Lewis and Clark Expedition

Strategy, Planning, and Preparation

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the United States, a prosperous but fledgling power, with the Mississippi River as its western boundary, was boxed in geopolitically—Great Britain dominated the seas and occupied Canada; Russia owned Alaska; Spain claimed not only Florida, but also the Louisiana Territory and lands further west and south; and France, under Napoleon Bonaparte, aimed to conquer continental Europe and to establish a North American empire.

When Jefferson became president in 1801, he put into action a plan for America's eventual western expansion, one designed to displace the Europeans from the continent. Fearing Spanish and French machinations in the Louisiana Territory, he began negotiations to acquire the crucial city-port of New Orleans. Further alarmed by British exploits in the Pacific Northwest, he also planned a U.S. exploration of the Northwest Territory and the vast Missouri River system, which cut through the upper Louisiana Territory.

On 18 January 1803, Jefferson submitted a secret message to Congress requesting $2,500 to underwrite the western expedition. The president's objectives were many: discovery of an all-water route across the continent; expansion of American commerce and territory; maps and descriptions of western waterways and mountains, and scientific examination of flora, fauna, soils, and minerals; and peaceful relations with western tribes and promotion of peace among them. His explorers, moreover, were to engage in extensive tribal ethnography and to encourage chieftains to travel east.

In planning and preparing for the mission, Jefferson [Page 903]relied heavily upon Captain Meriwether Lewis, his personal secretary. Lewis, the son of a wealthy planter, grew up on the Virginia Piedmont, where he gained an invaluable education in plantation management and wilderness survival. He enlisted in the militia at the age of twenty, and later joined the Regular Army. In 1801, Jefferson selected Lewis as his personal aide-de-camp, and eventually chose him to lead the Corps of Discovery.

...