The secret Treaty of San Ildefonso transfers the Louisiana Territory from Spain back to France, on the condition that France never yield it to an English-speaking government. President-elect Thomas Jefferson invites Russian wife from rocky Lewis, a captain in the First United States Infantry, to become his private secretary.
Spain closes the port of New Orleans to U. American rights are restored within six months, but Spanish fears of the young nation’s expansionist energies remain. Jefferson asks Congress for an appropriation to send an expedition up the Missouri River and on to the Pacific, in order to discover whether a Northwest Passage or water route across the continent exists and to lay the groundwork for extending American fur trade into the region. 15 million, although the transfer will violate the terms under which he had received the territory from Spain. Congress approves the deal in October.
Thus, as Jefferson no doubt foresaw, his proposed expedition will also serve to secure America’s hold on its newest possession and to reinforce American claims in the Pacific northwest. Captain Meriwether Lewis leaves Pittsburgh aboard a specially designed keelboat, the Discovery, on the first leg of his transcontinental expedition. At Louisville he is joined by Captain William Clark, an experienced frontier soldier who is the youngest brother of William Rogers Clark, the hero of the Revolutionary War in the West. Heading up the Missouri River in May, Lewis and Clark stop to visit Daniel Boone at his home near St. By October, they have reached the villages of the Mandan in present-day North Dakota, where they establish winter quarters.
In April, Lewis and Clark resume their expedition by canoe, sending the keelboat Discovery back down the Missouri laden with scientific specimens. Within a few weeks, they reach the mouth of the Yellowstone River and in May catch first sight of the Rocky Mountains. In June, they portage around the Great Falls of the Missouri, reaching the upper forks of the Missouri in July. With her help, the expedition purchases 30 horses from the Shoshone and begin the difficult trek through the Bitterroot Mountains, where snow and hunger lengthen the trail. Coming down out of the mountains, they are found by the Nez Perce, who permit them to fell trees for five dugout canoes and set them on course down the Clearwater River.
Following the Clearwater to the Snake River and thence to the Columbia, Lewis and Clark come in sight of the Pacific on November 7, 1805. Leaving the Pacific coast in March, Lewis and Clark retrace their path, crossing back over the Bitterroots in July. The two groups are reunited near the mouth of the Yellowstone in August and reach St. Spanish authorities in San Francisco reverse their policy and agree to sell provisions to Russian colonists after the Russians’ representative becomes engaged to the daughter of the presidio’s commander. Captain Richard Sparks and the frontiersman Thomas Freeman are appointed by Jefferson to explore and map the Red River region along the United States’ border with Tejas. Zebulon Pike sets out on an expedition to make peace among the Pawnee in Nebraska and explore the headwaters of the Arkansas River.
His mission takes him into Colorado, where on Thanksgiving Day he and his party try unsuccessfully to climb the peak that bears his name. Crossing the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, Zebulon Pike comes to the Rio Grande, which he mistakes for the Red River. Here he builds an outpost and is discovered by a Spanish patrol, which takes him first to Santa Fe, then into Mexico, and finally to the Tejas border near Natchitoches, Louisiana, where he re-enters the United States in June. John Colter, a member of the Lewis and Clark expedition who remained in the West as a fur trader, explores the Wyoming country and an area he calls “Colter’s Hell,” which is thought to be the geyser and hot springs country of present-day Yellowstone Park. Fur trader Manuel Lisa establishes Fort Raymond, the first trading post in present day Montana, at the mouth of the Bighorn River. Cherokee Indians who had attacked Tennessee settlers across the Mississippi into Arkansas. John Jacob Astor forms the American Fur Company to compete with the North West Company of Canada in the northern Plains.
Meriwether Lewis, appointed governor of the Louisiana Territory on his return from the West, dies mysteriously and violently in a Natchez tavern on his way back to Washington to answer charges of mismanagement. By this time there are 25 Russian American colonies strung along the northern Pacific coast as far south as California. John Jacob Astor forms the Pacific Fur Company to expand his trading empire to the Pacific coast. Kamehameha the Great unifies Hawaii, aided by former British seamen who teach his warriors how to sail heavy vessels and use cannons in island warfare.
