Meriwether Lewis
1774-1809
American Explorer
One of the greatest explorers in United States history, Meriwether Lewis shared command of the United States Corps of Discovery that explored the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase for President Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826). Sharing command with William Clark (1770-1838), Lewis helped lead his men on a journey of exploration, scientific discovery, and diplomacy that met and exceeded all expectations.
Born into one of Virginia's leading families in 1774, Lewis led a childhood that mingled privilege with frontier hardships. His father, a plantation owner, served in the colonial army until his death from pneumonia when Lewis was five years old. Lewis's mother, a strong-willed woman, ran the plantation, sending Lewis away for schooling. Following his formal education, Lewis joined the army and was eventually assigned as secretary to President Jefferson, a family friend.
While serving Jefferson, Lewis was personally tutored by the president and stayed as a guest in Jefferson's home quite frequently. After consummating the Louisiana Purchase, Jefferson assigned Lewis as commander of a Corps of Discovery whose mission it would be to explore the newly acquired lands, collect scientific specimens, make initial diplomatic contact with the Native American nations along their path, and try to determine the economic potential of the lands they were to traverse.
Although unusual, Lewis chose to share command with his friend, William Clark. Lewis and Clark selected a group of frontiersmen and soldiers to join their expedition and set out from St. Louis in May 1804. In general, Lewis proved himself a capable commander, an excellent explorer, and a fine observer of nature. He gathered thousands of scientific specimens andwrote up detailed descriptions equal to what any trained specialist would have written. However, Lewis was a mediocre diplomat who was often condescending and patronizing to both his Native American advisors and the tribal chiefs he met during his expedition.
Meriwether Lewis. (The Library of Congress. Reproduced by permission.)It is worth noting that very little along the route matched the pre-expedition expectations. The Rocky Mountains were thought to resemble the Appalachians and a relatively easy crossing was anticipated. It was fully expected that an all-water route across the continent would be found or, at least, one that had only a short and easy portage. Jefferson warned Lewis to expect to find wooly mammoths, giant ground sloths, and other such animals along the way, as he believed them to exist in the continental interior. In fact, most of what was "known" about the continent turned out to be wrong. That Lewis and Clarke succeeded despite this lack of knowledge is even more impressive.
Lewis and Clark reached the Pacific in the autumn of 1805, wintered over, and returned to St. Louis in late September 1806 after an absence of nearly three years. From there Lewis returned to Washington where he was received with acclaim by both Jefferson and the academic world.
In the following few years, Lewis seemed to have difficulties adjusting to life away from the frontier. He repeatedly put off transcribing his journals for the scientific community, concentrating on publishing his memoirs instead. He was assigned several posts during this time, filling them adequately, but not with the same talent he had used to lead the Corps of Discovery. Under circumstance never fully understood, Lewis committed suicide in 1809, following a series of arguments and squabbles with several government officials. His later problems notwithstanding, he was remembered by Jefferson in 1813:
"Of courage undaunted, possessing a firmness & perseverance of purpose which nothing but impossibilities could divert from it's direction, careful as a father of those committed to his charge, yet steady in the maintenance of order & discipline, intimate with the Indian character, customs & principles, habituated to the hunting life, guarded by exact observation of the vegetables & animals of his own country, against losing time in the description of objects already possessed, honest, disinterested, liberal, of sound understanding and fidelity to truth so scrupulous that whatever he should report would be as certain as if seen by ourselves, with all these qualifications as if selected and implanted by nature in one body, for this express purpose, I could have no hesitation in confiding the enterprize to him."
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