The hard evidence of the origins of the Lewis and Clark Expedition sit on bookshelves at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s residence near Charlottesville, Virginia. The books, maps, travelers’ accounts, catalogs, and reports about the American West in Jefferson’s library reflect his intense focus on the region and his powerful curiosity. Looking west from Monticello, Jefferson wondered what could be learned from the continent that lay beyond frontier American settlements. His list of queries spanned an impressive range, including questions about geography, natural history, Native American cultures, natural resource wealth, and the possibility of a Northwest Passage across the continent.
By the beginning of the nineteenth century and his election to the presidency, Jefferson had been studying and thinking about the American West for more than two decades. He embraced the Enlightenment, a way of understanding nature and the world that emphasized empirical knowledge and rational thought. To know about the West, Jefferson knew, meant exploring, measuring, and gathering information firsthand. It required investigations on the ground to confirm or change impressions he had gained from his reading.
By the 1780s, Jefferson believed the opportunity ripe for sponsoring an exploration of the western regions. He approached George Rogers Clark in 1783, not long after the peace treaty with Britain determined the western boundary of the new nation. Suggesting that the experienced war hero Clark lead an expedition to investigate the western half of the continent, Jefferson explained: “Some of us have been talking here in a feeble way of making the attempt to search that country. . . . How would you like to lead such a party?” Clark said no, wondering whether a large party “might not alarm the Indian Nations they pass through.” He suggested sending “three or four young Men . . . at a Trifling Expence.”
Three years later, while in Paris as America’s representative to France, Jefferson had another opportunity to get someone on the ground in the West. John Ledyard, adventurer and veteran of James Cook’s third voyage to the Northwest Coast, proposed to traverse North America from the Pacific Coast to the Mississippi River Valley on foot, with minimal provisions. Ledyard’s idea was fanciful, but it intrigued Jefferson and disclosed his continuing interest in exploring the West. Perhaps mercifully, the Russians squelched Ledyard’s plan when they denied him permission to cross Siberia.
By 1792, increasing evidence that Britain and perhaps other nations had interest in laying claims to western lands prompted Jefferson to talk fellow members of the American Philosophical Society into offering a thousand-guinea prize for anyone who would trek across the continent and bring back “satisfactory proof of having crossed to the South Sea” by way of the Missouri River. No one responded, but Jefferson persisted and gathered more financial support. He pursued French botanist Andre Michaux to carry out the expedition. Writing to Michaux in 1793, Jefferson offered him “certain sums of money for your encouragement to explore the country along the Missouri, & thence Westwardly to the Pacific ocean” and return with detailed observations and information about the lands, resources, indigenous people, and more. Politics blocked the plan, however. French political intrigue in America stirred up partisan conflicts among American leaders, and one casualty was Michaux’s planned exploration.
© William L. Lang, 2004
