Today the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail can still be followed along the Missouri and Columbia Rivers. Louis, September 1, 1838, and is buried in the Clark Family plot at Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. General William Clark died of natural causes in St. He was reappointed to this post by each succeeding president and served in this capacity for the remainder of his life. In 1822 he was appointed Superintendent of Indian Affairs by President Monroe. In 1813 he was appointed Governor of Missouri Territory, which he held until Missouri Statehood in 1820.
Meanwhile, Clark was made a brigadier general of the territory in March 1807. His grave lies where he died, within today’s Natchez Trace National Parkway near Hohenwald, Tennessee. It is not known whether he was murdered or committed suicide. Traveling through Tennessee, Governor Meriwether Lewis, on October 11, 1809, died mysteriously from gunshot wounds inflicted while at Grinder’s Stand, a public roadhouse. His career started well, but two years later, a controversy involving government finances arose, and Lewis made plans to travel to Washington D.C. Their detailed observations on their 8,000-mile round trip journey of climate, landscape, plant communities, and human and animal populations were valuable to an expanding nation.Īlthough the expedition failed to find the Northwest Passage, it significantly increased knowledge of the nation’s newly acquired territory and opened the doors to westward settlement.Īfter the expedition concluded, Lewis was made governor of the Louisiana Territory in 1807. Lewis and Clark constantly collected samples of plants, animals, and birds throughout the journey while also documenting encounters with the many Indians they met along the way. In August, they met on the Missouri River and arrived back in St. Clark led one group up the Yellowstone River, while Lewis led another group into North Central Montana and the Province of Alberta. The explorers started their journey home on March 23, 1806, and on their return, Lewis and Clark split up. The expedition spent the self-described long, wet winter preparing for the trip home by boiling salt from the ocean and hunting elk and other wildlife. However, winter was upon them, so they soon set up a permanent winter dwelling south of the Columbia River, near present-day Astoria, Oregon, which they called Fort Clatsop. Hood, a mountain known to be very close to the ocean. In November 1805, some 18 months after leaving St. Continuing, they passed Celilo Falls and through what is now Portland, Oregon. The expedition moved more quickly by water, finally reaching Columbia River in mid-October. The expedition continued by land, traveling across much of present-day Northern Idaho until reaching the Clearwater and Snake Rivers, where they again could journey by boat. Lewis and Clark with Sacagawea, guiding them. Although they had believed that the Missouri River would connect to another great river leading to the Pacific, the expedition found that such an easy connection did not exist. As the expedition approached the river’s headwaters deep in the mountains, they were forced to start traveling by land. The expedition continued up the Missouri River and into Montana Territory, but as they neared the Rocky Mountains, the flow of the Missouri River began to lessen. Sacagawea’s son was born at Fort Mandan in February, and when the expedition set out again in April, the young family joined the expedition.Īlong the way, Sacagawea proved even more helpful than they had initially thought, as she also acted as a peacemaker and negotiated for horses and supplies along the way. Lewis and Clark decided to hire Charbonneau and Sacagawea to accompany them, acting as guides and interpreters. Sacagawea’s tribal homeland lay in the Rocky Mountain country far to the west, and she spoke both the Shoshone and Minitari dialects. While there, they met a French-Canadian trader named Touissant Charbonneau and his young pregnant Shoshone wife, Sacagawea. The explorers spent the winter hunting, gaining information about the route ahead, and making tools they would later trade for supplies. By this time, the expedition had traveled approximately 1,500 miles. On the north bank of the Missouri River, they constructed a log fort called Fort Mandan in honor of the local Indians. They spent their first winter near present-day Washburn, North Dakota, among the Mandan Indians.
0 kommentar(er)
