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Lewis and Clark Expedition
Meriwether Lewis was born August 18, 1774 Virginia near [Charlottesville]. He was very interested in nature. This turned out to be important because President Jefferson wanted the expedition to learn as much as they could about the plants and animals in the new territory. William Clark was born on August 1, 1770. When he was 15, Clark and his family moved to the Kentucky frontier, in the valley of the Ohio River. When he was 19, he joined the military. It was there, where Lewis and Clark met. They served along the Ohio River.

The Lewis and Clark Expedition started after the purchase of Louisiana. Thomas Jefferson wanted to find a water route to the Pacific Ocean. He told Lewis and Clark to take notes about everything they saw, describe the Indians,and be their friends. On May 14, 1804 the expedition began. There was 50 men and Lewis’s dog. Clark was the person who made the maps. Lewis kept notes on the Native Americans they met and the plants and the animals they saw. By the end of August, the expedition reached the prairies of Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa. Lewis and Clark found an animal in the prairies that looked like a squirrel but without a bushy tail.

They called it the prairie dog. In 1804, the explorers met the Teton Sioux, an Indian tribe, they were not nice to the explorers. On September 25, 1804, three Teton Sioux warriors demanded to trade goods. Later, their chief, Black Buffalo, made a deal with them, he would let them leave if before they left the women and children could meet them.

At the end of 1804, the expeditions reached the villages of Mandan and Hidasta. The explorers stayed there for the winter and built Fort Mandan. An Indian named Sacajewea was a very important person in the expedition. She was very important because she could translate from one language in another. This way the explorers and Indians could communicate. On February 11, 1805 Sacajewea gave birth to her son, Jean Baptiste. When Lewis and Clark left, the chief told them to watch out for the Great Falls. In early June of 1805, the explorers came to a part of the Missouri River where it forked. The group had to split up and when they returned, they would have to decide which direction to go, north or south. After several days, they returned where the river forked and decided that North would be a better direction to go. After a while, they came to the Great Falls. It was much larger than they had expected and instead of one fall it was two falls. Expedition members had to carry their boats and supplies for 18 miles around the Great Falls. In August, 1805, Sacajawea pointed at a hill and called it Beaver Hill because of its shape. A few days later Lewis and Clark see Shoshone women gathering laundry. When they went to their chief, Sacajawea was astonished. Her long lost brother was the chief. Sacajawea helped barter for 29 horses. The chief also sent an old man called Old Toby as a guide. In August, 1805, they reached the Rocky Mountains. They also crossed the Cross Continental Divide. On November 7, 1805 the explorers reached an area where they could see the Pacific Ocean. They reach the Pacific on November 18, 1805. Once they reached the Pacific Ocean, Lewis and his group decided to map out one more fork of the Columbia River, while Clark went to explore a route through Montana. When Lewis went to map some more land, [he and his group] came across eight Blackfoot warriors. The Blackfoot tribe was the most feared Indian tribe. They demanded to sleep in the tents. In the morning, one of the warriors tried to take an explorer’s rifle. The explorer stabbed him and Lewis had to shoot one of the Indians so they could get away.

Lewis and Clark eventually came across each other again and together, headed back to Mandan. They reached it in Mid-August, 1806. There, they dropped off Sacagawea, Toussaint, and Jean. Finally, on September 23, 1806, the explorers reached St. Louis, Missouri. Only one person died in their expedition. They had traveled and mapped about 8,000 miles and described 300 plants and animals. This was a very successful expedition.