Meriwether Lewis Quotes
Until such measures are taken by our government as will effectually prohibit all [British] intercourse or traffic [with the Sioux], the Citizens of the United States can never enjoy, but partially, those important advantages which the navigation of the Missouri now presents …. the Sioux will be made to feel their dependence on the will of our government for their supplies of merchandise, and in the course of two or three years, they may probably be reduced to order without the necessity of bloodshed.
if trade between the British and the Sioux were terminated The essential difference between the British and American interests were that the Hudson Bay Company—the English authority in Canada—was generally interested in short term commercial profits from trading including guns and alcohol while the Americans wanted pacification so that the Westward expansion and growth of the country could move forward. To the Americans at the time, it was a forgone conclusion that the few Indians would have to share their land with the more numerous whites. The different between doves and hawks at the time was how. The hawks wanted to simply drive the Indians out. The doves like Meriwether wanted to develop a trading dependency on America for modern goods. Therefore, the problem boiled down to making America the sole supplier of most goods. The strategy did not work as the bloody history of relations with the Sioux will attest.
Meriwether Lewis, 1774-1809, Secretary to President Thomas Jefferson, Naturalist and Explorer, Governor of the Louisiana Territory, Report to President Thomas Jefferson, 1805
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Large wagon trains of settlers crossed the content on their way to the Oregon Territory. The Sioux Indians whose land the wagon trains had to pass through often attacked the wagon trains in a vain effort to discourage others from passing through the area. The Sioux believed that the large wagon trains frightened the buffalo away, which was probably not a significant factor in the diminishing of the buffalo herds. The Indians and white hunters both over-hunted the buffalo which became few in numbers. With modern wildlife management Buffalo are not only back but are plentiful and being raised for their lean meat which has become a delicacy.
The Indians did not have the wheel when the whites came, but soon there were wagons, stage coaches and railroads.
With different concepts of land ownership Europeans and Indians were at odds over purchases from the earliest times. This was the first of the many efforts to eliminate problems of contention with Native Americans over land.
The months later, Colorado “volunteers” attacked a Cheyenne village flying and American and White flag, killing the women and children at what would come to be known as the Sand Creek Massacre.
Maury helped organize the Thomas Walker expeditions. These were precursors to the Jefferson organized Lewis and Clark expedition later.
This was the beginning of the Jeffersonian effort culminating in the Corps of Discovery and the Lewis & Clark Expedition. Presidential, confidential memoranda to the Congress were more common then than now when they have become a rarity.
The French had a much different agenda in the new world than the British who wanted to create residential colonies. The French were more interested in trade—not in establishing permanent colonies. The result was that the French were in many ways better trading partners for the Indians than the English. They came without women, intermarried among the Indians and learned the languages; they did not contest for land, and they paid the Indians more for pelts and furs than the English were willing to. At the same time they exacerbated conflicts with the colonists, and encouraged Indian attacks on settlers as that kept competition out. They were not above giving Indians alcohol and encouraging them to rob the furs and/or kill their English competitors. So on two levels, they had to be removed. See the military view of Robert Rogers: {614122}.
First Indian to hold the position
Meriwether Lewis was an American explorer, soldier, politician, and public administrator, best known for his role as the leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery, with William Clark. Their mission was to explore the territory of the Louisiana Purchase, establish trade with, and sovereignty over the natives near the Missouri River, and claim the Pacific Northwest and Oregon Country for the United States before European nations. They also collected scientific data, and information on indigenous nations. President Thomas Jefferson appointed him Governor of Upper Louisiana in 1806. He died of gunshot wounds in what was either a murder or suicide, in 1809. The Louisiana Purchase was not made official until July 1803, Jefferson still requested Congress to fund the expedition in January of the same year.
