Purpose Of The Lewis And Clark Expedition

The journey began in 1804 as Meriwether Lewis and William Clark began their expedition across the newly claimed United States territory. Under the instruction of Thomas Jefferson, William Clark and almost fifty other men met up with Meriwether Lewis on May 20 to begin their journey up the Missouri River. This journey was called the Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps Of Discovery. The idea of a westward expedition had been brought up before, but in 1803 it was when the congress passed the plan. The Louisiana Purchase had just been made, making it more necessary than before for the expedition to take place. The purpose for the expedition was to find a westward route to the Pacific Ocean. According to Jefferson, one of the goals

While Clark did that Lewis spent a majority of the time outside of the boat on the shores of the river studying the different plants and animals along the way as well as soil and different rock formations. The additional fifty some men that were along the expedition were to trade off keeping look out to ensure their safety from the Native Americans or whatever else they might encounter. Though they hoped that the Natives would be peaceful they did not take any chances, keeping their men armed. The end of July came and they had traveled over six hundred miles, but they still had not had a single Native American encounter. Finally on August 2, the group of men had their first Native encounter. A group of Oto and Missouri Indians came to their camp, the first encounter went well with them, they traded gifts and greeted each other. However they were more worried about how their encounter with the Sioux, for they knew that not every encounter they had would go as well, and Jefferson had said in his instructions how important it would be to make a positive encounter with them because they were such a powerful tribe. Since Lewis and Clark’s first encounter went so well, they decided that they would greet all of the Native American tribes the same way. Some of the tribes greeted them kindly and approached them with gifts, while other tribes greeted them

One of the biggest obstacles was the encounters that they had with the many different Native American tribes. They learned that not all of the 50 some tribes they came across would not all be the same. Some greeted them kindly and welcomed them into their homes, offering them gifts and negotiating trades. Others however were not so friendly, some were barbaric and some greeted them with ambush and violence right away. We today can learn from the Lewis and Clark Expedition by observing the different encounters they had with the natives and how they traded good according to their needs. Today it is a lot like our foreign trade with other countries. Other countries do not have the same cultures as us so it is important as Americans we are accepting and understanding of the traders culture. Also every country that we do foreign trade with are all different. Just like the natives it is ridiculous to assume that all of the countries culture would be the same, some are allies and some are enemies that we will make along the way. The expedition is a form of Commercialism because along the journey the men traded their goods around with the Native Americans depending on what they needed to survive, today we still do this by foreign trade with other countries. We trade around our goods with our countries that are our allies to help make