![]() ![]() ![]() Ambrose later noted, this simple show of hands may have marked the first time in American history a black man and a woman were given the vote. When the explorers later voted on where to place their winter camp in 1805, he and the Shoshone interpreter Sacagawea were both allowed to participate. Louis to the Pacific and back, and became a valued member of the expedition for his skills as a hunter. Though not an official member of the Corps of Discovery, York made the entire journey from St. The Arikara people of North Dakota even referred to York as “Big Medicine” and speculated that he had spiritual powers. The tall manservant was a hit with frontier tribes, many of whom had never seen a person with dark skin. How the Battle of Stalingrad Marked a Turning Point in WWIIĪlong with more than two-dozen enlisted men and officers, the Corps of Discovery also included Clark’s personal slave, York. Luckily for Lewis and Clark, the hostile search parties failed to locate them in the vastness of the frontier. Army General James Wilkinson-a Spanish spy-the governor of New Mexico dispatched four different groups of Spanish soldiers and Comanche Indians to intercept the explorers and bring them back in chains. That was distressing news for the Spanish, who feared the expedition might lead to the seizure of their gold-rich territories in the Southwest. ![]() Jefferson often described Lewis and Clark’s expedition as a scientific mission to study the lands acquired in the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, but the explorers’ central goal was to find a water route to the Pacific, which would increase trade opportunities and help solidify an American claim on the far Northwest. The Spanish sent soldiers to arrest the expedition. The expedition failed to sight any of the long-extinct creatures, but Lewis did describe 178 previously unknown species of plants and 122 new animals including coyotes, mountain beavers and grizzly bears. Even Thomas Jefferson, who’d amassed a small library of books on the frontier, was convinced the explorers might have run-ins with mountains of salt, a race of Welsh-speaking Indians and even herds of wooly mammoths and giant ground sloths. (Credit: Royal BC Museum, Victoria, British Columbia)īefore Lewis and Clark completed their expedition, Americans could only speculate on what lurked in the uncharted territories beyond the Rocky Mountains.
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