Blunderbuss

The Lewis and Clark expedition was in many ways an infantry company on the move, fully equipped with rifles of various kinds, muskets, and pistols. Among the firearms were two blunderbusses. Named after the Dutch words for "thunder gun," the blunderbuss was unmistakable for its heavy stock, short barrel, and wide-mouthed muzzle. Other expedition guns might be graceful in design and craftsmanship but the stout blunderbuss simply signified brute force and power. Lewis and Clark fired their blunderbusses as signs of arrival when entering Indian camps or villages.

Pipe tomahawk

Pipe tomahawks are artifacts unique to North America--created by Europeans as trade objects but often exchanged as diplomatic gifts. They are powerful symbols of the choice Europeans and Indians faced whenever they met: one end was the pipe of peace, the other an axe of war. Lewis's expedition packing list notes that fifty pipe tomahawks were to be taken on the expedition.

Jefferson's Secret Message to Congress

While Jefferson made no effort to hide the Lewis and Clark expedition from Spanish, French, and British officials, he did try to shield it from his political enemies. By the time he was ready to request funds for the enterprise, Jefferson's relationship with the opposition in Congress was anything but friendly. When the president suggested including expedition funding in his regular address to Congress, Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin (1761-1849) urged that the request be made in secret. The message purported to focus on the state of Indian trade and mentioned the proposed western expedition near the end of the document.

Jefferson's Instructions for Meriwether Lewis

No document proved more important for the exploration of the American West than the letter of instructions Jefferson prepared for Lewis. Jefferson's letter became the charter for federal exploration for the remainder of the nineteenth century. The letter combined national aspirations for territorial expansion with scientific discovery. Here Jefferson sketched out a comprehensive and flexible plan for western exploration. That plan created a military exploring party with one key mission--finding the water passage across the continent "for the purposes of commerce"--and many additional objectives, ranging from botany to ethnography. Each section of the document was really a question in search of a western answer. Two generations of American explorers marched the West in search of those answers.

Jefferson Peace Medal

The American republic began to issue peace medals during the first Washington administration, continuing a tradition established by the European nations. Lewis and Clark brought at least eighty-nine medals in five sizes in order to designate five "ranks" of chief. In the eyes of Americans, Indians who accepted such medals were also acknowledging American sovereignty as "children" of a new "great father." And in a moment of imperial bravado, Lewis hung a peace medal around the neck of a Piegan Blackfeet warrior killed by the expedition in late July 1806. As Lewis later explained, he used a peace medal as a way to let the Blackfeet know "who we were."

Making Chiefs

Lewis was frustrated by the egalitarian nature of Indian society: "the authority of the Chief being nothing more than mere admonition . . . in fact every man is a chief." He set out to change that by "making chiefs." He passed out medals, certificates, and uniforms to give power to chosen men. By weakening traditional authority, he sought to make it easier for the United States to negotiate with the tribes. Lewis told the Otos that they needed these certificates "In order that the commandant at St. Louis . . . may know . . . that you have opened your ears to your great father's voice." The certificate on display was left over from the expedition.

Making Speeches

In their speeches, Lewis and Clark called the Indians "children." To explorers, the term expressed the relationship of ruler and subject. Clark modeled this speech to the Yellowstone Indians on one that Lewis gave to Missouri River tribes. In their speeches, the Indians called Lewis and Clark "father," as in this example made by the Arikira Chiefs. To them, it expressed kinship and their assumption that an adoptive father undertook an obligation to show generosity and loyalty to his new family. William Clark recorded this speech as it was made by the chiefs.

Making Kinship

In tribal society, kinship was like a legal system--people depended on relatives to protect them from crime, war, and misfortune. People with no kin were outside of society and its rules. To adopt Lewis and Clark into tribal society, the Plains Indians used a pipe ceremony. The ritual of smoking and sharing the pipe was at the heart of much Native American diplomacy. With the pipe the captains accepted sacred obligations to share wealth, aid in war, and revenge injustice. At the end of the ceremony, the pipe was presented to them so they would never forget their obligations. This pipe may have been given to Lewis and Clark.

Jefferson's Cipher

While Jefferson knew that for much of the journey he and his travelers would be out of touch, the president thought Indians and fur traders might carry small messages back to him. A life-long fascination for gadgets and secret codes led Jefferson to present Lewis with this key-word cipher. Lewis was instructed to "communicate to us, at seasonable intervals, a copy of your journal, notes & observations, of every kind, putting into cipher whatever might do injury if betrayed." The scheme was never used but the sample message reveals much about Jefferson's expectations for the expedition.

Gifts with a Message

Gift-giving was an essential part of diplomacy. To Indians, gifts proved the giver's sincerity and honored the tribe. To Lewis and Clark, some gifts advertised the technological superiority and others encouraged the Indians to adopt an agrarian lifestyle. Like salesmen handing out free samples, Lewis and Clark packed bales of manufactured goods like these to open diplomatic relations with Indian tribes. These beads came from Mitutanka, the village nearest to Fort Mandan. Jefferson advised Lewis to give out corn mills to introduce the Indians to mechanized agriculture as part of his plan to "civilize and instruct" them. Clark believed the mills were "verry Thankfully recived," but by the next year the Mandan had demolished theirs to use the metal for weapons.

Displays of Power

In situations when ceremonies, speeches, and gifts did not work, both the Corps and the Indians gave performances that displayed their military power. The American soldiers paraded, fired their weapons, and demonstrated innovative weaponry. The Indians used war clubs, like this Sioux club, in celebratory scalp dances. Three decades later, Swiss artist Karl Bodmer accompanying naturalist Prince Maximillian, retraced Lewis and Clark's trek on the Missouri River and vibrantly recorded a similar scene in the print displayed above.

Jefferson's Speech to a Delegation of Indian Chiefs

Indian delegations had long been part of European diplomacy with native people, and they came to play an increasingly important role in U.S. Indian policy as well. Even before leaving St. Louis, Lewis and Clark began organizing delegations to visit the new "great father" in Washington. Jefferson's speech to a group of chiefs from the lower Missouri River is an arresting combination of friendship, promises of peaceful relations in a shared country, and thinly veiled threats if Indians rejected American sovereignty. Reminding the chiefs of the changes in international diplomacy after the Louisiana Purchase, Jefferson insisted that "We are now your fathers; and you shall not lose by the change." But behind all the promises of a shared future was an unmistakable threat. As the president said, "My children, we are strong, we are numerous as the stars in the heavens, & we are all gunmen."

Indian Speech to Jefferson

A delegation of chiefs from western tribes was sent by Lewis to Washington, D.C. President Jefferson welcomed them with words of peace and friendship. But if President Jefferson expected his native visitors to quietly accept their status as "children" in the new American order, he was mistaken. In their speech to Jefferson, the chiefs raised two important concerns: the troubled economic relations between native people and the federally operated trading posts and the rising tide of violence Indians suffered at the hands of white settlers on the Missouri River frontier. These chiefs were determined to speak the truth "to the ears of our fathers." In return, they expected that government officials would "open their ears to truth to get in."

Nicholas King's 1803 Pre-Expedition Map

In March 1803, War Department cartographer Nicholas King compiled a map of North America west of the Mississippi in order to summarize all available topographic information about the region. Representing the federal government's first attempt to define the vast empire later purchased from Napoleon, King consulted numerous published and manuscript maps. The composite map reflects Jefferson and Gallatin's geographical concepts on the eve of the expedition. It is believed that Lewis and Clark carried this map on their journey at least as far as the Mandan-Hidatsa villages on the Missouri River, where Lewis annotated in brown ink additional information obtained from fur traders.

Source Map for the Bend of the Missouri River

One of the sources for Nicholas King's 1803 map was this sketch of the Great Bend of the Missouri River (north of present-day Bismarck, North Dakota). Copied by Lewis from a survey for the British North West Company by David Thompson, this map provided the exact latitude and longitude of that important segment of the Missouri. Thompson, traveling overland in the dead of winter, spent three weeks at the Mandan and Pawnee villages on the Missouri River, calculating astronomical observations. He also recorded the number of houses, tents, and warriors of the six Indian villages in the area.

Fort Mandan Map

Throughout the winter of 1804-1805 at Fort Mandan, William Clark drafted a large map of the West --what he called "a Connection of the country." That map, recopied several times by Nicholas King, provided the first accurate depiction of the Missouri River to Fort Mandan based on the expedition's astronomical and geographical observations. Drawing on "information of Traders, Indians, & my own observation and idea," Clark sketched out a conjectural West--one characterized by a narrow chain of mountains and rivers with headwaters close one to the other, still suggesting an easy water passage to the Pacific Coast.

Indian Map of Columbia and Snake Rivers

Although there are journal notes stating that Indians provided geographical information for Lewis and Clark and drew maps on animal skins or made rough sketches in the soil, no original examples survive. However, there are several collaborative efforts in which members of the Corps redrew Indian sketches often combining their own observations with Indian information. This sketch map found in one of William Clark's field notebooks is a good example of a map derived from Indian information. It is a diagram of the relative location of tributaries of the Columbia and Snake (Lewis) rivers in present-day eastern Washington and Oregon.

Field Maps of the Fort Clatsop Area

This pair of maps is from a collection of manuscript field maps drafted by Clark as the Corps descended the Columbia River and wintered on the Pacific Coast at Fort Clatsop. On the left, Clark drew a rough sketch of the mouth of the Columbia River, oriented with south at the top of the sheet. The other is one of the cruder examples of a map derived from Indian information, with Clark noting "This was given by a Clott Sopp Indn." It shows a small portion of the Pacific Coast and locates several tribes and villages.

Sitting Rabbit's Map of the Missouri River

Displayed here is a portion of a 1906-1907 map depicting the Missouri River through North Dakota to the mouth of the Yellowstone River. It was prepared by Sitting Rabbit, a Mandan Indian, at the request of an official of the State Historical Society of North Dakota. Although it uses a Missouri River Commission map as its base, the content provides a traditional Indian perspective of the river's geography, especially noting former Mandan village sites with earthen lodges. The portion of the river shown here corresponds to the same stretch of river delineated on Clark's route map (below).

Missouri Route Map near Fort Mandan

Throughout the expedition, William Clark prepared a series of large-scale route maps, with each sheet documenting several days' travel. On these sheets he recorded the course of rivers navigated, mouths of tributary streams, encampments, celestial observations, and other notable features. Big River on Sitting Rabbit's map (above) is identified as Cannon Ball River on Clark's map and Beaver Creek is recorded as Warraconne River or "Plain where Elk shed their horns," by Clark.

Fort Clatsop Map

This post-expeditionary map prepared by Washington, D.C., cartographer Nicholas King, probably in 1806 or 1807, most likely incorporates information from a map prepared by Lewis and Clark in February 1806 at Fort Clatsop on the Oregon coast. Although the original map no longer exists, such a map is mentioned in the expedition's journals. Using King's 1805 base map, which records information observed as far as Fort Mandan, this present copy adds geographical observations from Fort Mandan to the west coast, as well as data from the return trip.

Clark's Map of Midwestern Indian Settlements

Following his appointment as governor of the Missouri Territory in 1813, William Clark sketched this map of various Indian tribes and villages throughout the Missouri and Illinois territories, showing the locations of numerous forts and settlements. He prepared it in response to British incursions on the frontier during the War of 1812, when it was feared that the Indians, many of them allied with the British, would attack white settlements. The map also reflects Clark's continuing post-expedition interest in Indian activities having been appointed superintendent of Indian affairs at St. Louis in 1807.

Frazer's Post-Expedition Map

Private Robert Frazer was the first member of the Lewis and Clark party to announce publication of an expedition journal. His account never reached print, and the original journal was lost. This manuscript map is the only remnant of that initial publishing attempt. Since Frazer had little or no knowledge of surveying or natural sciences, the map is a strange piece of cartography. He traces the expedition's route, but continues to depict older views of the Rocky Mountains and western rivers. Sometimes ignored, the Frazer map was one of the first to reveal the course of the journey and some of its geographic findings.

First Published Map of Expedition's Track

This was the first published map to display reasonably accurate geographic information of the trans-Mississippi West. Based on a large map kept by William Clark, the engraved copy accompanied Nicholas Biddle's History of the Expedition (1814). As the landmark cartographic contribution of the expedition, this "track map" held on to old illusions while proclaiming new geographic discoveries. Clark presented a West far more topographically diverse and complex than Jefferson ever imagined. From experience, Clark had learned that the Rockies were a tangle of mountain ranges and that western rivers were not the navigable highways so central to Jefferson's geography of hope.

History of the Expedition

After Lewis's death in September 1809, Clark engaged Nicholas Biddle to edit the expedition papers. Using the captains' original journals and those of Sergeants Gass and Ordway, Biddle completed a narrative by July 1811. After delays with the publisher, a two-volume edition of the Corps of Discovery's travels across the continent was finally available to the public in 1814. More than twenty editions appeared during the nineteenth century, including German, Dutch, and several British editions.

Calculating Distance

In order to make astronomical observations that would aid in calculating distances, the Corps took a sextant on their journey. On July 22, 1804, while the expedition was above the mouth of the Platte River in eastern Nebraska, Lewis gave a detailed description of the operation of the sextant and other tools that reveals his struggle to use the complicated instruments. A select number of books were taken on the expedition including British astronomer Nevil Maskelyne's Tables Requisite to be Used with the Nautical Ephemeris for Finding the Latitude and Longitude at Sea.

Lewis's woodpecker

The woodpecker displayed above may be the only specimen collected during the Lewis and Clark expedition to survive intact. Lewis first saw the bird on July 20, 1805, but did not get a specimen until the following spring at Camp Chopunnish on the Clearwater River in Idaho. Lewis's description of the bird's belly is still accurate when examining the specimen today: "a curious mixture of white and blood red which has much the appearance of having been artificially painted or stained of that colour."

Observing "the animals of the country generally"

Lewis covered pages with descriptions of animals and plants during the winter of 1805-1806. This particular journal kept during that period contains abundant zoological notes in Lewis's hand. The journal is open to a description of the Corps first encounter with a white-tailed jack rabbi--an animal considered so impressive that both Lewis and Clark wrote extensive descriptions of it. On selected occasions both captains illustrated their notes. In the reproduction above Clark sketched the now-endangered condor. Lewis had correctly observed in his journal: "I bleive this to be the largest bird of North America."

Representing Beings

The Indian sense of "personhood" extends far beyond the western conception of human beings. In Indian culture animal people, plant people, sky peopleCall are beings in their own right. Indian art portrays a being's inner essence, not its physical form. The Columbia River artist who created this twined circular basket decorated it with images of condors, sturgeons, people, and deer -- abstractions that are given equal importance in the woven pattern. This nineteenth-century Sioux clay and wood pipe portrays a buffalo, whose spirit, or Tananka, cares for children, hunters, and growing things. It may have be created as a presentation pipe.

Hunting Bear

Patrick Gass was one of the three sergeants in the Corps of Discovery. His account, first printed in 1807, was the only one available to curious readers until the official publication appeared in1814. This Gass edition contains six woodcuts, two of which depict encounters with bears. The image above may have been based on Corps member Hugh McNeal's experience on July 15, 1806. Lewis records: ". . .and with his clubbed musquet he struck the bear over the head and cut him with the guard of the gun and broke off the breech, the bear stunned with the stroke fell to his ground. . .this gave McNeal time to climb a willow tree."

The Power of the Bear

Artist George Catlin painted the scene of a dance held in preparation for a traditional Sioux bear hunt in 1832. These dances were performed in order to communicate with "the Bear Spirit." According to Catlin, the Sioux believe this spirit "holds somewhere an invisible existence that must be consulted and conciliated." This clay Sioux pipe bowl probably depicts the bear's role as teacher and transmitter of power.

Wearing Achievement

The U.S. Army lavished effort on the details of uniforms, increasing the psychological impact on the wearer and his opponent. Military insignia were designed to prevent any ambiguity about chains of command, so that a soldier could instantly tell whom to obey. The U.S. Army was so small in 1804 that no complete uniforms survive. This reproduction portrays a captain in the full-dress uniform of the 1^st U.S. Infantry Regiment, to which Lewis belonged. The "Kentucky" rifle shown below--a .45 caliber flint lock--was passed down through William Clark's family.

The Plains Warrior

A Plains Indian warrior relied on personal power in battle, and his dress incorporated symbols of his spirit visions, his tribal identity, and his past deeds. The leader of a war party often wore a painted shirt that detailed his war record. On such shirts made from animal skins, the contours of the pelt were left intact in the belief that the animal would lend its qualities to the wearer. The most powerful shirts were fringed with locks of human hair provided by relatives and supporters to represent the man's responsibilities to his relations. This shirt, probably Blackfeet, has buffalo-track symbols on the neck flap that evoke the power of the bison to aid the warrior in battle.

Images of Heroism

Plains Indian men wore painted skin robes that told of their achievements. This image of Shoshone Chief Washakie's war robe shows a series of diagrammatic battle scenes. Here, events happen not in a landscape but in a symbolic realm of deeds. Depictions of his enemies are not individualized, but are instead given costumes, hairstyles, or equipment that represent tribal affiliation, society membership, and past deeds. Warriors are sometimes represented by disembodied guns or arrows.

The Ideal Military Hero

In 1759, at the height of the French and Indian War, General Wolfe led a British-American assault on the French outside Quebec. The print, based on a painting by Benjamin West, shows the wounded general dying just as a messenger brings news that the enemy is retreating. In the moment of both victory and death, Wolfe achieves transcendent glory. His uplifted eyes suggest both sacrifice for the nation and triumph over death--not through faith but through fame. This was an idealized image to which military men of Lewis and Clark's generation aspired.

Coyote Headdress

Coyote, the mythic trickster of the Plains Indians, was the protector of the scouts who spied on the enemy for a war party. This nineteenth-century Teton headdress from the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota was meant to summon and symbolize Coyote's craftiness.

Spontoon and Gorget

The spontoon, a long wooden shaft with a spear at one end, became popular with the American army during the Revolutionary War. Although it was required equipment that signified an officer's rank, these pikes were commonly abandoned for more practical weapons in battle. Lewis used his as a walking stick, a grizzly-bear spear, and a gun rest, but never to rally troops in battle. The origins of the gorget can be traced to the chivalric armor. American army officers wore these ceremonial insignia high on the chest. Lewis presented gorgets (which he called "moons") to Indian leaders to symbolize rank.

Bear Claw Necklace

To wear a bear claw necklace was a mark of distinction for a warrior or a chief, and the right to wear it had to be earned. These powerful symbols were a part of the culture of the Great Lakes, Plains, and Plateau tribes. On August 21, 1805, Lewis wrote in this journal that Shoshone "warriors or such as esteem themselves brave men wear collars made of the claws of the brown bear. . . . These claws are ornamented with beads about the thick end near which they are pierced through their sides and strung on a throng of dressed leather and tyed about the neck . . . . It is esteemed by them an act of equal celebrity the killing one of these bear or an enimy."

Curing the Corps

Lewis and Clark were not persuaded by Indian explanations of why illness occurred but often used Indian cures in preference to their own. The Corps began its journey stocked with traditional western medicinal treatments and tools. Lewis used lancets to let out blood in such dangerous conditions as heat exhaustion and pelvic inflammation, and tourniquets to stop blood flow. Bleeding was thought to relieve congestion in internal organs. Lewis originally thought he would need three syringes for enemas but settled for one. There is no further mention of its use. Laxatives, derived from plant sources, were also used to purge the body of impurities.

Rules of Health

Thomas Jefferson asked Benjamin Rush, a noted physician and professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, to "prepare some notes of such particulars as may occur in his journey & which you think should draw his attention & enquiry." Dr. Rush restricted his advice to practical hints for maintaining health in the field--some of it unwelcome like using alcohol for cleaning feet instead of for drinking. Many Americans did not trust professional medicine and instead used folk cures like these written down by Clark after the expedition. Many folk cures originally came from Indian sources.

Summoning the Spirits

An Indian doctor's job was to identify the being that had caused an illness, then overcome or placate it. An Indian patient lived in an animate world, surrounded by entities who could make him ill. Medicinal herbs and roots were powdered and mixed in a mortar like this one from the Northern Plains. Drums and herbs were used to summon helpful spirits as aids in healing. Fragrant herbs pleased and attracted good influences and drove away evil ones. This sweetgrass braid was used as an incense to purify implements, weapons, dwellings, and people.

A Botanical Specimen

While admitting that Lewis was "no regular botanist," Jefferson did praise "his talent for observation." And on June 11, 1806, during an extended stay with the Nez Perce people, Lewis showed that talent. Camas, sometimes known as quamash, was an important food plant for the Nez Perces. Lewis carefully described the plant's natural environment, its physical structure, the ways women harvested and prepared camas, and its role in the Indian diet. Some days later Lewis gathered samples of camas for his growing collection of western plants.

Flora Americae Septentrionalis

Frederick Pursh, an emigrant from Saxony who worked with botanist Benjamin Smith Barton in Philadelphia, published the first botanical record of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Pursh received a collection of dried plants from Lewis, which he classified and incorporated into his Flora Americae Septentrionalis. The volume is open to Clarkia pulchella, a member of the evening primrose family, which Pursh named in honor of William Clark. Pursh took some of the Lewis and Clark specimens to London to finish the book, including the silky lupine specimen to the far left.

Root Digging Bag

Among the Nez Perce, only women harvested plant foods. A man doing so risked derision and contempt. A Nez Perce woman's year was structured around plants. As each new food plant matured, its arrival was welcomed in a first fruits feast. Root bags were used in gathering, cooking, and for storage. An industrious woman could dig eighty or ninety pounds of roots in a day.

A Gathering Basket

The cedar bark basket was used across the Plateau for gathering berries, nuts, and roots. Bark baskets could be made easily when a person came across some forest food by stripping off a piece of cedar bark and folding it.

A Sally Bag

Plateau tribes gathered wild hemp and beargrass, then traded it to the Wishram and Wasco Indians at The Dalles in Oregon, the dividing line between North Coast and Plateau Indians. The traded raw materials would then be made into finished products like this sally bag, used for packaging food.

Storing Roots

Among the Shoshone, Lewis noted that dried roots were stored by being "foalded in as many parchment hides of buffaloe." Hide bags, like the one on display, were made by cleaning and sizing rawhide so that it had a smooth, paintable surface. This bag is decorated in a distinctive Plateau style.

Sources for the Lewis & Clark Expedition Maps of 1803 and 1814

The two key maps that bracket the Lewis and Clark expedition are the Nicholas King map of 1803 and the Track Map of 1814.

Nicholas King drew upon the most current information in creating his map. This presentation shows how existing maps were used to form King's map, which it is believed, Lewis and Clark took on their journey.

The 1814 Track Map was the landmark product of the expedition. Based on a large map kept by William Clark in his St. Louis office, this map shows the geographic exploration made by Lewis and Clark. It was part of the expedition's official publication.