Picture the classic textbook painting of the
Lewis and Clark expedition. You probably see
that familiar image right now in your head. Oh,
absolutely. It's the visual printed in almost
every middle school history book for the last
century. Right. It's always two intrepid explorers
in fringed buckskin just standing proudly at
the prowl of a wooden boat. bravely pointing
westward into the vast uncharted wilderness.
Yeah, it's, I mean, for generations, that single
image has served as the ultimate American myth
of individual heroism. Completely. Two men, a
blank map, in an untamed landscape just waiting
to be claimed. Well, today we are going to completely
flip that familiar script. We're doing a deep
dive into a comprehensive historical overview
of the expedition. Yes, specifically pulling
from the extensive Wikipedia archives on the
core of discovery. Exactly. And our mission today
is distinct. We are peeling back the layers of
that polished official narrative, because when
you actually look at the journals, the daily
data and the sheer mechanics of survival on this
journey, a very different picture emerges. A
radically different picture. Yeah. The expedition
was saved, sustained, and ultimately made possible
by the indispensable, yet historically marginalized,
figures of the journey. So specifically, we are
going to focus on Sakagoya, a Shoshone teenager,
and York. an enslaved black man. Which is so
important because decentering the captains even
just a little bit, it completely changes the
landscape of this historical event. It really
does. We move away from the mythology of like
singular genius and start looking at the actual
mechanics of collaborative survival. Right. So
to set the stage for you, we are looking at the
years 1804 to 1806. The Corps of Discovery has
been commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson,
hot on the heels of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase.
Which is huge. Massive. Jefferson basically bought
a massive tract of land, doubling the size of
the country on paper at least, and he needs someone
to go see what he just bought. OK, let's unpack
this. What exactly was Jefferson's grand ambition
here? Because I think the standard assumption
is that this was just a giant nature walk to
catalog some exotic plants and animals. Right.
People think it was just a botany trip. Yeah.
And science was a secondary objective, certainly.
Jefferson was a polymath, deeply interested in
biodiversity. Right. But make no mistake, this
was primarily an expedition of commerce and empire.
Commerce and empire. Yeah. Jefferson's main goal
was to find the most direct and practicable water
route across the continent. The fabled Northwest
Passage. Exactly. He wanted a liquid superhighway
for commerce that would connect the Missouri
River to the Pacific Ocean. Which would let them
completely bypass the hot, desolate desert of
the Southwest, right? The area controlled by
Spain. That was the practical hope. And just
as importantly, he wanted to establish a firm
United States claim of sovereignty in the Pacific
Northwest. Because they weren't the only ones
looking at that land. Not at all. The British
and the Spanish were already circling the region.
Alexander Mackenzie, a Scottish explorer working
for the British. He had actually already crossed
mainland North America to the Pacific Coast back
in 1793. Oh, wow. I didn't realize the British
were already out there that early. Yeah, and
Jefferson had read McKenzie's accounts. He knew
Britain wanted to control the highly lucrative
fur trade of the Columbia River. So it's a race.
It's totally a race. Jefferson is sending Lewis
and Clark to plant a flag. He wants to establish
an American presence, document the geography
and lay the legal groundwork to claim title to
indigenous lands under the European concept of
the discovery doctrine. Wait, let's pause on
that term. What exactly is the discovery doctrine
in this context? So the discovery doctrine was
an international legal concept. It actually originated
from 15th century papal bulls. Really? That far
back? Yeah. It essentially stated that whichever
European Christian nation discovered a piece
of land held the exclusive right to acquire it
from the indigenous populations, whether through
purchase or conquest. So it's a legal loophole
for empire building. Basically. Jefferson was
using this expedition to legally box out Britain
and Spain by saying, you know, Our agents map
this first, therefore we hold the preemptive
title. OK, so to prepare for this highly political
imperial mapping mission, Merriwether Lewis goes
to Philadelphia for what sounds like a, well,
a frontier boot camp. He really was. The source
material details an intense period of study.
What exactly is he learning before he even sets
foot in a boat? He is learning the hard sciences
required for the mission. He studies medicine
with Benjamin Rush, one of the most famous physicians
of the era. Just casually dropping in on Benjamin
Rush? Right. He's learning how to treat frontier
illnesses and injuries. He also studies botany
and zoology to know how to properly preserve
plant and animal specimens. Which makes sense.
But perhaps most crucially, he studies astronomy
and celestial navigation with Andrew Ellicott.
Which involves learning how to use a sextant,
right? Yes, exactly. How does that actually work
in the middle of an unmapped continent, like
if you're standing in the middle of nowhere?
So a sextant is this intricate navigational instrument
used to measure the angle between two visible
objects. For Lewis, he would use it at high noon
to measure the angle between the horizon and
the sun. By taking that precise angle and comparing
it to astronomical almanacs he brought with him,
he could calculate his exact latitude. That's
incredibly tedious. It is, but without that skill,
the maps Jefferson wanted would have been totally
useless. He had to be able to plot their exact
coordinates in the middle of a vast wilderness.
So the technical prep is fascinating, but the
shopping list? The shopping list is what really
catches the eye in the sources. Oh, the supplies
are wild. Lewis goes to a purveyor of public
supplies in Philadelphia, a guy named Israel
Whelan, and buys a massive amount of gear. What
does a transcontinental shopping list even look
like in 1803? It is extensive and highly specific.
He purchased mosquito netting, oil skin bags
to keep the gunpowder dry, 30 gallons of strong
spirit of wine. Wait, 30 gallons of wine? Well,
it was essentially pure alcohol. They used it
for medicinal purposes and for preserving the
biological specimen. Oh, gotcha. Not just for
a party on the river. No, no. And they brought
tons of medical supplies, including 50 dozen
of Dr. Rush's infamous bilious pills, which were,
well, they were a very harsh laxative. 50 dozen.
That's a lot of laxatives for 45 guys. Yeah.
Frontier diets were tough. He also bought 130
rolls of pigtail tobacco. I also saw a note in
the sources about 193 pounds of portable soup.
Yes. Portable soup. What is portable soup? Because
to me it sounds incredibly modern like a bouillon
cube or something, but they are buying it in
1803. It actually was essentially the 19th century
version of a bouillon cube. Really? Yeah. You
take large amounts of beef. cow hooves and joints
and you boil them down for hours and hours until
all the liquid evaporates. Okay that sounds pretty
gross. It leaves behind this hard gelatinous
glue -like resin and it takes months to fully
dry. Oh wow. So when you are starving on the
trail you chip off a piece and reconstitute it
with boiling water. And how did it taste? It
reportedly tasted terrible but it was incredibly
dense in calories and most importantly it wouldn't
spoil. Wow okay so Alongside the terrible soup,
he also stops in Pittsburgh and buys a Newfoundland
dog named Seaman for $20. Which is a huge sum
back then. Right. And Newfoundlands are these
massive, water -loving, working dogs. The text
actually notes Seaman became a vital member of
the party, retrieving game from rivers and even
guarding the camp against grizzly bears. A very
good boy. But alongside the soup and the dog,
we really have to look at the diplomatic and
military tools they brought. Right, because this
wasn't just a camping trip. Exactly. These items
reveal the underlying mindset of the leaders.
They brought Indian peace medals, which were
specially minted silver coins featuring Thomas
Jefferson's profile. Just handing out coins with
their boss's face on them. Yes, they intended
to hand these out to tribal leaders. The message
basically being, here is a piece of metal with
our leader's face on it. You belong to his territory
now. That was the explicit message. And to back
up that message, they brought an overwhelming
show of military force. Right, the guns. They
had standard flintlock firearms, but the text
specifically highlights an Austrian -made .46
caliber Girondoni air rifle. OK, when I read
air rifle in the source, my modern brain instantly
pictures a harmless BB gun, like Ralphie from
A Christmas Story. Right, the Red Ryder. Yeah.
But the sources suggest this was a serious, serious
weapon. How did a 19th century air rifle actually
work? It was a piece of advanced lethal military
technology. The Giordano did not require black
powder. Meaning no smoke. No smoke. And it could
fire rapidly, even in heavy rain, where a traditional
flintlock would be totally useless. It had a
20 round tubular magazine. A 20 round magazine
in 1803. How are they powering it without like
a modern air compressor? The buttstock of the
rifle was actually a detachable iron air reservoir.
To pressurize it, a soldier had to attach a specialized
hand pump and pump it about 1 ,500 times. 1 ,500
times by hand. By hand. But that gave it enough
pressure to fire 20 heavy lead balls in rapid
succession with enough legal force to drop an
elk at 100 yards. That is insane. It was a shock
-and -awe weapon. Lewis would frequently demonstrate
it to native tribes to intimidate them, firing
a flurry of silent smokeless shots into a distant
tree. Wow. So we have Captains Meriwether Lewis
and William Clark. They are military men on a
surveillance and sovereignty mission. Yes. And
they are explicitly instructed to inform the
native peoples that the land they have occupied
for thousands of years now falls under the jurisdiction
of the United States. Right. And that a man named
Thomas Jefferson, sitting thousands of miles
away, is their new great father. It is a top
-down deeply imperial approach to diplomacy.
They are marching into a complex geopolitical
landscape with a profound sense of entitlement
and a mandate of supremacy. But you contrast
that supreme confidence with the actual physical
reality of the Corps of Discovery. I mean, they
were a group of about 45 people traveling up
the Missouri River. Right. They are essentially
a tiny vulnerable speck entirely surrounded by
indigenous nations. The historical overview is
very explicit on this point. The expedition encountered
over two dozen distinct Native American nations.
Two dozen. And without the food... the navigational
guidance and the basic tolerance of those nations,
the Lewis and Clark expedition would have starved
or become hopelessly lost in the Rocky Mountains.
Their survival was entirely dependent on the
grace of the people they were supposedly there
to subjugate. Exactly. You know, it makes me
think of a modern deep sea submarine dropping
into an unexplored oceanic trench. Oh, that's
an interesting way to look at it. Like the crew
inside might have a grand mission from their
headquarters and they have all this expensive
highly engineered equipment like the air rifle,
but the moment they hit the water, their survival
is entirely dictated by the environment outside
the hull. If they don't understand the local
currents or if they antagonize the apex predators
in that specific ecosystem, All the advanced
technology in the world won't save them. That
analogy perfectly captures their vulnerability
because that top down, we are in charge mindset
of the leaders. It directly led to some critical,
near fatal diplomatic blunders. It really did.
They fundamentally misunderstood the political
and economic ecosystem they were navigating.
And we see this play out almost immediately during
their encounter with the Teton Sioux, also known
as the Lakota people on September 25th, 1804.
The text paints a very tense picture here. The
Lakotas were an absolute powerhouse in the region.
They controlled a vast inland empire along the
Missouri River. They were the gatekeepers. Yes.
And they expected tribute from anyone passing
through their territory. They were also on high
alert because of recent conflicts with other
tribes like the Omaha. So they were already on
edge. Very much so. Every earlier traveler on
the Missouri River had warned Lewis and Clark
about the Lakota, noting that they were determined
to block free trade on the river to maintain
their own economic dominance as middlemen. So
the core of discovery arrives at the confluence
of the Missouri and Bad Rivers in what is now
South Dakota, and things immediately go wrong.
Immediately. Lewis makes the first major mistake
regarding tribal hierarchy. He does. They meet
with the chiefs, including Chief Black Buffalo
and another chief known as the Partisan. And
Lewis decides to offer gifts to the Sioux chief
first, completely ignoring the complex internal
political dynamics and hierarchy of the Lakota
leadership. Which is a huge, unforced error.
This perceived slight. deeply insults the partisan
chief. And to make matters worse, their communication
completely breaks down. Right. The expedition
had an interpreter, Pierre Dorion, but he had
been left behind to handle diplomatic affairs
with another tribe. Which was incredibly poor
planning. So they are trying to negotiate passage
through the territory of a military superpower,
and they literally cannot speak the language.
They're reduced to basic gestures. Both chiefs
are offered a few token gifts, but neither is
satisfied. The Lakota recognize that these heavily
armed Americans are trying to pass through their
sovereign lands without paying the customary
toll. And the situation rapidly escalates. Very
rapidly. Warriors from the partisan's camp step
forward and actually grab hold of the expedition's
boat and one of the oars. They physically halt
the expedition. And the reaction of the military
men is wild. Lewis takes a rigid stance and orders
his men to present their arms. Clark goes even
further. He draws his sword and actively threatens
violent reprisal. You have 45 guys on a boat
surrounded by an inland empire of warriors, and
Clark is just waving a sword around. It was a
disastrous miscalculation. A violent, likely
fatal fight was only narrowly avoided because
the primary Lakota chief, Black Buffalo, intervened.
Thank goodness someone had a cool head. Truly.
He de -escalated the situation by ordering his
warriors to back off. The Americans were ultimately
forced to surrender better gifts, including a
bottle of whiskey, to finally negotiate their
passage. Wow. They had to camp nearby for a few
days and similar tensions flared when they tried
to leave, which they only smoothed over with
more gifts of tobacco. So the military leaders,
with their state -of -the -art air rifle and
their Jefferson Peace Medals, nearly got the
entire expedition wiped out in their first major
diplomatic test. all because of cultural ignorance
and stubborn pride. They viewed diplomacy entirely
through the lens of domination. Right. Now, if
we contrast that near disaster with the diplomatic
role of Seca Gueya, the difference in strategy
and success is profound. Titan day. Let's bring
her into the story. The Corps spends the winter
of 1804 to 1805 at Fort Mendenne near present
-day Washburn, North Dakota. This is where they
meet a French -Canadian fur trapper named Toussaint
Charbonneau and his young Shoshone wife, Sakagoya.
They hire Charbonneau as an interpreter and Sakagoya
joins the expedition. The circumstances of her
joining are incredible. She is a teenager and
she is heavily pregnant. Yeah, that detail. always
blows my mind. Right. On February 11th, 1805,
shortly after making contact with the expedition,
she goes into a slow, difficult labor. There's
a very specific medical detail in the sources
regarding this, too. Charbonneau suggests giving
her a traditional potion made from the pulverized
rattle of a rattlesnake to speed up the delivery.
Which sounds terrifying. It does! And Lewis happens
to have a snake's rattle among his collected
specimens, so he provides it, they administer
the potion, and shortly after, she delivers a
healthy boy named Jean Baptiste. It is a remarkable
scene. This military encampment bracing for an
arduous transcontinental push suddenly centers
around the birth of a child. And this child,
Jean -Baptiste, becomes a crucial albeit unintentional
element of their survival strategy. What's fascinating
here is how her role is often misunderstood.
How so? Well, the text notes that while popular
culture often mythologizes Sacagawea as this
magical wilderness guide pointing the way...
Like a living GPS. Exactly. Which historians
argue is a huge exaggeration. Her true immense
value was as a translator, and more importantly,
through what the sources call visual diplomacy.
How does visual diplomacy work in this context?
The primary source material explicitly states
that the sight of a woman and her infant son
served as a universal sign of peace to the indigenous
nations they encountered. Well, that makes total
sense. You have to consider the perspective of
the tribe living along the riverbanks. If scouts
see a strange, massive wooden keelboat approaching,
filled with heavily armed men wearing unfamiliar
uniforms, uniforms and carrying bizarre weapons.
Every instinct dictates that this is a war party.
Right, it looks like an invasion force. Yeah.
But if they look closer and see a teenage native
woman sitting calmly among these men holding
a newborn baby, it instantly changes the calculus.
Because war parties do not travel with infants.
Precisely. Her mere presence communicated a peaceful
mission far more effectively than any silver
medal or display of an air rifle. She was a living,
breathing testament to their non -hostile intent.
She dismantled the threat of violence just by
being there. The cognitive dissonance in the
official journals regarding her is striking though.
The sources show that Meriwether Lewis, the man
whose life she was actively safeguarding, presented
a somewhat negative view of her in his writings.
He did. He frequently minimized her contributions.
The journals broadly use highly derogatory terms
like square, a phonetic spelling of a slur or
savages, to describe Sacagawea and the other
indigenous peoples they relied upon. It reveals
the deep systemic prejudices of the era. The
captain struggled to conceptualize a young indigenous
woman as an equal or a vital asset, even while
relying entirely on her grace, her linguistic
knowledge, and the peaceful image she projected
to secure their safe passage. So Sekigawa had
dismantled the threat of violence through visual
diplomacy, but... A keelboat is a massive, heavy,
wooden riverboat, sometimes over 50 feet long,
designed to carry tons of cargo. Navigating it
up the Missouri River against a powerful muddy
current was brutal work. I can't even imagine.
When the wind wasn't favorable for sailing, the
men had to use a technique called cordelling.
Cordelling? Yes. They would attach a long heavy
rope to the mast of the boat. The men, including
York, would literally walk along the muddy, often
treacherous riverbanks, physically dragging this
massive boat upstream against the current. So
they are basically human tow trucks. Exactly.
It involved wading in freezing water, dealing
with deep mud, submerged logs, and swarms of
mosquitoes. York did this backbreaking labor
alongside the illicit military men. And furthermore,
the text highlights that he was a vital hunter
for the group, tracking and killing game to keep
45 people from starting. So he is performing
the intense physical labor of a pioneer. But
his role went far beyond hauling ropes and hunting.
York had a unique and profound diplomatic influence
on the native tribes. He did. York proved incredibly
popular with the Native Americans they encountered.
For many of the tribes in the deep interior of
the continent, York was the first black man they'd
ever seen. Right. He became an object of intense,
respectful fascination. The sources mentioned
that some Native people tried to rub his skin,
thinking the dark color was a form of war paint.
Yeah, that happened a few times. When they realized
it was his natural skin, they were amazed. They
viewed him as a person of great spiritual power,
sometimes referring to him as big medicine. How
did York handle that kind of attention? He engaged
with them directly. Instead of maintaining the
stiff military distance of the captains, York
leaned into the curiosity. That's amazing. He
danced for them. He demonstrated his immense
physical strength, and he fostered genuine, on
-the -ground human engagement. He built actual
rapport and non -verbal communication bridges.
The contrast between York and the captains is
stark. Lewis and Clark are demanding subordination
and telling sovereign nations to bow to a distant
great father, while York is creating genuine
fascination and goodwill. It is a bitter irony.
Here is York acting as an essential ambassador
and performing the duties of an elite explorer.
He is keeping the expedition safe through his
charisma and physical presence. Yet, under the
laws of the United States, the very nation he
is helping to expand, he is classified as livestock.
He is property. Here's where it gets really interesting,
because there is one specific moment in the journals
that completely shatters the social norms of
the 19th century. The vote? Yes, the vote. It
happens at the end of 1805. The expedition has
finally reached the Pacific Ocean. It is November,
and they are facing the beginning of their second
bitter winter. They are camped on the north side
of the Columbia River in an area that William
Clark accurately named Dismal Nitch. Dismal Nitch.
That paints a picture. They were pinned down
by relentless Pacific storms. And the conditions
sound horrific. They lacked food because the
elk they relied on had retreated deep into the
mountains to escape the weather. They didn't
have enough treating goods left to purchase food
from the neighboring Chinook tribes. Their clothes
were rotting off their backs and many were sick
with colds and influenza. It was a breaking point.
So they had a critical decision to make regarding
where to build their winter fort, Fort Klatsop,
in order to survive until spring. They needed
to decide whether to stay on the harsh north
side of the river or move to the south side near
modern -day Astoria. Oregon, which the local
tribes indicated might have better hunting and
shelter. And instead of Lewis and Clark simply
issuing a military decree, they put the decision
to a vote. Which is incredible for a military
unit. Right. On November 24th, 1805, the majority
of the party voted to move their camp to the
south side. And the historical record specifically
notes that both Sagabaya and the enslaved York
were allowed to participate in this vote. Their
opinions and votes were recorded in the official
journal right alongside the white enlisted soldiers.
It is a profound suspension of the prevailing
social hierarchy. In 1805, the United States
was deeply entrenched in chattel slavery. Women
possessed no political rights. Indigenous populations
were viewed through a lens of conquest. Completely.
Yet standing in the freezing rain at the edge
of the continent, those artificial casts were
suspended by the raw, undeniable necessity of
survival. The captains couldn't afford the illusion
of supremacy in that moment. They needed the
consensus of the people who are actually keeping
them alive. Exactly. In that singular vote, York
wasn't property. He was a fellow survivor whose
physical strength and hunting skills were desperately
needed. And Sacagawea wasn't a marginalized outsider.
She was an equal voice in deciding their collective
fate. It provides a fleeting glimpse of democratic
equality in the wilderness. But that momentary
equality makes the aftermath of the expedition,
once they return to the established laws of the
United States, all the more jarring. Yeah, let's
talk about the aftermath. The Corps of Discovery
makes it back to St. Louis on September 23, 1806.
They made it. They have successfully mapped the
rivers, crossed the Bitterroot Mountains, survived
two winters, and returned with incredible scientific
and geographic data. A monumental achievement.
The nation celebrated. President Jefferson reported
their massive success to Congress. The white
soldiers who went on the journey received substantial
rewards, double pay for their time, and grants
of hundreds of acres of land. They were set up
as frontier heroes. So what was the reward for
York? York received absolutely nothing. Nothing
at all. No compensation, no land, and no public
recognition. And more fundamentally, William
Clark flatly refused to release York from bondage.
Despite York's monumental contributions, despite
him hauling boats across the continent and voting
as an equal at Fort Clatsop, Clark rooted immediately
to his role as an enslaver. The contrast between
the Democratic vote at Fort Clatsop and Clark's
immediate return to the rigid rules of slavery
in St. Louis is one of the most jarring contradictions
in the historical record. It really is. The source
text details that York explicitly asked for his
freedom as a reward for his vital services. He
wanted to return to his wife, who is enslaved
by a different family in Kentucky. The historical
records show. Clark flatly refused that request.
He allowed York only a brief visit to his wife
in Kentucky before legally forcing him to return
to Missouri to continue serving him. That's just
devastating. And Clark's letters from the period
expressed frustration with York's insolence after
the trip. Meaning York had recognized his own
immense worth on the frontier and was now demanding
basic human dignity. Yes. Ten years after the
expedition ended. York was still enslaved, working
as a hired -out wagoner for the Clark family.
It is highly unlikely he ever saw his wife again.
And regarding Sacagawea, the text indicates she
received nothing official either. No pay, no
land grants. Nothing. Clark did have a higher
personal regard for her than Lewis did, and he
later provided some educational support in St.
Louis for her son, John Baptiste. He did. But
Sacagawea herself died young, around 1812, at
Fort Manuel in what is now South Dakota, just
a few years after the expedition concluded. If
we connect this to the bigger picture, the aftermath
of the expedition highlights the dual nature
of American expansion during that era. How do
you mean? Well, it was an incredible feat of
physical endurance, genuine scientific data collection,
and mapping. But that entire enterprise was structurally
built upon a foundation of unfree labor and the
intent to displace indigenous populations. There
is a detail in the sources regarding York's later
life that is heavily debated by historians, but
I find it fascinating to consider. Oh, the Zena
Leonard account. Yes. Clark claimed he eventually
freed York and set him up with a drayage business,
Hauling Goods, and that York died of cholera.
But in the 1830s, a white fur trapper named Zenas
Leonard reported meeting a black man living in
modern -day Wyoming. Right. The trapper reported
that this man was living as a highly respected
chief among the Native Americans, specifically
the Crow Tribe. And this man claimed he had first
come west with Lewis and Clark. While the veracity
of that account is debated, It represents a powerful
historical concept. The idea that Yorick, after
being denied his freedom and his family by the
nation he helped expand, eventually returned
to the wilderness, to the people who had viewed
him with awe and respect as big medicine, and
lived out his days as a free man and a leader.
It speaks to the enduring search for agency within
these restrictive historical narratives. This
brings us to a major question. How did this incredibly
complex, morally fraught reality, filled with
diplomatic blunders, forced labor, and reliance
on indigenous teenage mothers, get flattened
into the simple, clean, heroic textbook version
we all learned in school? Right, the painting
you mentioned at the start. Exactly. That requires
looking at the educational legacy of the journals
themselves. The process of historical erasure
here is a story in itself. First, it is important
to understand that the immediate aftermath of
the expedition did not result in an explosion
of fame. Wait, really? Yeah, for much of the
19th century, Lewis and Clark were largely forgotten
by the general public. The sources note that
references to the expedition scarcely even appeared
in history books during the 1876 United States
Centennial celebrations. How does the defining
mapping expedition of the century get forgotten
for almost a hundred years? A huge part of that
is due to the intense struggle to get the actual
raw journals published. Oh, the paperwork. Lewis
and Clark returned with massive stacks of handwritten
manuscripts filled with daily weather logs, navigational
data, and botanical descriptions. Right. And
they struggled to synthesize it into a readable
format. Meriwether Lewis suffered from severe
depression and died by suicide in 1809 before
the work was finished. That's tragic. And Clark,
who was a soldier and an administrator, not a
writer, had to find someone else to prepare the
journals. eventually persuaded a prominent banker
and literary figure named Nicholas Biddle to
edit them. What does Biddle do with the manuscripts?
Because giving a banker control over the defining
scientific document of the era seems risky? It
was. Biddle finally published a two -volume history
in 1814, but his editorial choices fundamentally
altered the legacy of the expedition for the
next century. How so? Biddle was catering to
the literary market of the time, which favored
clean, heroic narratives of frontier adventure
over dense, bureaucratic scientific data. So
he omitted almost all of the material related
to their discoveries in flora and fauna. He cut
out the hard science. He strips out the varied
data Jefferson sent them to collect. Furthermore,
he heavily smoothed over the complex realities
of their daily survival. The nuanced dynamics
of Sacagawea's translations, York's labor, and
the near disasters with tribes were minimized
to present a more traditional romanticized story
of military captains conquering a passive wilderness.
Because Biddle's edited version was the only
printed account widely available for the next
90 years, the true depth of the expedition was
entirely lost. Completely lost. The sources point
out that the expedition described over 200 new
plant and animal species. We are talking about
the first scientific descriptions of the grizzly
bear, the prairie dog, the promhorn antelope,
and the Osage orange tree. Incredible discoveries.
But many of those species were later unknowingly
rediscovered and named by other scientists who
received the historical credit. just because
Lewis and Clark's original meticulous data was
sitting unpublished in a vault. Exactly. The
public also didn't realize they had created 140
detailed maths or documented encounters with
over 70 distinct tribal nations. It wasn't until
1904 when historian Reuben Goldthwaitz published
the original journals and then a century later
in 2004 when Gary E. Moulton compiled the definitive
comprehensive set of all related documents that
the public finally saw the raw unedited data.
And it was during that 1904 period, which coincided
with massive national events like the Louisiana
Purchase Exposition in St. Louis and the Lewis
and Clark Centennial Exposition in Portland,
that the modern myth was truly cemented. So the
data was finally out there, but the spin was
already established. Right. The raw journals
were available, but the public celebration focused
heavily on elevating the captains as the ultimate
American pioneers. They were celebrated almost
entirely as symbols of United States expansion
and personal adventure. The imperial goals of
the mission. The mapping, the claiming of sovereignty
under the Discovery Doctrine, became the defining
narrative. They were retroactively turned into
the mascots of manifest destiny. Yes. You see
this reflected in the modern educational and
physical footprint. We have the Lewis and Clark
Public School District in North Dakota. State
highways 1804 and 1806 are named after their
travel years. There is even a disease -resistant
cultivar of the American elm tree named the Lewis
and Clark Elm. The physical landscape reflects
the sanitized narrative. Because of that delayed
publication of the full journals for an entire
century, students were not taught about the nuanced
realities of Sakagoya's visual diplomacy or York's
backbreaking labor in the keelboats. They were
written out of the main script relegated to footnotes.
It really makes you think. Is it fair to say
that history isn't just what happened, but who
gets to edit the journals? I think that is a
perfect way to put it. By choosing to omit the
complex science and the reliance on marginalized
figures, Biddle shaped the American consciousness
of the frontier. Today, however, modern students
are finally inheriting the complete legacy. Which
is so important. With access to the unedited
daily entries through the Moulton compilation,
The narrative shifts. It ceases to be just a
story of two captains. It becomes a highly detailed
account of indigenous alliances, the realities
of forced labor, rich botanical discovery, and
incredibly messy collaborative human survival.
This raises an important question regarding how
we teach the concept of exploration today. What
do you mean? Well, do we continue to teach it
as the triumph of singular heroic individuals
charting an empty map? or do we teach it as it
actually occurred, as the collaborative survival
of a diverse group of people, many of whom were
coerced or enslaved, relying entirely on the
existing knowledge, food, and grace of the indigenous
populations who had lived there for millennia?
Right. You cannot discover a river if there is
already a thriving nation of people living on
its banks who have to show you how to navigate
its currents. While an enslaved black man pulls
your boat through the mud. And an indigenous
woman translates the directions. Exactly. The
raw journals force us to confront the uncomfortable
realities of history alongside the remarkable
feats of endurance. So to recap the scope of
what we've covered today, we started with the
imperial top -down mandate of President Jefferson
and his captains. These were military men armed
with peace medals and a rapid -fire Austrian
air rifle, fully expecting to march into the
continent and dictate terms. But we saw how that
rigid approach nearly resulted in the destruction
of the expedition during their encounter with
the Lakota. We examined how the true survival
of the Corps of Discovery rested on the realities
navigated by Sakawea, whose presence with her
infant son communicated peace universally. And
York, whose immense physical labor pulling keel
boats and whose charismatic diplomacy built connections
the captains could never achieve. We looked at
the aftermath. where the military leaders were
rewarded with land and wealth, while York was
forced back into slavery by Clark, and Secagawea
faded from official recognition. And we traced
how Nicholas Biddle's editing of the journals
erased the deep scientific data and the complex
human dynamics for nearly a century, shaping
the simplified myth we see in textbooks today.
The full historical record demands a much closer,
more critical reading of the original sources.
So what does this all mean? Consider the physical
landscape of America today. Think about the highways
you drive on, the public schools in your communities,
the rivers and mountains stretching across the
continent, so many of them named in honor of
Lewis and Clark. The modern map is a direct reflection
of that 1904 mythology. If the maps of the American
West were redrawn today, not to reflect the men
who signed the commissions or the captains who
held the pens, but to accurately reflect the
actual distribution of physical labor, the day
-to -day mechanics of survival, and the on -the
-ground diplomacy that made the 1804 journey
physically possible, whose names would be printed
across those mountains and rivers. It challenges
the very foundation of how we memorialize the
past. Thank you for joining us on this deep dive.
Keep questioning the standard narratives and
always look closely at the margins of every historical
text you encounter. That is usually where the
true mechanics of history are hiding.