Lewis and Clark expedition Essay

Thomas Jefferson made the land deal of the century by purchasing the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. The Mississippi River Valley was explored by the French, where they then had scattered settlements in the region. France controlled more of the United States than any other European power. By the end of the French and Indian war in 1763, France had yielded all of its territory in North America. The French gave Great Britain almost all of their remaining territory in North American. Spain was now no longer a dominate European power. The British then learned that Spain allied with France, thus leading the cut off of Spain from American by the British navy in 1796. America learned that Spain had agreed to return Louisiana to France in 1801. Americans had been moving toward the Tennessee River Valleys and the Ohio River. There was free access to the Mississippi River and the ports of New Orleans, settlers from America were very dependents on these things. The United States feared that Napoleon Bonaparte, leader of France at the time, would want the Mississippi River and access to the Gulf of Mexico. "In a letter to U.S. minister to France Robert Livingston (1746-1813), America's third president, Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), stated, "The day that France takes possession of New Orleanswe must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation" (www.history.com). The negotiation of the purchase of New Orleans came about when Livingston was ordered to negotiate with the French minister, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand. The American negotiators settled on a price for the Louisiana Purchase at $15 million.
When the land was purchased, Jefferson sent out an expedition led by William Clark and Meriwether Lewis in 1803. William Clark was a military officer and Meriwether Lewis was Thomas Jefferson's private secretary. The Lewis and Clark expedition led over 25 soldiers and 10 civilians up the Missouri River to explore the land. Jefferson hoped that the expedition would explore and find a water route connecting the Missouri and Columbian rivers. The exploration took two years. "At the time, American and European explorers had only penetrated what would become each end of the Lewis and Clark Trail up the Missouri several miles to the trapper headquarters at Fort Mandan and up the Columbia just a bit over a hundred miles to a point a little beyond present-day Portland, Oregon" (www.archives.gov). By 1805, the expedition ventured upon the Shoshone Indians in Montana. A young Shoshone Indian, Sacajawea, helped Lewis and Clark on their expedition as they arrived. They wintered at Fort Clatsop in present day Oregon. The Lewis and Clark Expedition returned to St. Louis by 1806 late in the year. They continued to trade with the Indians. They also set up diplomatic relations with the Indians.
The expedition was a success, and Lewis and Clark promoted Jefferson's belief of that the future prosperity of the country depended on the expansion of farmers in the west. "This Dream for what Jefferson called an "EMPIRE OF LIBERTY" (http//www.ushistory.org).