The Expeditions Of The Expedition - 2406 Words

The names Lewis and Clark have almost always been associated with excellence and adventure. Their expedition westward in search of a water passageway across the country has become etched into the annals of history as one of the earliest and greatest examples of American nationalism and survives not only as a compelling story, but also as a piece of living, breathing history. However, upon examining the expedition, several prudent questions arise: Could the expedition truly have known what awaited them out west? Was meeting the now legendary figure Sacagawea someone the group intended to find? And maybe most importantly, concerning the preparation efforts taken by the expedition’s generals, most notably Meriwether Lewis, did the group†¦show more content†¦Within this territory held a lot of unknown information, but what was known came from writings and works of England’s Captain James Cook and prior expeditions to explore the territory funded by the American Phi losophical Society. Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States and the biological father, so to speak, of the Lewis and Clark expedition, had been well interested in finding â€Å"the shortest most convenient route of communication between the U.S. the Pacific ocean.† One notable example of this was with a French botanist by the name of Andrà © Michaux, who in the year 1793, embarked on an expedition to search for an all-water route access across the continent. Michaux was selected by the then Vice-President Jefferson because the Frenchman was a â€Å"trained scientist in botany, astronomy, mineralogy, and ethnology.† Jefferson’s goals for this expedition was purely geographically based, but also for the sake of knowledge, signifying how curious many Americans were of the then unknown territory. Unfortunately, the expedition didn’t end the way Jefferson imagined it would, as Jefferson discovered Michaux to be a secret agent of the Fren ch Republic who was then recalled on Jefferson’s behalf. Over the following years, Jefferson let the idea sit in the dust, mainly due to political duties, and the mention of an American-led expedition across the continent wouldn’t be mentioned until the early 1800s. Before the Lewis and Clark expedition