Front Matter

INTRODUCTION

T HE exploration of the Mississippi River was accomplished by the French a little more than two hundred years ago. La Salle, in 1682, was the first white man to trace the course of that great stream to the place where its waters flow into the Gulf of Mexico. Landing upon an island at the mouth of the river, he set up the arms of France, and took possession of the country in the name of King Louis XIV.

To the entire region drained by the Mississippi and its tributaries he gave the name of Louisiana, in honor of the king. This region included the greater part of what is now the United States. It extended from the Allegheny Mountains to the Rockies, and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico.

The French made a few settlements and established trading-posts at different places along the Mississippi; but they never advanced far into the country that bordered it on the west. The whole of that vast region remained an unknown land.

Now and then the Indians who visited the French trading-posts would tell strange stories of a mighty river that flowed westward, of a lake whose waters were bitter with salt, and of a strange people in the Far West who rode on horseback and wore armor. But no white man had ventured far enough into those wilds to prove or disprove the truth of these tales.

It had been one of La Salle's dreams that a waterway extended from the region of the Great Lakes to the Pacific Ocean. He thought that such a waterway, once discovered, would afford a direct route across the continent—a route by which China and the East could be easily and quickly reached. For at that time nobody knew how far it was to the Pacific coast, nor was the great width of the western ocean taken into account.

After the death of La Salle other Frenchmen hoped to find that his dream was true; and the stories which the Indians related of a great river west of the Mississippi encouraged their hopes.

At length a French Canadian known as the Sieur de Verendrye determined to explore the western country, and if possible discover the long-sought water-route to the Pacific. He had been for several years in command of a fort and trading-post near the head of Lake Superior, and the Sioux Indians who visited him there had related most wonderful things about the region which they said lay between their own country and the setting sun.

Anxious to be the first to explore that mysterious land, he laid his plans before the king of France, hoping to receive some sort of aid. The king was very much pleased, and was entirely willing that he should undertake the expedition at his own expense. He told Verendrye that he might have the exclusive trade in furs in whatever country he should discover, but as for any further encouragement he must not expect it.

Like other explorers, some of whom have been more successful than he, Verendrye was not to be discouraged. In 1731, with his three sons and a company of Canadian adventurers, he set out for the distant West. Early in the following year the party reached the western shore of the Lake of the Woods, and there built a fort. This was hundreds of miles beyond any other post or settlement that had yet been established.

Here Verendrye remained for four or five years, trading with the Indians and exploring vast stretches of country on every side. In 1738, he pushed still farther west, and built a log fort on the Assiniboine River. Troubles and disappointments, however, were constantly at hand. The presents which had been intended for the Indians were stolen, some of the men died, and others were dissatisfied and rebellious.

In spite of all this, however, Verendrye made a journey southward into the country of the Mandans, and reached the Missouri River at some point now in the state of North Dakota. The Mandans repeated the old story of a great westward-flowing river, and told him that, at the distance of only one day's journey farther west, there lived a nation of men who rode horses and went into battle with their bodies incased in iron.

After suffering great hardships, Verendrye, utterly disheartened, returned to Canada. The work which he had undertaken now devolved upon his sons. With their headquarters still on the Assiniboine, they made various expeditions into the vast unknown region towards the sources of that river and the Missouri. On one of these expeditions they saw the towering peaks of a range of mountains, probably the Big Horn Range, in what is now the northern part of Wyoming.

Returning to the Missouri, they buried near its banks a leaden plate containing the arms of France, and took formal possession of the country in the name of King Louis XV.

The elder Verendrye, broken-hearted on account of his many failures, died in 1749, and a French officer of great courage and enterprise named Legardeur de St. Pierre was sent out to continue the search for the mysterious western river.

From the fort on the Assiniboine, St. Pierre sent a party up the Saskatchewan River to a point considerably farther than had yet been reached by white men. There they obtained a good view of the great mountains to the westward, and gave to them the name which they still bear—Montagnes des Roches,  or Rocky Mountains. This was in 1751. Soon afterward St. Pierre sent out a second party; but it never returned, nor did any news of its fate ever reach the lonely post on the Assiniboine.

Discouraged on account of the many difficulties which he was unable to overcome, St. Pierre returned to Canada in 1753. The French and Indian War was just then beginning, and the exploration of the West was abandoned. For fifty years longer the vast region remained an unknown land, inhabited by wild Indians and visited only by strolling traders, trappers, and French voyageurs.

In 1803, Napoleon Bonaparte, who was then at the head of the French government, ceded the whole vast territory of Louisiana to the United States. The price which he received was fifteen million dollars.

The Louisiana Purchase

The region thus transferred to our government included all the country west of the Mississippi and between the possessions of Spain on the south and those of Great Britain on the north. It embraced the territory comprising the present states of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Montana, and Wyoming, besides a portion of Idaho and the greater part of Colorado, Oklahoma, and Indian Territory.

At the time this great purchase was made, Thomas Jefferson was President of the United States. For many years Jefferson had had in mind the exploration of that unknown land. Long before it had come into the possession of the United States he had encouraged John Ledyard, an American traveler, to undertake such an exploration.

Thomas Jefferson

It was Ledyard's plan to reach the great West by traveling eastward. Sailing from New York, he first visited Paris, after which he journeyed through Germany, Sweden, and northern Russia, arriving finally at Irkutsk, then as now the most important town in Siberia. It was his intention to continue onward to some seaport in Kamchatka, and then to cross the Pacific to North America. But at Irkutsk he was arrested by Russian officers, who carried him back to Poland, and assured him that if he again entered Russia he should suffer death. Disappointed, ragged, and penniless, he made his way back to London, and all his plans were abandoned.

A few years after this, through Mr. Jefferson's encouragement, another effort was made to send an exploring party into the regions watered by the Missouri. A company was actually formed, and placed under the command of Andre Michaux, a famous French botanist and traveler. But before the expedition had crossed the Mississippi, Michaux was recalled by his own government.

At last, however, the time came when the world should no longer remain in ignorance concerning the land that had hitherto been unvisited and unknown. Scarcely had the transfer been made to the United States before President Jefferson had perfected his plans for an expedition thither to explore its rivers and mountains and discover its hidden resources. By his recommendation this expedition was placed under the command of two young Virginians, Captain Meriwether Lewis and Captain William Clark; and before the summer of 1803 was ended a company was formed and on its way to the West.