Lewis and Clark Expedition

          Louisiana was the vast land of about 280,000 square miles to the west of the 13 U.S. states. It possesses parts of today’s states of Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas.

 Before the 1800s, the Spanish owned the land. But in 1800, the French emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte seized control of it hoping to establish a brand new, out of the package, empire.

          Americans were worried that Napoleon would take over. Napoleon’s empire was very strong and America had barely won their war against Great Britain. Finally, President Thomas Jefferson decided what to do. His decision was to buy the land.

          In 1803, the land was bought. The price was about 15 million dollars. This would be a very small price for that much land, but during that time one cent was worth 28 of today’s dollars. This purchase was known as the Louisiana Purchase. Thomas didn’t want to just quickly go ahead and make towns and cities in the land because of the hostile Indians. He decided on an expedition. Captain Meriwether Lewis volunteered and Tom chose him. Lewis agreed and brought along with him his companion, Lieutenant William Clark.

          On May 14th, 1804, the expedition began. On August 20^th, 1804, Charles Floyd a member of the expedition died from a sickness. Charles was the only man of the 33 men to die.

          During the whole expedition, Lewis and Clark befriended with 24 Indian tribes.

The expedition sometimes had trouble with the tribes that they met such as the Sioux tribe. The expedition was just trying to pass through their territory to get to a different place, but they wouldn’t let them. The Sioux were very warlike, aggressive, and powerful. Soon both sides were starting to come close to fighting.  Once one of Lewis’s and Clark’s horses were stolen and they believed that the Sioux did it. It stayed this way like for a while so Lewis and lark decided to move on.

In the winter of 1804 to 1805, the men built fort Mandan. At that fort they met Toussaint Charbonneau and his wife Sacagawea. They helped as Indian translators for when speaking to other tribes.    

          Before the men and woman passed through the Continental Divide, they split up into two teams because they both wanted to explore different places. Before they met again, one of the hunters thought that maybe that the moving thing in the woods was an elk so he shot. He was wrong. It was actually Lewis. Lewis was injured in the thigh.

          Finally on March 22^nd, they finished their goal by reaching the Pacific Ocean. They made all their maps and started to go home. Finally, in 1806, they reached St. Louis and the expedition ended.