First Across the Continent The story of the exploring expedition of Lewis and Clark in 1804-5-6 , livre ebook

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pubOne.info present you this new edition. The people of the young Republic of the United States were greatly astonished, in the summer of 1803, to learn that Napoleon Bonaparte, then First Consul of France, had sold to us the vast tract of land known as the country of Louisiana. The details of this purchase were arranged in Paris (on the part of the United States) by Robert R. Livingston and James Monroe. The French government was represented by Barbe-Marbois, Minister of the Public Treasury.

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	06 novembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819930532
Langue	English

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FIRST ACROSS THE CONTINENT
The Story of The Exploring Expedition of Lewisand Clark in 1804-5-6
By Noah Brooks
Chapter I — A Great Transaction in Land
The people of the young Republic of the UnitedStates were greatly astonished, in the summer of 1803, to learnthat Napoleon Bonaparte, then First Consul of France, had sold tous the vast tract of land known as the country of Louisiana. Thedetails of this purchase were arranged in Paris (on the part of theUnited States) by Robert R. Livingston and James Monroe. The Frenchgovernment was represented by Barbe-Marbois, Minister of the PublicTreasury.
The price to be paid for this vast domain wasfifteen million dollars. The area of the country ceded was reckonedto be more than one million square miles, greater than the totalarea of the United States, as the Republic then existed. Roughlydescribed, the territory comprised all that part of the continentwest of the Mississippi River, bounded on the north by the Britishpossessions and on the west and south by dominions of Spain. Thisincluded the region in which now lie the States of Louisiana,Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, parts of Colorado, Minnesota, theStates of Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Wyoming, apart of Idaho, all of Montana and Territory of Oklahoma. At thattime, the entire population of the region, exclusive of the Indiantribes that roamed over its trackless spaces, was barely ninetythousand persons, of whom forty thousand were negro slaves. Thecivilized inhabitants were principally French, or descendants ofFrench, with a few Spanish, Germans, English, and Americans.
The purchase of this tremendous slice of territorycould not be complete without an approval of the bargain by theUnited States Senate. Great opposition to this was immediatelyexcited by people in various parts of the Union, especially in NewEngland, where there was a very bitter feeling against the primemover in this business, — Thomas Jefferson, then President of theUnited States. The scheme was ridiculed by persons who insistedthat the region was not only wild and unexplored, but uninhabitableand worthless. They derided “The Jefferson Purchase, ” as theycalled it, as a useless piece of extravagance and folly; and, inaddition to its being a foolish bargain, it was urged thatPresident Jefferson had no right, under the constitution of theUnited States, to add any territory to the area of theRepublic.
Nevertheless, a majority of the people were in favorof the purchase, and the bargain was duly approved by the UnitedStates Senate; that body, July 31, 1803, just three months afterthe execution of the treaty of cession, formally ratified theimportant agreement between the two governments. The dominion ofthe United States was now extended across the entire continent ofNorth America, reaching from the Atlantic to the Pacific. TheTerritory of Oregon was already ours.
This momentous transfer took place one hundred yearsago, when almost nothing was known of the region so summarilyhanded from the government of France to the government of theAmerican Republic. Few white men had ever traversed those tracklessplains, or scaled the frowning ranges of mountains that barred theway across the continent. There were living in the fastnesses ofthe mysterious interior of the Louisiana Purchase many tribes ofIndians who had never looked in the face of the white man.
Nor was the Pacific shore of the country any betterknown to civilized man than was the region lying between that coastand the Big Muddy, or Missouri River. Spanish voyagers, in 1602,had sailed as far north as the harbors of San Diego and Monterey,in what is now California; and other explorers, of the samenationality, in 1775, extended their discoveries as far north asthe fifty-eighth degree of latitude. Famous Captain Cook, the greatnavigator of the Pacific seas, in 1778, reached and entered NootkaSound, and, leaving numerous harbors and bays unexplored, hepressed on and visited the shores of Alaska, then called Unalaska,and traced the coast as far north as Icy Cape. Cold weather drovehim westward across the Pacific, and he spent the next winter atOwyhee, where, in February of the following year, he was killed bythe natives.
All these explorers were looking for chances forfur-trading, which was at that time the chief industry of thePacific coast. Curiously enough, they all passed by the mouth ofthe Columbia without observing that there was the entrance to oneof the finest rivers on the American continent.
Indeed, Captain Vancouver, a British explorer, whohas left his name on the most important island of the North Pacificcoast, baffled by the deceptive appearances of the two capes thatguard the way to a noble stream (Cape Disappointment and CapeDeception), passed them without a thought. But Captain Gray,sailing the good ship “Columbia, ” of Boston, who coasted thoseshores for more than two years, fully convinced that a strongcurrent which he observed off those capes came from a river, made adetermined effort; and on the 11th of May, 1792, he discovered andentered the great river that now bears the name of his ship. Atlast the key that was to open the mountain fastnesses of the heartof the continent had been found. The names of the capes christenedby Vancouver and re-christened by Captain Gray have disappearedfrom our maps, but in the words of one of the numerous editors(1)of the narrative of the exploring expedition of Lewis and Clark:“The name of the good ship 'Columbia, ' it is not hard to believe,will flow with the waters of the bold river as long as grass growsor water runs in the valleys of the Rocky Mountains. ”
(1) Dr. Archibald McVickar.
It appears that the attention of President Jeffersonhad been early attracted to the vast, unexplored domain which hiswise foresight was finally to add to the territory of the UnitedStates. While he was living in Paris, as the representative of theUnited States, in 1785-89, he made the acquaintance of JohnLedyard, of Connecticut, the well-known explorer, who had then inmind a scheme for the establishment of a fur-trading post on thewestern coast of America. Mr. Jefferson proposed to Ledyard thatthe most feasible route to the coveted fur-bearing lands would bethrough the Russian possessions and downward somewhere near to thelatitude of the then unknown sources of the Missouri River,entering the United States by that route. This scheme fell throughon account of the obstacles thrown in Ledyard's way by the RussianGovernment. A few years later, in 1792, Jefferson, whose mind wasapparently fixed on carrying out his project, proposed to theAmerican Philosophical Society of Philadelphia that a subscriptionshould be opened for the purpose of raising money “to engage somecompetent person to explore that region in the opposite direction(from the Pacific coast), — that is, by ascending the Missouri,crossing the Stony (Rocky) Mountains, and descending the nearestriver to the Pacific. ” This was the hint from which originated thefamous expedition of Lewis and Clark.
But the story-teller should not forget to mentionthat hardy and adventurous explorer, Jonathan Carver. This man, theson of a British officer, set out from Boston, in 1766, to explorethe wilderness north of Albany and lying along the southern shoreof the Great Lakes. He was absent two years and seven months, andin that time he collected a vast amount of useful and strangeinformation, besides learning the language of the Indians amongwhom he lived. He conceived the bold plan of travelling up a branchof the Missouri (or “Messorie”), till, having discovered the sourceof the traditional “Oregon, or River of the West, ” on the westernside of the lands that divide the continent, “he would have saileddown that river to the place where it is said to empty itself, nearthe Straits of Anian. ”
By the Straits of Anian, we are to suppose, weremeant some part of Behring's Straits, separating Asia from theAmerican continent. Carver's fertile imagination, stimulated bywhat he knew of the remote Northwest, pictured that wild regionwhere, according to a modern poet, “rolls the Oregon and hears nosound save his own dashing. ” But Carver died without the sight; inhis later years, he said of those who should follow his lead:“While their spirits are elated by their success, perhaps they maybestow some commendations and blessings on the person who firstpointed out to them the way. ”
Chapter II — Beginning a Long Journey
Meriwether Lewis, a captain in the army, wasselected by Jefferson to lead the expedition. Captain Lewis was anative of Virginia, and at that time was only twenty-nine yearsold. He had been Jefferson's private secretary for two years andwas, of course, familiar with the President's plans andexpectations as these regarded the wonder-land which Lewis was toenter. It is pleasant to quote here Mr. Jefferson's wordsconcerning Captain Lewis. In a memoir of that distinguished youngofficer, written after his death, Jefferson said: “Of courageundaunted; possessing a firmness and perseverance of purpose whichnothing but impossibilities could divert from its direction;careful as a father of those committed to his charge, yet steady inthe maintenance of order and discipline; intimate with the Indiancharacter, customs and principles; habituated to the hunting life;guarded, by exact observation of the vegetables and animals of hisown country, against losing time in the description of objectsalready possessed; honest, disinterested, liberal, of soundunderstanding, and a fidelity to truth so scrupulous that whateverhe should report would be as certain as if seen by ourselves— withall these qualifications, as if selected and implanted by nature inone body for this express purpose, I could have no hesitation inconfiding the enterprise to him. ”
Before we have finished the story of MeriwetherLewis and his companions, we shall see that this high praise of theyouthful commander was well deserved.
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