The Importance Of The Lewis And Clark Expedition

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The Lewis and Clark expedition was extremely important to the United State’s growth and changed the future of our country. Lewis and Clark set out to accomplish their objectives which includes exploring the upper Missouri, locate the Northwest passage, establish friendly relations with the indians, notify the indians the land is now owned by the United States, identify natural resources, and map the territory, after they completed preparations such as training and gathering supplies. All in all many events had to fall into place for the Corps of discovery to take place and make it back successfully. The Lewis and Clark expedition would never had happened without Thomas Jefferson; the 3rd president of the United States of America from 1801-1809. …show more content…
The first step was to establish a leader on the expedition. Jefferson had no better option than to turn to his trustworthy friend and private secretary named Meriwether Lewis.(Bredenberg, 2000). Lewis was 29 years old and well educated, especially in botany and medicine. Lewis was also known for being a city slicker and keeping to himself most of the time. Lewis went on to recruit his good friend William Clark. Clark was the oldest member of the expedition at 33 years old. He was a lieutenant in the army but was referred to as co-captain of the expedition.(Lewis and Clark expedition facts, 2017). Clark was an outdoorsman for his entire life and excelled at cartography, the making of maps. Another distinct difference between Lewis and Clark is Clark was out going.(Edwin, 1996). Now that the leaders of the expedition were determined, they needed to find several more members. When looking for members there were several factors taken into consideration. First of all the expedition was to be a military mission, so the men needed to be discipled and experienced. Certain qualifications that were prefered is that the men were single and orphans. The reason for this is so the men wouldn’t miss their family and not focus on the expedition. Also a requirement is that the men knew how to swim and had a special ability that they could contribute to the expedition. The expedition was to be a military mission where misbehaving would not be tolerated. (Bredenberg,
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