Читать книгу Makers of American History: The Lewis and Clark Exploring Expedition - Graeme Mercer Adam - Страница 3

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Few chapters in the annals of American discovery in the once dark places of the New World Continent are more interesting to the modern-day reader, or more full of venturesome daring and hardy adventure, than the story told in the narrative of the Lewis and Clark Exploring Expedition in the years 1804-06. That notable expedition, fruitful in high and useful achievement, for the first time threw light upon the wilderness region that at that early era stretched from the mouth of the Missouri River to where the waters of the Columbia River enter the Pacific Ocean. The vast region now to be opened to civilization, and then known as the Louisiana Territory, came into the possession of the United States, at the farsighted instigation of President Jefferson, by a rare stroke of American diplomacy. It consisted of nearly a million square miles, and embraced what is now the States of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, with parts of Colorado, Minnesota, and Idaho, and all of what is now the Territory of Oklahoma. At the period, it was the abode, almost exclusively, of warring Indian tribes, most of whom lived in a state of nature, and were, moreover, hostile to all intruders on their wild domain. The civilized peoples sparsely inhabiting its trackless spaces did not exceed 50,000, chiefly French coureurs de bois, or of French descent, with a sprinkling of Spanish, Germans, English, and Americans, and about 40,000 negro slaves. Almost solely on the Atlantic slope, at the era of the Revolutionary War and up to the close of the eighteenth century, the people of the New World Republic were confined, the region west of the Alleghanies being an almost unbroken wilderness, known only to the hardy Western frontiersman and to the roving employees of the two great Fur Companies. Up to the opening year of the new (nineteenth) century, the Louisiana Territory had been the possession of Spain, the United States enjoying only as a privilege, by a lapsed treaty with that declining peninsular Power, the free navigation of the Mississippi, with a provisional right of deposit for their commerce at its seaport on the island of New Orleans. But a change of ownership came in 1800, when Spain ceded to France all of Louisiana by the secret treaty of St. Ildefonso. This acquisition by France was naturally a matter of alarm to the then Administration of the American Republic, the one man who was most alive to the gravity of the change of ownership being President Jefferson, who, when the transfer to France became known, instructed the nation’s ambassador at Paris to treat with France for the purchase of New Orleans and the Floridas and the control of the Mississippi. Luckily, Bonaparte at the time was not only fearful lest he should not be able to utilize the Louisiana Territory for colonization purposes or be secure in holding it in the prospect of renewed war with Great Britain, but was also in urgent need of money. The consequence was the sale by France to the United States, in 1803, of the entire Louisiana Territory for the consideration of 80,000,000 francs, or $15,000,000. The negotiation came as a surprise to our American people, and even to the Jefferson Administration, which had only thought to obtain, and had only directed the purchase of, West Florida and the port of Mobile, with enough of lower Louisiana to give American commerce on the upper waters of the Mississippi the right of way to the sea. The transaction, which added the area of an empire to the possessions of the United States, was subsequently confirmed by the Washington Government and ratified by the United States Senate (July 31, 1803), and the occupation of the region was presently entered upon.

The purchase by this country of the enormous added area to the possessions of the nation, at what was then a heavy expenditure of money, did not at first please all parties, either in or out of the Union. The Federalists at home opposed it, as a negotiation unwarranted by the Constitution, and tending greatly to qualify New England influence in the political affairs of the Republic. Spain also resented its transfer to the United States since her agreement on the cession of the territory to France was that the latter should not subsequently alienate it—a matter that gave Napoleon no trouble—; but also because she hotly protested against the loss of West Florida, and in consequence refused to pay the United States her claim upon Spain of sums due her for the spoliation of American commerce. The matter, for the time, went into the limbo of diplomatic negotiation, as far as Spain was concerned, though afterwards in our relations with the Power that had discovered America the trouble was amicably settled in our favor. Peaceful adjudication of our differences with Spain was materially helped in 1819, when, under Madison’s régime, East Florida was ceded to the United States for a payment of $6,500,000 with the renunciation of all claims by Spain north of the forty-second parallel as far west as the Pacific.

Before these difficulties had been removed and settled, this country, by treaty with France, entered formally into possession of the Louisiana purchase on Dec. 20, 1803; and President Jefferson at once set himself the task of raising a moiety of money ($2,500) to defray the cost of an expedition into the Territory, and of calling into existence the organized band of scientists and others who were to conduct and give effect to the exploratory movement. In this epic of exploration, which it now becomes our purpose to narrate, it is gratifying to find it throughout highly creditable to all parties concerned in it. From the first, it was ideally harmonious as well as perfect in its organization, thanks not only to the loyalty and good sense of the men who were chosen to conduct it, but especially to President Jefferson, whose statesmanlike project it was, and who took so hearty and intelligent an interest in its achievement and success, besides elaborately planning the scope and purposes of the exploratory mission. The obstacles to be surmounted in carrying out the purposes of the Expedition were known to be great; but great also were the objects sought to be gained by the undertaking, and, to the nation, important were the interests at stake. South of the international boundary line, more than a third of the Continent, as yet shrouded in darkness, was to be looked upon and explored. Beyond the little that was known of the region to the happy-go-lucky fur trader and wandering nomad of the woods, practically the entire stretch of country from the upper waters of the Missouri to the Pacific was geographically a blank. Even the salient physical features—the barrier of the Rocky Mountains, to wit—were unknown; the whole interior, then a desolate waste, was supposed to be a vast undulating plain, seamed with rivers, and occasionally broken by hill lines of uncertain altitude and extent of stretch, with no accurate knowledge of where they lay, or of the formidable character of the barrier they interposed between the interior plains and the Far Western sea. In this new domain of the nation, many Indian tribes were inferred to exist that had never come into contact with the white man; while little was as yet known of the vast river, the Columbia, that drained the area on the western slopes of the (Stony) Rocky Mountains and carried its watery burden to the Pacific. Only since the Spring of 1792 was the existence of the great western river definitely known, when Captain Gray of the Boston vessel, the Columbia, then discovered its harbor-mouth between the high capes that shielded and all but enclosed it from the ocean.

To probe throughout the great interior track of over 4,000 miles and report upon its resources and characteristic features, as well as to ascertain what native tribes inhabited it, and what relations of amity and commerce the nation that had become its owner might expect to have with them, were matters well worth investigating and reporting upon. To the organization of an expedition to ascertain these and other purposes, President Jefferson, as we have related, now actively addressed himself; and soon he had the satisfaction of seeing its forces assembled ready to set out on its important mission. For the chief command of the Expedition, the President, fortunately, had already in his eye a suitable man, of excellent parts, in the person of a Virginian of good family, under thirty years of age, who at one time had been his own private secretary. This was Captain Meriwether Lewis, who had seen service in the United States army, and who, in his official relations with the President, had had his own interest quickened in the Louisiana Territory he was now, with his colleague and command, about to explore. The colleague we have mentioned, who shared with Lewis the task about to be undertaken, was Captain William Clark, a Kentuckian of Virginian origin, who had also been in the army, but was at the time farming in his adopted Kentucky State. His brother was the well-known General George Rogers Clark, who had achieved fame in the Revolutionary era in wars against the Indians. Like Lewis, who was an old comrade, William Clark was admirably fitted for responsible command, and was at the same time familiar with frontier life. He was, moreover, a man of excellent character, as well as of great hardihood and self-reliance, though manifestly lacking in the essentials of a liberal education, as we amusingly see from his misspelled epistles and reports. Such were the two men, singularly loyal to each other and to the task about to be assigned them, who were to be entrusted with the responsible command of the President’s commission of investigation in the vast territory the nation had just acquired from France.

Of Captain Lewis, we get a fuller and instructive account from President Jefferson himself, written after the explorer’s lamented death, in 1809, when the Expedition had become an interesting part of the national annals. The eulogy we shall, no doubt, be pardoned for here introducing to the reader. Concerning Lewis and his qualifications, the President relates:

“I had now had opportunities of knowing him (Lewis) intimately. Of courage undaunted; possessing a firmness and perseverance of purpose which nothing but impossibilities could divert from its direction; careful as a father of those committed to his charge, yet steady in the maintenance of order and discipline; intimate with the Indian character, customs, and principles; habituated to the hunting life; guarded, by exact observation of the vegetables and animals of his own country, against losing time in the description of objects already possessed; honest, disinterested, liberal, of sound understanding, and a fidelity to truth so scrupulous that whatever he should report would be as certain as if seen by ourselves—with all these qualifications, as if selected and implanted by nature in one body for this express purpose, I could have no hesitation in confiding the enterprise to him. To fill up the measure desired, he wanted nothing but a greater familiarity with the technical language of the natural sciences, and readiness in the astronomical observations necessary for the geography for his route. To acquire these, he repaired to Philadelphia, and placed himself under the tutorage of the distinguished professors of that place, who, with a zeal and emulation enkindled by an ardent devotion to science, communicated to him freely the information requisite for the purposes of the journey. While attending at Lancaster to the fabrication of the arms with which he chose that his men should be provided, he had the benefit of daily communication with Mr. Andrew Ellicott, whose experience in astronomical observation, and practice of it in the woods, enabled him to apprise Captain Lewis of the wants and difficulties he would encounter, and of the substitutes and resources afforded by a woodland and uninhabited country.”

How faithful and correct is this characterization of the chief leader of the Expedition, from Jefferson’s kindly pen, is well attested by the facts which came out during the progress of the exploring party and by the success which attended the entire mission. Valuable also were the counsels and hints of the President to Captain Lewis in conducting the Expedition, and clear the objects set forth by him to be attained by the explorers in the vast solitudes they were about to enter upon. Considerate and humane also were his instructions as to the attitude which should govern the commanding leader in his intercourse with the Indians to be met with, and minute the matters he desired that the Expedition should gather that would afterwards be helpful to trade and colonization in the region. In regard to the Indians, Mr. Jefferson counsels Captain Lewis to “treat them in the most friendly and conciliating manner which their own conduct will admit; allay all jealousies as to the object of your journey; satisfy them of its innocence; make them acquainted with the position, extent, character, peaceable and commercial disposition, of the United States; of our wish to be neighborly, friendly, and useful to them, and of our dispositions to a commercial intercourse with them; confer with them on the points most convenient as mutual emporiums, and the articles of most desirable interchange for them and us. If a few of their influential chiefs, within practicable distance, wish to visit us, arrange such a visit with them, and furnish them with authority to call on our officers, on their entering the United States, to have them conveyed to this place at the public expense. If any of them should wish to have some of their people brought up with us, and taught such arts as may be useful to them, we will receive, instruct, and take care of them.” Hardly less practical was the array of motley garments and dress outfits, coins, trinkets, and other articles with which the Expedition was furnished as the material of exchange or barter with the natives, or as presents for the Indian chiefs and their concubines. Careful, moreover, were the hints given the Expedition leaders as to their conduct and the course to be pursued in the event of the mission meeting with hostilities from the natives en route; though, necessarily, much latitude was allowed them in taking their own course in dealing with hostile tribes and in pressing on through, or retiring from, situations of grave menace or threatened hurt. A like latitude was given the command as to the routes to be pursued across the continent and returning, other than the general course tentatively indicated; while instructions were considerately given the leader to draw upon the national exchequer, through local agents of the United States, for the moneys needed for the unprovided-for expenses and other incidental charges of the journey. The latter provision, as it obviously turned out, was a work of pure supererogation, since local banking offices or officials of the Government service were not likely to be found in the domains of desolation and solitude.