Clatsop Indian Adventure

I was chosen by President Thomas Jefferson to go on an adventure with Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. This adventure started in May in the year of 1804. Our mission was to find facts about the unexplored territory. While on this adventure, President Jefferson wanted us to find and map a water route across North America from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. He also wanted us to establish good relations with the Native Americans and announce that we now own this land and that it was now controlled by the United States government. Thomas Jefferson also informed us to collect information about the plants, animals and the land that we discover among the route. Finally after 2 years and 4 months we got back to St. Louis in September of

This tribe was referred to the nickname of ‘Flatheads’. The Clatsop Indians were stationary, and were located along the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean. They would build large permanent low-roofed portioned lodges of cedar-plank houses in which they would live in. Foods that would make up their diet would be berries, roots, deer, small animals, and salmon. They believed that the salmon were a divine gift from the wolf-spirit ‘Talapus’. The Clatsop Indians were great fish-eaters, and loved to eat sea animals. After discovering a 105 feet long whale, blubber became a tasty addition to their diet. Lewis, Clark, and I were friendly with the Mandan tribe, but didn’t like the Clatsop Indians because the Clatsop were used to traders and drove a hard bargain. We exchanged some goods, including a sea otter pelt, for fishhooks and a small bag of Shoshone tobacco. The Clatsop tribe informed us that there was a good amount of elk on the south side of the

He got along well with the Indians, behaved in a courtly manner and a proper manner. Lewis was a very skilled man. He had done militia training, and that was used on the expedition because it made Lewis strong, hardworking, and used to leading other people. On this expedition he was also good at noticing details of plants and animals, and using the limited tools available to navigate through this unfamiliar country. Meriwether Lewis helped change the face of the United States by exploring a vast unmapped territory-the American West. His work inspired many others to follow in his footsteps and created great interest in the region.

William Clark was very enthusiastic and friendly towards the new people that he met while on the expedition. In comparison to Lewis, Clark was also a very skilled man. Clark was a great cartographer, even though his maps look to us today to be a bit crude, he had an incredible instinct and feel for the landscape. William Clark drew very good pictures of the fields, mountains, river. He also wrote great descriptions in his journal about where they were and what they had discovered throughout this journey. Clark improved our country by exploring the West, the Native inhabitants of the