The Journals of Lewis and Clark (1804-1806)
In 1804, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set out to boat and walk from the Mississippi River to the Pacific, exploring part of the territory the United States had secured with the Louisiana Purchase.
In the brief selections you will be reading, you will notice the kinds of information that they gathered for Jefferson. In addition, perhaps the first thing you will notice when reading the selections from the journals of the Lewis and Clark expedition is that William Clark was probably the worst speller in history. But his practice of spelling out words he knew phonetically has proved a boon to scholars who wish to trace the transformation from English patterns of speech to the American "twang" which now differentiates the two cultures.
- Questions to Consider:
- 1) What sorts of information did Lewis and Clark record in their entries? Is there a difference between the kind of information that each records? To what might you attribute this?
- 2) What did Lewis and Clark hope to find, and how is that reflected in their journals? What did they not find?
- 3) Pay some attention to the phonetic spellings in Clark's entries, such as "Sperits" (spirits) and "eate" (ate), and in Lewis's, such as "mockersons" (moccasins). What can you learn about their accents from the way they spell these words?
- Further Readings and Resources:
- Harvard University's Peabody Library of Archaeology and Ethnology has an online exhibit, "The Ethnography of Lewis and Clark: Native American Objects and the American Quest for Commerce and Science," which examines the significance of the expedition.
- The National Park Service's site on the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail has some information about this route which passes through eleven states: Iowa, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, Oregon, South Dakota and Washington.
- Lucid Interactive has very nice biographical and informative websites about Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.
- The National Archives has a worksheet page examining, using historical documents, how the Constitution supported President Thomas Jefferson in the purchase and exploration of of the Louisiana Territory.
- An excerpt from C. R. Gibbs's Black Explorers gives a lot of information about the black member of the Corps of Discovery, Clark's slave named York.
- North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan has a website with many resources concerning Lewis and Clark in North Dakota.
Prepared by Professor Catherine Lavender for Honors 502 (American Frontiers and Borderlands), Department of History, The College of Staten Island of The City University of New York. Send email to lavender@postbox.csi.cuny.edu
Last modified: Monday, 25 September 2000.