the volunteers saw through the lenses of their understanding and their
perceptions. You must think in the way
men and women thought two centuries ago.
You must shed the distortions of hindsight and ignore the prejudices of
academics seeking to re-shape history to their design.
The early 1800s were the best
of times. The
world of Lewis & Clark was blessed by the fact that news from Washington
did not hit you in seconds, but took as long as a month to reach a citizen's
doorstep. Those were the good times when, if you were asked to visit your
in-laws for Christmas, you were able to decline on the grounds that you and
your family would need to travel by horse-buggy through the whole of winter to
get to Maine for the Yule-tide weekend, and home again to South Carolina.
It was an exciting time when
six vast areas of the planet - the six ‘A’s - were still uncharted and unknown
to science. The six ‘A’s included the Arctic, Antarctic and some mountain
wildernesses of Asia, of course, but also the interiors of Africa, Australia,
... and America.
However, those were also the
worst of times.
Most families had to rely on their own wits and meagre resources to stay
alive. They resorted to ‘cures’ such as
bleeding; purgative pills; and pulling a tooth or sawing off a limb without
anaesthetic. They were never in reach of a hospital and they hardly ever saw a
shop. White frontier folk, like native
Americans, grew their own food, built their own houses, hunted, laboured, made
their own furniture, suffered and died young. In America it was mainly the rich
and civilised who owned slaves to provide their labour-saving devices.
The world of these people was
uncluttered and immense. Their nearest horizon might be a full day’s journey
away. It would take three days to cover the distance many commuters now travel
daily to and from work.
As you try to enter the world
of Lewis and Clark in your car or SUV, travelling at a mere 60mph while talking
to Texas on your cellphone and listening to rap or Beethoven on your CD -
remember how things were back at the fort.
The Corps of Discovery could listen only to Cruzatte’s battered fiddle,
the scraping of it eased - if they were lucky - only by a rationed gill
of home-made whiskey.
It makes one wonder why anyone
should want to re-visit that old world. Is it because the bicentennial of
President Thomas Jefferson’s mapping of a greater USA (through his pioneering
Corps of Discovery) is triggering a search for deeper roots of a common
American nationhood? Certainly there is
significance and symbolism, and inspiration
enough for everybody, whether they are Afro-Americans or
Spanish-speaking, Mayflower descendents or native Americans, new immigrants or new-age women seeking pioneer
role models from the 18th century.
There is inspiration enough
even for foreigners.
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