Meriwether Lewis

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.

Biography

The two-year exploration by Lewis and Clark was the first transcontinental expedition to the Pacific Coast by the United States; however, Lewis and Clark reached the Pacific 12 years after Sir Alexander Mackenzie had done so overland in Canada. When they left Fort Mandan in April 1805 they were accompanied by the sixteen-year-old Shoshone Indian woman, Sacagawea, the wife of the French-Canadian fur trader, Toussaint Charbonneau. The Corps of Discovery made contact with many Native Americans in the trans-Mississippi West and found them accustomed to dealing with European traders and already connected to global markets. After crossing the Rocky Mountains, the expedition reached the Oregon Country (which was disputed land beyond the Louisiana Purchase) and the Pacific Ocean in November 1805. They returned in 1806, bringing with them an immense amount of information about the region as well as numerous plant and animal specimens. They demonstrated the possibility of overland travel to the Pacific coast. The success of their journey helped to strengthen the American concept of "Manifest destiny" - the idea that the United States was destined to reach all the way across North America from Atlantic to Pacific.

Publications

Title	Publication Date	Description	Link
Meriwether Lewis (webpage from Wikipedia)		Medium-length article about Lewis	Link

Images

Portrait of Meriwether Lewis by Charles Willson Peale
from Wikimedia Commons

Events

Name	Date
Meriwether Lewis born	1774-08-18
Meriwether Lewis died	1809-10-11

Expeditions

Name	Begin Date	End Date	Start Head Count	End Head Count
Lewis and Clark Expedition	1804	1806	40

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