Lewis and Clark Matter :: History Expeditions Essays

Lewis and Clark Matter Amid all the hoopla, it’s easy to lose sight of the expedition’s true significance As the Lewis and Clark bicentennial approaches—the Corps of Discovery set out from Camp Dubois at the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers on May 14, 1804—all the signs of a great cultural-historical wallow are in place. Hundreds of Lewis and Clark books are flooding the market—everything from The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition to Gary Moulton’s magnificent 13-volume edition of the expedition’s journals, to cookbooks, coloring books and trail guides. A gift catalog from Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello offers stuffed versions of a prairie dog, a bison and a Newfoundland dog made to look like Seaman, the animal that accompanied Lewis on the trip. You can even order dolls of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, Sacagawea and York "with detailed removable clothing." There are Corps of Discovery television documentaries, an IMAX movie and dozens upon dozens of Internet Web sites. There are Lewis and Clark conferences, museum exhibitions and trail rides. Last summer Harley-Davidson motorcycle riders drove parts of the trail. When Harley hogs discover Lewis and Clark, you know something big is going on! Now I would be the last person to dump mashed potatoes on all of this; after all, I’ve written four books about the expedition. Much of this bicentennial celebration is good, clean family fun that’s both informative and entertaining. But in all this hoopla I fear that we may miss the underlying significance of the Lewis and Clark story and the chance to connect these early explorers to the larger and richer stories of our past. On the road with Thomas Jefferson’s Corps of Discovery, or even standing alongside the trail as they pass by, we meet ourselves, and more important, we meet people who are not ourselves. Not the first Lewis and Clark were not the first white men to cross the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific north of Mexico. (Scottish fur trader Alexander Mackenzie crossed Canada a decade earlier.) Nor did they visit places not already seen and mapped by generations of native people. You could even say that Lewis and Clark began the American invasion of the West, which aimed at making it safe for cows, corn and capital at the expense of bison, prairie grasses and cultures not fitting the expansionist agenda. If we want to be hard edged, we could even make a case that the Lewis and Clark story is a mainstay of the same shelf-worn narrative that glorifies and justifies the American conquest and dispossession of the North America natives.