Speaker 1: M Hi, s Y s K friends, It's me Josh
Speaker 1: and for this week's s Y s K Select, I've
Speaker 1: chosen how Lewis and Clark worked. A great episode from
Speaker 1: two thousand thirteen. It reveals that the famed expedition could
Speaker 1: have changed the history of relations between Native Americans and
Speaker 1: European Americans, but sadly, the European Americans in charge ended
Speaker 1: up going a different way. I hope you enjoyed this
Speaker 1: eye opening episode about what could have been. Starting now,
Speaker 1: welcome to Stuff you should Know from House Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: and there's Charles W. Lewis Bryant. Ye. I thought you
Speaker 1: were gonna come in to this. Yeah, I thought, you know,
Speaker 1: like I thought about it. You like not chuckle do
Speaker 1: that dumb joke I want. I wondered if I was
Speaker 1: related to um Mr Clark. Oh yeah, yeah, I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna say I am from now on. She like, have
Speaker 1: you heard of William Clark the explorer Lewis and Clark. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well I'm Josh Clark because Clark's the unusual name. You
Speaker 1: might be no, but I mean like his family, uh
Speaker 1: was from the Ohio River Valley. I grew up in Toledo. Hey,
Speaker 1: there you go. I wonder you have an explorer spirit.
Speaker 1: You're a laid back guy. He was laid back yep,
Speaker 1: not like Lewis. He was semi literate. Yeah, I'm fairly literate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the big distinction. It is funny, like, have you
Speaker 1: read some of his verbatim journal entries Clark's or Lewis's, Well,
Speaker 1: both of them, but Clark's way worse. Uh. Yeah, Lewis
Speaker 1: is pretty good writer, I thought, Yeah, but he had
Speaker 1: some weird spellings. To Clark was just like frontier Kentucky
Speaker 1: boy writing in a Yeah. They were a good pair though. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this isn't one of those podcasts where or stories
Speaker 1: where you look back and you're like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: histories really pumped this up and they were really kind
Speaker 1: of like this and like jerks and no, No, this
Speaker 1: was really a great story and they were actually true
Speaker 1: American heroes, you know, one semi tragic. I would say,
Speaker 1: well the ending is pretty tragic. No, but Louis Lewis
Speaker 1: is manning depressive. Yeah, by all accounts. Yeah, back then
Speaker 1: they called it prone to you know, prone to fits.
Speaker 1: But modern people say no, he was probably manic depressive. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I prepped by watching the four hour Ken Burns
Speaker 1: documentary last night. Four hours. Yeah, I thought it was
Speaker 1: two hours, and I was like, oh, I got this.
Speaker 1: And then I got to, uh, the two hour point,
Speaker 1: and I was like, wait a minute, they just hit
Speaker 1: the continental divide. I don't think I'm at the end.
Speaker 1: That's so funny because in the email you you emailed
Speaker 1: me to suggest that I watched it, you called it
Speaker 1: a six part four hour Well they had it on
Speaker 1: YouTube in six parts, but in actuality it's twelve partsious.
Speaker 1: All right, so let's do this. This is one of
Speaker 1: my favorite stories in history? Is it really? Yeah? Man?
Speaker 1: And again I've said this before. Why isn't this a movie,
Speaker 1: like a really good movie? Not? Have you seen almost heroes?
Speaker 1: Right there? You go? No? Alright, So Chuck um Lewis
Speaker 1: and Clark Merriwether Lewis William Clark, pair of um army
Speaker 1: folk turned explorers thanks to a little bit of um,
Speaker 1: I guess serendipity. It would have been somebody else had
Speaker 1: it not been these guys. Because really, the whole idea
Speaker 1: of this expedition, which was called the Core of Discovery.
Speaker 1: It sounds like a soccer team. Um it was. It
Speaker 1: was the brainchild of Thomas Jefferson. Yeah, in the brain
Speaker 1: child of t J. Because he's like, hey, I just
Speaker 1: spot I just doubled the size of our country by
Speaker 1: buying a bunch of land from Napoleon. Do you know
Speaker 1: the background on that, the Louisiana purchase. I know, it's
Speaker 1: the greatest land deal in the history of the world, probably,
Speaker 1: But what what do you mean, Well, it was the
Speaker 1: Frenches land and they were about to get it from
Speaker 1: they were about to get it given to the Spanish. Well,
Speaker 1: the Spanish were west of them, so probably, and the
Speaker 1: French like had barely any presence in this area, but
Speaker 1: it was their land. But the Spanish, had they taken over,
Speaker 1: they would have been a real problem because the Americans
Speaker 1: had access to the Port of New Orleans because the
Speaker 1: French were basically absentee landlords there, and so the idea
Speaker 1: that the Spaniards were about to get it that was
Speaker 1: a big problem. So Jefferson sent some people over to
Speaker 1: France to try to negotiate something, and it turned out
Speaker 1: Napoleon was having all sorts of problems and it had
Speaker 1: been recommended to him by his people, like just sell
Speaker 1: it to the Americans. They're coming over, they want to talk.
Speaker 1: So I think James Monroe was sent by Thomas J.
Speaker 1: Everson with the a limit of ten million dollars to
Speaker 1: do something to buy Florida and New Orleans or New Orleans.
Speaker 1: For the ten million dollars, Monroe found out he could
Speaker 1: get all of the Louisiana territory, which went up to Canada. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Louisiana is really undersells it. It was. It went from
Speaker 1: the Rockies all the way over to the colonies and
Speaker 1: then up to Canada and down to the Gulf of Mexico. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was double the size of our country. Yeah, overnight.
Speaker 1: So Monroe was like, I'll give you fifteen million dollars
Speaker 1: for it. In the French are like sold. So he
Speaker 1: bought eight hundred and twenty seven thousand square miles of
Speaker 1: North America about three cents an acre. And uh, that
Speaker 1: was a chunk of change, though. I think that was
Speaker 1: double what our are gross economy was at the time.
Speaker 1: But it's a pretty good investment. That's a great investment.
Speaker 1: Could you imagine, though, how weird that would be if
Speaker 1: if it had gone a different way. The United States
Speaker 1: could have ended it about the Mississippi River, which it
Speaker 1: did at the time, and just beyond that on the
Speaker 1: other side could have been Spain, right or not Spain,
Speaker 1: but you know what I mean, a Spanish colony. Well,
Speaker 1: it could have been a lot like um Africa, you know,
Speaker 1: like all these former colonies that are just like adjacent
Speaker 1: to one another. But this is a French colony, this
Speaker 1: was a Belgian colony, This was a British colony, and
Speaker 1: I think the Brits controlled Canada and like the Oregon
Speaker 1: territory at the time. Yes, um, yeah, we were all
Speaker 1: sandwich kind of in there together. So we buy from
Speaker 1: the French, we go fight the Spanish for the rest
Speaker 1: of it. And uh, in between all of this, we
Speaker 1: send Lewis and Clark to go check out what had
Speaker 1: just been bought. And this expedition was going to happen anyway,
Speaker 1: but we thought that we were going to have to
Speaker 1: ask for permission to go through this area. But now
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, it was America. And that added
Speaker 1: a facet to this expedition that hadn't been there before,
Speaker 1: which was basically informing the Indians that they were now
Speaker 1: living in America and they had um a new great father,
Speaker 1: which is how Meriwether lew Us put it. How he
Speaker 1: described t J. Yeah, you have a new great father
Speaker 1: who lives in a lodge in Washington, d C. And
Speaker 1: you can come visit him and see, like how great
Speaker 1: it will be to live under his patronage. But not
Speaker 1: really right, sign this treaty. Uh so uh he named
Speaker 1: he was his private secretary. Lewis was his kind of
Speaker 1: personal aid. And he knew what kind of dude he was.
Speaker 1: Maybe drink a little too much, was prone to depression,
Speaker 1: but he he sort of gave him this job to
Speaker 1: help him out. He thought he'd be good for it.
Speaker 1: Don't get me wrong, right, he groomed him for the position.
Speaker 1: But yeah, he he thought it would be. He had
Speaker 1: he had invested interest in the man. And he's like,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be really good for Lewis. Is what
Speaker 1: he needs. He's twenty nine years old, which is remarkable
Speaker 1: to me. Uh good sharpshooter. He said, you pick your partner.
Speaker 1: He picked William Clark, who was his former captain I
Speaker 1: believe in the army, a couple of years older, and
Speaker 1: he looked up to Clark quite a bit. It was like,
Speaker 1: I need you, brother, because you compliment you complete me, right, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, we should probably say there's absolutely no
Speaker 1: evidence whatsoever that Lewis and Clark were ever gay. Clark
Speaker 1: definitely wasn't. Yeah, there's a lot of conjecture about Meriwether
Speaker 1: Lewis was. He courted several women and was rejected by
Speaker 1: all of them. He was a total eligible bachelor, never married,
Speaker 1: never was engaged or betrothed or anything. So of course
Speaker 1: as time war on, people were like, well, he must
Speaker 1: have been gay, and yeah, there's been a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of conjecture, and they have come up with
Speaker 1: the idea that he probably wasn't gay, but that he
Speaker 1: was um by know that he had um something of
Speaker 1: an aversion to women that was not necessarily based on
Speaker 1: any kind of sexual orientation. He just didn't know what
Speaker 1: he was doing and he didn't feel comfortable around women. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we'll get to that. Um. The main goal, well,
Speaker 1: there are a couple of main goals. The main goal
Speaker 1: for Jefferson was, Hey, I want to find this all
Speaker 1: water route to the sea that's really important for trade.
Speaker 1: And also, hey, let's check out this thing. We just
Speaker 1: bought and go out and record as much of it
Speaker 1: as you can. Animals, plants, people, uh, what the heck
Speaker 1: is out there? Basically come back and tell us. Right,
Speaker 1: And Lewis wasn't exactly a slouch when it came to
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff. His mother was a celebrated herb
Speaker 1: doctor um in Virginia. Yes, she knew what she was doing,
Speaker 1: and um, she kind of raised him in the woods,
Speaker 1: so he was he was pretty good at botany. But
Speaker 1: to just kind of further his education and not just that,
Speaker 1: but all sorts of other things that would come in
Speaker 1: handy on the expedition, Jefferson sent him to the American
Speaker 1: Philosophical Association, which was the first learned society in North America,
Speaker 1: and basically he underwent this like grueling crash course of
Speaker 1: everything from astronomy to cartography to geology, medical training, everything
Speaker 1: everything you could you would need. They basically just filled
Speaker 1: Lewis's head with and he in turn philled Clark in
Speaker 1: on a lot of it too. Yeah, also a lot
Speaker 1: of what they might encounter in ways of uh, we'll
Speaker 1: call them Indians for the purposes of the show, because
Speaker 1: that's what they called them, right, And Jefferson's like, and
Speaker 1: don't forget to call me great father. It's awesome. So,
Speaker 1: um Lewis is in Pittsburgh or in Philadelphia getting this training.
Speaker 1: He writes to Clark, says, please join me on this.
Speaker 1: And you were my captain. I'm a captain. Now we're
Speaker 1: gonna be co captains on this. Just so there's not
Speaker 1: any kind of weirdness or anything like that, Like, I'm
Speaker 1: I was chosen to lead the expedition, but I'm choosing
Speaker 1: you for help. But let's do this evenly, which is
Speaker 1: unheard of. And it actually even more unheard of. It
Speaker 1: worked out really well. Yeah it did. Like there wasn't
Speaker 1: any kind of like backbiting or problems and they actually
Speaker 1: ran it a bit like a democracy too. Yeah. In
Speaker 1: the end um the they were kind of described as
Speaker 1: a family, like really really tighten it. I kept waiting
Speaker 1: for the story to go off the rails, but it didn't.
Speaker 1: They really hung together and stuck together. After some initial
Speaker 1: discipline problems once they kind of weeded out, I think
Speaker 1: from summer to fall they kind of weeded out some
Speaker 1: of the bad apples. Well, what's funny. One guy got
Speaker 1: um discharged for mutinous acts and another guy got discharged
Speaker 1: for desertion, but they they this happened in the middle
Speaker 1: of the the first leg of the trip, so they
Speaker 1: had to stay on and so they could get them
Speaker 1: to a place where they could go back. So they
Speaker 1: just had them doing hard labor the whole time. Wow.
Speaker 1: Uh so um, they brought along a couple of people
Speaker 1: of note. One Clark took his slave, York, that he
Speaker 1: had had since he was a kid. He was only
Speaker 1: only black guy and only slave on the on the party,
Speaker 1: right on the adventure party, we'll call it. He was Um,
Speaker 1: he was technically a man servant I guess, like a
Speaker 1: valet or something like that to Clark out eye of
Speaker 1: the expedition. But on the expedition, York was basically just
Speaker 1: a member of the party. Yeah, he was a member
Speaker 1: of the party. Um. He played a really great role
Speaker 1: in diplomacy because, uh, the American Indian was had never
Speaker 1: seen black people before and they didn't have hang ups
Speaker 1: obviously like white people did. So they're like, this guy
Speaker 1: is awesome. He's huge, and he's strong, and look at
Speaker 1: that like amazing black skin that's even darker than ours.
Speaker 1: Like they really thought he was great and I'm you know,
Speaker 1: I'm sure all the white people on the they were like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: look at me, Look what about me, my pale white skin.
Speaker 1: I'm friends with the great father. But he played a
Speaker 1: great role in diplomacy, um, and like you said, was
Speaker 1: generally treated pretty well, um, although he did get sort
Speaker 1: of sort of some of the crap duties well. Plus
Speaker 1: he also got royally screwed over at the end of
Speaker 1: the expedition. Oh yeah, we'll get to that though, okay. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so we have York with Clark, and then um,
Speaker 1: Louis purchased a dog for twenty dollars name saman And
Speaker 1: they used to think it was scanning because these guys
Speaker 1: um handwriting was so bad that for yeah, basically a century,
Speaker 1: like everybody thought it was scanning two centuries. And then
Speaker 1: somebody figured out, well, wait a minute, why is one
Speaker 1: of these rivers called Siemens Creek right, And then they realized, wait,
Speaker 1: that's the dog. That's the dog. Everybody, by the way,
Speaker 1: had something named after them, and they had trouble coming
Speaker 1: up with names for everything, like York, the York Islands
Speaker 1: in Montana, like everybody on that tour had something named
Speaker 1: after them, which is kind of neat. So he was
Speaker 1: a Newfoundland dog and he made it the whole way.
Speaker 1: We're happy to go ahead and spoil that one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is great because they ate dogs. By the way.
Speaker 1: At some point on this trip they had a lot
Speaker 1: of horse. Yeah, they did. So, like you said, they
Speaker 1: started in Pittsburgh, but the official start was really in St.
Speaker 1: Louis in December of UM three and they're like, all right,
Speaker 1: let's hit the river. The Missouri River. Well, that's where
Speaker 1: they assembled camp and wintered and started all their people
Speaker 1: and ran them through like army training and took the
Speaker 1: best of the best. They officially started in May, the
Speaker 1: falling spring. Of course, you wouldn't start in the winter. Uh.
Speaker 1: So they had a big keel boat and a couple
Speaker 1: of smaller canoes and said let's hit the river. And
Speaker 1: they did so. They said let's do it because again,
Speaker 1: ultimately Jefferson was looking for a northwest passage across the
Speaker 1: continent to the Pacific, and he wanted to see if
Speaker 1: you could basically ride a river all the way across
Speaker 1: the country. Yeah. By the time, I think they were
Speaker 1: about forty five people at first. But when they eventually
Speaker 1: whittled it down. The official Corps discovery was thirty three people. Right.
Speaker 1: So they head out and they start going upstream up
Speaker 1: the Missouri River. And it was rough going at first
Speaker 1: and literally pulling their boat out from outside the water
Speaker 1: waist deep by tow rope against the current. Again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're going upstream the whole way to the source of
Speaker 1: the Missouri River. Yeah. So the first Indians they encountered,
Speaker 1: well not the first, the first situation they encountered where
Speaker 1: the Teton, Sioux or the Lakota. And they're actually warned
Speaker 1: by previous American Indians, like, watch out for these guys.
Speaker 1: They're basically the mafia of the Missouri River. Like they'll
Speaker 1: demand payment, they won't. Uh, they'll take your goods. They'll
Speaker 1: control the trade. Yeah. They wanted them to trade exclusively
Speaker 1: with them. Yeah. And they had done this to the
Speaker 1: French in the Spanish for years. Uh. And they I
Speaker 1: think Lewis called them the pirates of the Missouri. But um,
Speaker 1: when they did reach them, it came to a standoff
Speaker 1: over a canoe that they they gave them their gifts.
Speaker 1: The first thing they would do whenever they encountered a
Speaker 1: new tribe was to like give them these trinkets, tell
Speaker 1: them about the Great Father, give them like handkerchiefs and
Speaker 1: things like we come in peace and um with with
Speaker 1: the Teton Sioux, though, there was a standoff over a
Speaker 1: canoe that they wanted and they're like, we're not giving
Speaker 1: this canoe, and it literally came to a point where
Speaker 1: guns were raised and like hundreds of Indians had their
Speaker 1: arrows pointed at them and it was about to go down,
Speaker 1: and uh, chief Black Buffalo intervened. It was like, you
Speaker 1: know what, lead our women and children toward your really
Speaker 1: cool boat that we've never seen and meet all you
Speaker 1: guys and then y'all can have safe passage. So they
Speaker 1: managed to get through their unscathed. But that was their
Speaker 1: first like run in where they were like, man, this
Speaker 1: could go down pretty badly. And luckily that was one
Speaker 1: of just a few I think as far as cross
Speaker 1: country unchartered expeditions, uncharted expeditions go, this one about as
Speaker 1: good as you could possibly hope for. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it was super peaceful. Um, they were than the Core Blood. Well,
Speaker 1: they only shot one bullet in anger the entire trip.
Speaker 1: It's pretty remarkable, man, that is neat. So they hit
Speaker 1: the great planes and that might as well have been
Speaker 1: Mars to them. Um, if you think about it, if
Speaker 1: you'd never been west of I think there's a saying
Speaker 1: that a squirrel can jump from tree to tree until
Speaker 1: it's the Mississippi. And so when they hit the great planes,
Speaker 1: they had never seen anything like it, Like there were
Speaker 1: no trees, there's just planes. It's just planes, and it
Speaker 1: was just you know, they were absolutely blown away by this.
Speaker 1: And uh, there they encountered the Mandan and Minotari or
Speaker 1: Hidatsa Indians, right, and they decided, all right, this is
Speaker 1: pretty good place to build. The camps sit here for
Speaker 1: a few months, and they built Fort Manden, which they
Speaker 1: named after the local one of the local tribes. And um,
Speaker 1: and they were buddies. They had like lived together in harmony,
Speaker 1: right they got they they forged friendships. They were visited
Speaker 1: by locals, and uh, something big happened here in Okay, Chuck.
Speaker 1: So we're at Fort Manden, which is where in South
Speaker 1: Dakota I think Modakotas. They were having a good time
Speaker 1: hanging out, having lots of sex with the local ladies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was a big problem with venereal disease on the
Speaker 1: expedition because like they were having a lot of sex
Speaker 1: with Indians, and the Indians um had syphilis, which was
Speaker 1: something that was unknown to Europeans, and Europeans contracted it
Speaker 1: very easily. So that was a big thing. Well that
Speaker 1: was another thing about Louis too. Apparently like everybody else
Speaker 1: in the expedition had sex with Indian women, and he
Speaker 1: was like he stayed away from it. His journal entries
Speaker 1: about like Indian sexual practices were very like snide. I
Speaker 1: think is away one person put it um. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: just he's an odd duct. I get what if he
Speaker 1: tried to put on loan that he was just you know,
Speaker 1: cleaning up. And they're like, Louis, it doesn't hurt when
Speaker 1: he peas like something's going on, It doesn't burn. I
Speaker 1: don't think he's having sex. He says he had sex
Speaker 1: with all those women. Yeah, burns when I burn, win
Speaker 1: you be doesn't burn when Louis pas. Yeah. So apparently
Speaker 1: burning when you pee like was a big thing unsure
Speaker 1: on this core of discoveries discovered syphilis too, all right.
Speaker 1: So the other important thing that happened here, which is
Speaker 1: I think what you were getting to, was they hired
Speaker 1: a French Canadian trapper named Toussaint Charbonneau. But they really
Speaker 1: what they were doing was hiring his wife. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: Icago way or Icago Wea. I didn't mispronounce it. You
Speaker 1: didn't mispronounce it. There's a lot of pronunciations, yeah, but
Speaker 1: there's only one that's right, and they're the right. One
Speaker 1: is based on the journal entries of Louis Clark everybody
Speaker 1: else on the expedition. Because this was an expedition, everyone
Speaker 1: was expected to like make notes and and yeah, they
Speaker 1: were all journal stuff down right. And Soccagea is mentioned
Speaker 1: dozens of times in these journals because she did do
Speaker 1: some outstanding stuff. Um, and she's mentioned phonetically, so it's
Speaker 1: Socca go wella. Also, at some point it's also mentioned
Speaker 1: that her name is Shoshone for bird woman, and the
Speaker 1: Shoshone Scaga is bird and Wea is a woman, So
Speaker 1: it's Chicago Wea, not Socca joeya. That's right. Well, I
Speaker 1: mean that's a big point. It's true, although the kN
Speaker 1: Burns thing, these historians all pronounced it differently, which was
Speaker 1: sort of frustrating. Well, yeah, there's such a cowaka yeah,
Speaker 1: and then sca joweyah. Yeah. One of the ladies called
Speaker 1: her straight up Sacawa and I was like straight up,
Speaker 1: so we right up. So she was very important because
Speaker 1: A she was a translator. B she was essentially a
Speaker 1: white flag everywhere they went. Um and I don't think
Speaker 1: we said this, but by the time they broke camp
Speaker 1: to leave, she had a baby. Yeah, she actually gave
Speaker 1: birth to her first child. Um. And Fort Manden Jean
Speaker 1: Baptiste Charboneau, yeah, who was pretty cool, grew up to
Speaker 1: be pretty cool. Yeah. Sure, But Scagia, if we say
Speaker 1: Sacajawea too, I think that's fair. Okay she Um, she
Speaker 1: was sixteen at the time and she was married to Charbonneau.
Speaker 1: She was one of two of his wives. Um and
Speaker 1: I didn't hear anything about the other. Um Shoshone woman?
Speaker 1: Did she not go along? I don't think? Okay, all right,
Speaker 1: so um she John Baptiste and Toussaint were a family,
Speaker 1: even though Sacagaia was Tusson's slave wife, like he purchased her.
Speaker 1: But she was Shoshone. And the reason why she was
Speaker 1: so valuable is because the expedition leaders had found out
Speaker 1: that the Shoshone were known for their horsing abilities, and
Speaker 1: the expedition had two horses that they set out with,
Speaker 1: and we're like, we're gonna need a lot more so
Speaker 1: we need to trade with the Shoshone when we make
Speaker 1: it to the Rockies, and we will need this woman.
Speaker 1: And she comes in handy to a spectacular degree in
Speaker 1: this sense. Yeah. And not only was she a white flag,
Speaker 1: she was just great for the spirit of the camp
Speaker 1: to have a woman there. Uh. And baby was a
Speaker 1: charmer too. Oh, of course. You know, you can't pull
Speaker 1: up with a woman and a baby and say like
Speaker 1: we're warring people exactly, you know, apparently across all tribes
Speaker 1: along the plains, if you have a woman and a
Speaker 1: baby in your party, you're automatically not a war party,
Speaker 1: and therefore you come in peace. Yeah, and she was
Speaker 1: also pretty awesome. Charboneau himself was described as quite average,
Speaker 1: but Chicago Ay was the real deal, like one of
Speaker 1: the bravest members of the expedition. And at one point
Speaker 1: one of the boats overturned and they lost We're losing
Speaker 1: a lot of their important records and things. And she
Speaker 1: was the main one that was like boom in the
Speaker 1: water retrieving the stuff, while Charbonneau was I don't know
Speaker 1: what he was doing. Who knows what Charbonneau was doing.
Speaker 1: But psyche Awa was swimming, retrieved the stuff. This is
Speaker 1: after she'd given birth. This is while she's breastfeeding, walking
Speaker 1: scores of miles and in a given week, she was
Speaker 1: pretty tough. Yeah, and you know, we'll go ahead and
Speaker 1: spoil this. That baby, like we said, lived it made
Speaker 1: it all the way there and back. This brand new baby,
Speaker 1: uh to the age of about I guess two and
Speaker 1: a half. And he just stole William Clark's heart. He
Speaker 1: ended up adopting him, he did. Yeah, he adopted him
Speaker 1: and educated him in St. Louis. After she died, he
Speaker 1: adopted both her kids much later. So um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: his name was Jean Baptiste the baby, and he was
Speaker 1: nicknamed Pompey because of his pompous little dancing. Antics like
Speaker 1: Clark found him to be quite the little dancer. Um. So.
Speaker 1: The other way that Sca Gawea was helpful to this
Speaker 1: expedition was that she was a translator. She could speak
Speaker 1: um Shoshone obviously um. She could also speak data and
Speaker 1: so her husband could speak Hadata. So if she was
Speaker 1: speaking to a Shoshoni, let's say they encountered a Shoshoni person,
Speaker 1: the Shoshone would speak to sacagawey she would say what
Speaker 1: they said in Hadata to her husband. Her husband would
Speaker 1: say in French what had just been said in Hadata
Speaker 1: to another man, who would in turn tell William and
Speaker 1: uh Merryweather what had been said in English. That was
Speaker 1: the translation line and Sacagaweya was the pivotal point of
Speaker 1: this as far as speaking to um plains tribes. Point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you would think that's setting it up to say
Speaker 1: in like big problems arose because of it. But it
Speaker 1: really worked pretty well. No, because they're also trained in
Speaker 1: plain sign language to Apparently there was a lot of
Speaker 1: um gesturing that was fairly universal. That a lot of
Speaker 1: the people who were recruited in St. Louis originally were
Speaker 1: familiar with two. So they got along pre well. They
Speaker 1: did all right. So after the Mandon villages, they broke
Speaker 1: camp and went on um to the confluence of the
Speaker 1: Yellowstone with the Missouri and entered the land where they
Speaker 1: started seeing, like when they hit the planes, they started
Speaker 1: seeing these crazy animals they've never seen before. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: important to say they didn't discover anything. Yeah, it's very
Speaker 1: important to say that they were just the first white
Speaker 1: guys to record it for science. Um. But prairie dogs
Speaker 1: and elk and buffalo by the tens of thousands, Uh, antelope,
Speaker 1: all kinds of things to them that were just these
Speaker 1: weird animals. Um. They actually sent a live prairie dog
Speaker 1: back to Jefferson, which is pretty neat. It's hilarious and
Speaker 1: it made it all the way. Grizzly bears they encountered
Speaker 1: those for the first time on this expedition. Yeah. They
Speaker 1: were warned at the grizzly by the Indians and they
Speaker 1: were like we we've hunted brown bear and black bear.
Speaker 1: And then they were kind of like, holy crappy. In
Speaker 1: their journals, they were like, I've never seen anything like this.
Speaker 1: It took ten shots and we almost died. And the
Speaker 1: grizzly bear, to be reckoned with Lewis said something like, um,
Speaker 1: I'd rather fight two Indians than one grizzly bear. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So here we are in early June. Uh. They reached
Speaker 1: the point where the Missouri divided that they didn't they
Speaker 1: weren't told about this, uh fork. So they're like, huh right,
Speaker 1: what should we do here? In equal parts north and south? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it was like a hardcore left and right
Speaker 1: that was uh, basically everyone in the party agreed on
Speaker 1: one direction except Lewis and Clark. They were like, we
Speaker 1: were old school, we like in sync. Yeah. So they
Speaker 1: despite the fact that everyone disagreed, they followed them, and
Speaker 1: that just shows like how united they were. They were like,
Speaker 1: you know what, we don't think you guys are right,
Speaker 1: but we're going to follow you because you are our
Speaker 1: captains and we want to see your faces when you
Speaker 1: realize you're wrong, which actually would happen, but it wouldn't
Speaker 1: lead to like eating each other like the dinner party. No,
Speaker 1: huh um. So they keep mosying along and they're doing
Speaker 1: pretty well. They apparently they got to a point where, um,
Speaker 1: Clark looked down one day, I think it was Clark,
Speaker 1: it was possibly Lewis too. It was Lewis and he
Speaker 1: realized that a little stream at his feet was running
Speaker 1: west and he realized that they just crossed the Continental Divide. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was the mouth of the Missouri that they were
Speaker 1: literally straddling with their feet. Yeah, and they that meant
Speaker 1: that now they had just left the Missouri and we're
Speaker 1: going to hook up. First, they went onto the Snake River,
Speaker 1: but that would take them to the Columbia River, which,
Speaker 1: by their reckoning, would take them to the Pacific Ocean.
Speaker 1: So they'd made it like a substantial amount of distance. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That was a depressing moment though for Louis because he
Speaker 1: he thought when he reached that ridge that he would
Speaker 1: look and see just downhill to the ocean, and what
Speaker 1: he saw was rocky mountains Nevada. Yeah, and he was like,
Speaker 1: oh man, this is not going to be very easy. No,
Speaker 1: we didn't know out the rocky mountains and even uh
Speaker 1: even still, when they finally do think that they see
Speaker 1: the ocean, they still were twenty five miles away from
Speaker 1: it when they finally get to that point, yeah, which
Speaker 1: we'll get to. Oh sorry, that's right. Uh. So what
Speaker 1: they ended up doing they made a mistake because there
Speaker 1: was a shortcut they could have taken. They would have
Speaker 1: taken four days, and instead they had to go work
Speaker 1: their way around the Great Falls of Montana, which took
Speaker 1: uh fifty three days of portage. Uneasy portage, yeah, because
Speaker 1: this portage was like carrying these boats. But also these
Speaker 1: guys were wearing like moccasins and stuff, and they had
Speaker 1: a huge problem with prickly pear, Yeah, which would just
Speaker 1: go right through your moccasin. And it's basically like stepping
Speaker 1: on nails the whole time while you're carrying a very
Speaker 1: heavy boat. Yeah, and all your supplies whiskey and you know, food, salt.
Speaker 1: Uh So on July twenty they arrived at another fork.
Speaker 1: Three forks. They named them the Gallatin for the Secretary
Speaker 1: of Treasury, the Madison for the Secretary of State, and
Speaker 1: the Jefferson, and decided to follow the Jefferson because there
Speaker 1: was more to it. I think, yeah, And I think
Speaker 1: they were like, this is the one that is going
Speaker 1: to head west, so they follow that. I think at
Speaker 1: this pointer, either right before or right after they they
Speaker 1: meet up with the Shoshoni. Have they met the Shoshoni yet? Uh? Well,
Speaker 1: at this point Louis went off by himself, um, and
Speaker 1: a couple of more people to find the Shoshoni, including
Speaker 1: Sakaway right or No, she wasn't there yet. I don't
Speaker 1: think she was there yet. But he did find them,
Speaker 1: and um he basically said, hey, we come in peace.
Speaker 1: We have a camp back here. We want you to
Speaker 1: come hang out at. Well, they were in bad shape.
Speaker 1: Apparently the Shoshoni were. Oh they were. Yeah, they were
Speaker 1: pretty worse for the wear and very docile as a result. Um.
Speaker 1: So he met these women and children and told them
Speaker 1: all that stuff, and they came back and hung out
Speaker 1: with them, and at Camp Soka Goea recognized one of
Speaker 1: the women. Yeah, that Clark. Was that Clark or leew
Speaker 1: Us I think at this point it was both who
Speaker 1: who they came back with and said, hey, we found
Speaker 1: some Shoshoni And she said, hey, that's actually my bff
Speaker 1: from first grade. Yeah, because remember Psychic away I had
Speaker 1: been um kidnapped and sold. So there were still members
Speaker 1: of her tribe living around the rockies and um she
Speaker 1: actually met up with them and with her brother who
Speaker 1: was now chief. Yes, she was like your chief, you
Speaker 1: know it, little sister. Anyway, you're married to a French trapper.
Speaker 1: She's like that guy. Not really he bought me, uh
Speaker 1: which is not funny at all, you know. Um So
Speaker 1: then they proceeded across the continental divide to the main
Speaker 1: village with the Shoshonees and uh hard on a tour
Speaker 1: guide old Toby, which is a great name for an
Speaker 1: Indian tour guide, and said Toby said, you know, I'll
Speaker 1: lead you through these mountains but we're gonna need some
Speaker 1: horses to eat because it's gonna be rough and to
Speaker 1: travel with. Right, But this is where they were really
Speaker 1: eating a lot of horse meat. Yeah, the Bitter Root Mountains.
Speaker 1: It was pretty rough through Montana and Idaho. Uh and
Speaker 1: that was when you know their spirits were never broken,
Speaker 1: but that's when they were dampened for sure. So um,
Speaker 1: when they make it through the Bitter Roots, I don't
Speaker 1: remember why they did or where, but there was a
Speaker 1: point where they said, we can't use these horses anymore.
Speaker 1: I guess it's when they got onto the Columbia River. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: maybe is this where they were eating salmon and the
Speaker 1: salmon was making them sick? Yea. So they come to
Speaker 1: a pierced village with old Toby I believe it, at
Speaker 1: the lead, and um, they're celebrated, welcome, they throw a
Speaker 1: feast for him, and it makes everybody violently ill in
Speaker 1: the expedition, like this salmon is awful, yeah, or these
Speaker 1: roots or whatever. I'll bet it was the roots that
Speaker 1: got them. Yeah, I think it was. Um. So every
Speaker 1: apparently everyone recovered. Um. But they say, okay, well here's
Speaker 1: the Columbia River. We can't really use these horses anymore.
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that's very much overlooked
Speaker 1: in the history of this expedition is just how much
Speaker 1: the core discovery relied on friendly tribes. So like when
Speaker 1: they hit the Columbia River, they said, hey, Shoshone or
Speaker 1: no Nez Pierce friends, will you watch our horses for us?
Speaker 1: And then as Pierce said, yes, yeah, you guys go
Speaker 1: to the Pacific Ocean. When you come back, we'll have
Speaker 1: your horses. Go ahead and brand them so you know
Speaker 1: which ones are yours, and they did. They left their
Speaker 1: horses with the Nez Pierce. Yeah, I mean it was.
Speaker 1: It was kind of the best case scenario story for
Speaker 1: most of the trip. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Uh. And
Speaker 1: that is actually too where they were where they traded
Speaker 1: for dog to eat, which was one of the only
Speaker 1: disappointing parts of the story for me. Um that and
Speaker 1: what happened New York. All Right, So at this point,
Speaker 1: it's uh, mid October, and it floated down to the
Speaker 1: Great Falls of the Columbia which is now Solilo Falls.
Speaker 1: And think about how much easier it was at this point,
Speaker 1: Like they're not going upstream any longer. They get with
Speaker 1: the current true, but it was the Oregon territory, so
Speaker 1: they were getting rained on constantly. I mean it was
Speaker 1: pretty brutal conditions. Um, but you're right. It wasn't like
Speaker 1: slugging through in the summertime, pulling that boat up stream,
Speaker 1: stepping on prickly pear exactly. Uh. So this is where
Speaker 1: on November seven, they thought that they saw the ocean. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's actually a bay about twenty five miles inland, and
Speaker 1: said ocean in view O c I N I love
Speaker 1: the ocean O T E A N. In this the
Speaker 1: same paragraph they misspelled ocean two different ways. Give him
Speaker 1: a break, come on. Uh. Finally, finally, finally, by mid November,
Speaker 1: they strode upon the sands of the Pacific. And this
Speaker 1: is the really sad part is that Merryweather called it
Speaker 1: tempestuous and horrible. Like he wasn't like, oh we made it.
Speaker 1: He was he was depressed, and he was like, this
Speaker 1: isn't like the Atlantic Ocean. This is rocky and beating
Speaker 1: us with waves, like the Oregon coast is rough. Uh.
Speaker 1: And he didn't cotton to it, um. But what he
Speaker 1: did cotton to was being an accurate dude by dead
Speaker 1: reckoning over the course of over. He was only off
Speaker 1: by forty miles in charting this this ride. That is
Speaker 1: pretty amazing. He's pretty remarkable, so U Sokawa Um. One
Speaker 1: of the reasons she signed on, aside from being a
Speaker 1: slave to her husband who signed her on UM, was
Speaker 1: that she wanted to see the Pacific. She'd heard about
Speaker 1: the Great Waters and yeah, and so when they were
Speaker 1: getting closer um, she petitioned Lewis and Clark saying like,
Speaker 1: there's no way you can't let me not come with
Speaker 1: you to see the Pacific Ocean itself. And they let
Speaker 1: her come along. They had word from some local tribe,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure which one it was that there was
Speaker 1: a monstrous fish on the beach, and Lewis and Clark like,
Speaker 1: but they're talking about a whale. We should go get
Speaker 1: some blubber and sea ways like, I'm there, I'm coming
Speaker 1: with you. So they took her along and they all
Speaker 1: got to go see the Pacific Ocean and it was
Speaker 1: personal that first time. Yeah, they got a bunch of
Speaker 1: blubber and oil and stuff from it, um, and it
Speaker 1: died first, So you can keep liking Lewis and Clark um.
Speaker 1: So uh. They camp there on the Pacific for a
Speaker 1: full four months. Yeah. Basically they were trying to two things.
Speaker 1: They were trying to decide what to do, and they
Speaker 1: were technically they were waiting for a boat to come by,
Speaker 1: to say, a letter of credit from Jefferson that said, hey,
Speaker 1: if you're a boat, give these people a ride back
Speaker 1: and we'll pay you like good money. Right. I read
Speaker 1: that they never seriously thought that they were going to
Speaker 1: take a boat back. Well, that was the deal is
Speaker 1: technically they were supposed to be waiting for a boat.
Speaker 1: What they were really doing was just sort of weighing
Speaker 1: their options as to how best to go back and win.
Speaker 1: And this is the really cool part. They put it
Speaker 1: to a vote. They did put it to a vote. Um,
Speaker 1: and then it was a vote that included an African
Speaker 1: American and a woman and a Native American. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it was a whoaa and york both both their votes
Speaker 1: were given equal weight to everybody else's. It was very cool.
Speaker 1: Where to camp set up camp for the winter. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So they elected to cross the river to the south
Speaker 1: Um where they were informed that there was elk and deer.
Speaker 1: You can hold up here, you can hunt all winter,
Speaker 1: And they did and prepare yourself with the return journey home.
Speaker 1: All right, So here we are at Fort Clatsop, Oregon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: named after the Clatsop tribe. They were hunting, They were
Speaker 1: storing up, they were getting their provisions in order, getting
Speaker 1: ready to go back, and they hauled butt on the
Speaker 1: way back they did. Yeah, you know how it is
Speaker 1: sure it Plus it doesn't take as long because now
Speaker 1: you know how long it's gonna take. Yeah, And they
Speaker 1: weren't stopping to record everything they did. Actually we've already
Speaker 1: seen it. Yea been there. Um. But the group wasn't
Speaker 1: as happy. Uh, they were irritable, especially Lewis. He kind
Speaker 1: of fell into a depression on the way home. He
Speaker 1: didn't Did he come out of it at all while
Speaker 1: they were at the Pacific or did it just stick
Speaker 1: the whole time? Well, I mean I think it was
Speaker 1: up and down. Basically. They believe when he was not
Speaker 1: recording in his journal he was depressed. Um, but he
Speaker 1: is remarkable and that he soldiered on like this is
Speaker 1: a manic depressive who was still like getting up every
Speaker 1: day and doing this and like the worst thing he
Speaker 1: did was not journal you know. Um. Actually the worst
Speaker 1: thing he did was on the way back. He stole
Speaker 1: a canoe at one point, which is really out of character,
Speaker 1: and he was described as kind of like cracking at
Speaker 1: the seams at this point, which is really sad. So
Speaker 1: in March six, they started back up the Colombia with
Speaker 1: these new canoes, bartered for some horses, and camped with
Speaker 1: the Nez Pierce for a month, and then they got
Speaker 1: their horses back from the Nez Pierce, those horses that
Speaker 1: those were there before they got back there to the
Speaker 1: next piers. They bartered for some horses and then eventually
Speaker 1: hooked back with the next Pierson camp for like a
Speaker 1: month and got their horses back and got their horses back.
Speaker 1: I think that's your favorite part of this, Mordin's. They're like, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: were you hanging onto this for They also sunk their
Speaker 1: canoes at a certain point and then went back and
Speaker 1: got those to keep keep the canoes from being sent
Speaker 1: down river. They just sunk them and then they came
Speaker 1: back and got them. It's pretty cool. So they basically
Speaker 1: retraced their trail through the Bitter Roots um only one
Speaker 1: retrograde march on the entire journey, which means you have
Speaker 1: to double back basically, which is in itself pretty remarkable. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then on July six they separated, Um back where
Speaker 1: they were at that original shortcut that they should have taken,
Speaker 1: and said, hey, let's send off some different factions here
Speaker 1: and do a little bit more exploring and a little
Speaker 1: bit more recording of things. They're like, we we've slacked off. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: because they were kind of, like I said, they were
Speaker 1: holl and butt on the way home. Um, this is
Speaker 1: where Louis where they ran into their first kind of
Speaker 1: violent episode with the black Feet Indians, and Um, a
Speaker 1: dude shot at Louis. He shot back, hit the guy
Speaker 1: in the belly. Another guy stabbed the black Feet Indian
Speaker 1: or is it a Blackfoot Indian? I think? Okay? And
Speaker 1: Um they rode away like the black Feet did, but
Speaker 1: two of them died, and it was you know, it
Speaker 1: was sad they had gone all that way without violence
Speaker 1: and they finally kind of had to their hand was forced, essentially. Chuck. Also, Um,
Speaker 1: there was another shooting that took place during this period,
Speaker 1: but this one was accidental. Um. Louis was actually shot
Speaker 1: when he was mistaken for an elk while he was
Speaker 1: out hunting with a member of the expedition Pierre Cruzette
Speaker 1: and uh cruzat Um didn't fess up to it immediately.
Speaker 1: He was like, oh, I guess from Indians. It must
Speaker 1: have been those black feet and uh Finally, when they
Speaker 1: searched the area and found no sign of black feet,
Speaker 1: cruise I was like, I'm sorry, I thought you're an elk.
Speaker 1: I'm blind in one eye, don't forget. Yeah, but I'm
Speaker 1: the fiddle player and everybody loves me. And Louis was like,
Speaker 1: we'll just let it go and apparently was really in
Speaker 1: a lot of pain. It hit him in the try
Speaker 1: and like he had a very long and difficult recovery
Speaker 1: for the rest of the time. But it was about
Speaker 1: this time when everybody came back together. Yeah, and this,
Speaker 1: you know, we're sort of simplifying this part of the story.
Speaker 1: But they eventually did all meet back up um pretty remarkably.
Speaker 1: Like I think the story is one of them around
Speaker 1: it a band, and right as they did that, the
Speaker 1: others were rounding the band and they're like, oh, hey,
Speaker 1: it's you. Like it's you out here in the middle
Speaker 1: of nowhere. Uh. So they eventually went back to the
Speaker 1: Mandan villages that is where the Charbonneau family, UM left
Speaker 1: the expedition um and that is where a private John Coulter,
Speaker 1: who was one of the men, said, you know what St.
Speaker 1: Louis like, I didn't like it there. I really like
Speaker 1: it out here. Can I can I go back? And
Speaker 1: they're like, sure, man, go go west, young man exactly,
Speaker 1: and he did so he did. He he was going
Speaker 1: to um work with some French trappers and they had
Speaker 1: a following out pretty quickly after. And then this guy Coulter, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he went off on his own. And they think he
Speaker 1: was the first white person to enter what's now Yellowstone Park,
Speaker 1: and he was. He was the first to recount the
Speaker 1: geysers and even um still there's part of it called
Speaker 1: Coulter's Hell. Oh cool, the guys are area of Yellowstone
Speaker 1: very cool. Uh So reportedly, the only thing they did
Speaker 1: not run out of on the way home was powder, lead, paper,
Speaker 1: and ink, or at least that's what Kiinnburn says. You
Speaker 1: know how they put a little cherry on top of everything, right. Uh. Finally,
Speaker 1: in September of eighteen o six, on the twenty three,
Speaker 1: they arrived victorious in St. Louis and the river was
Speaker 1: lined with people cheering for them shooting their guns in
Speaker 1: the air, and like we should point out everyone thought
Speaker 1: they were dead. Oh yeah, yeah, I mean for a
Speaker 1: long time, like they were sending messages back in Prairie dogs.
Speaker 1: But then at a certain point that just wasn't possible.
Speaker 1: So even Jefferson had given up hope. They've been like
Speaker 1: they've been gone for two and a half years, like
Speaker 1: we're not going to hear from Lewis and Clark again.
Speaker 1: And then they did, and then they did. And UM
Speaker 1: covered about eight thousand miles over two years, four months
Speaker 1: and nine days, discovered I'm sorry not discovered, recorded hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty two animals that they had never seen, hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy eight plants that they had never seen, and
Speaker 1: did a pretty darn good job of cartographing. Cartographing is
Speaker 1: that even a word? Ye drawn maps? UM describing the
Speaker 1: Rocky mountains and Jeffery was like, rocky mountains, I have mountains, Now,
Speaker 1: what are those? And they were like they're snow capped
Speaker 1: even in the summer, and they were, you know, they
Speaker 1: had never seen any of this. They were blown away.
Speaker 1: So um after this, uh, Clark sets up shop in St. Louis. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they doubled everyone's pay, which was nice, and gave everyone
Speaker 1: a bunch of land. Right, you got I think three
Speaker 1: d and twenty acres and some Clark got six d each.
Speaker 1: But the rest of the guy's got like almost the
Speaker 1: rest two people did not get any land or any money,
Speaker 1: and that was Skagwaya and York. Yeah, um, which sucks.
Speaker 1: He had. Apparently York had a difficult reentry into slavery,
Speaker 1: I can imagine. So could you think about like living
Speaker 1: like that and then going back to being a slave. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so he asked um Clark for his freedom. He
Speaker 1: was like, I know I don't get land all the stuff,
Speaker 1: but how about my freedom? And Clark was like no,
Speaker 1: And not only that, he wrote his brother a letter
Speaker 1: and said, you know, York is being kind of uppity
Speaker 1: since he got back. He's not he's not being a
Speaker 1: good slave of and he's having trouble and uh so
Speaker 1: I had to beat him. No, Yeah, that was that
Speaker 1: was the one time I was like, oh man, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's pretty awful. It was like really headed in the
Speaker 1: good direction. And all that had to happen was he
Speaker 1: could have just said, yes, you are free, and then
Speaker 1: it would have been the best story ever. Man. That's
Speaker 1: that's really awful. I had no idea about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then there were there are various accounts that he
Speaker 1: might have been freed a few years later or perhaps escaped.
Speaker 1: No one is quite for sure, even though I've noticed
Speaker 1: kin Burns does a lot of factual stating of things
Speaker 1: that are disputed. Like he just said straight up that
Speaker 1: he was freed five years later, and I read up
Speaker 1: on it, and people like maybe not. Ken Burns just
Speaker 1: does whatever his haircut tells him. I'm a sucker for
Speaker 1: those things, though. I mean, I know a lot of
Speaker 1: documentary filmmakers kind of poopoo him. Yeah. Well, I mean
Speaker 1: it takes a certain interpretation, and that's that exactly Like
Speaker 1: you said, Wait, hold on, I'm really disappointed in Clark.
Speaker 1: I know that stinks. What do you want me to do?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I guess to talk about Lewis. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, Clark went on, we should say to have
Speaker 1: like a very successful rest of his career. Well, hold on,
Speaker 1: you want to go bright side? Bill Clinton in two
Speaker 1: thousand one gave a posthumous um rank a sergeant in
Speaker 1: the army to York. Oh great, So that's kind of
Speaker 1: nice and um way to go. Clinton. Today, there are
Speaker 1: some statues commemorating York. One in Louisville, Kentucky. I think
Speaker 1: there's one at Lewis and Clark College in Portland. In
Speaker 1: Kansas City, there's one. So he's he's definitely been smiled
Speaker 1: upon historically as like a great man and adventurer by
Speaker 1: everyone but William Clark. Yeah, and his family, who was
Speaker 1: like no. So Louis had some difficulties upon returning home.
Speaker 1: He's made governor appointed governor of the Upper Louisiana Territory
Speaker 1: and thinks started out well, but then he kind of
Speaker 1: got into financial trouble. I think his territory got into
Speaker 1: financial trouble, right, and he wasn't going to Washington. He
Speaker 1: wasn't able to complete. The big thing was that he
Speaker 1: wasn't able to complete what he was supposed to do,
Speaker 1: which has come back and write about the whole thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Those weren't published until eighteen fourteen, which is eight years
Speaker 1: after they returned, and even then they were published after
Speaker 1: his death. Yeah, so he was. He was, by all accounts,
Speaker 1: pretty depressed. He was on his way to Washington, supposedly
Speaker 1: to to plead for more money. For the territory. Yeah,
Speaker 1: to kind of he had been called out on some
Speaker 1: finances and he wanted to go clear that up. And
Speaker 1: supposedly he had some some of his journals that he
Speaker 1: wanted to turn in. Gotcha, It's like here, I've got
Speaker 1: this right. And he fell out of favor a little
Speaker 1: bit with Jefferson because of all that, which is you know,
Speaker 1: kind of stinks. It is because he was groomed by Jefferson.
Speaker 1: There was a family friend, like they were friends. So, um, Lewis,
Speaker 1: I guess he's on his way to Washington. He's following
Speaker 1: the Natchez Trail, Natchez trace, and he stops in Tennessee
Speaker 1: at a place called the Grinders in Yeah, near Nashville,
Speaker 1: and that's where he died. He was he was found
Speaker 1: well apparently crawling toward the innkeeper's wife, shot bleeding, asking
Speaker 1: for water, and she just like screamed and ran away. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this is another disputed thing. Was he killed or
Speaker 1: did he commit suicide? Uh, if you google death of
Speaker 1: Meriwether Lewis, that comes up suicide, but it is definitely
Speaker 1: in dispute. Yeah, and Ken Burns straight up said he
Speaker 1: killed himself, and it was very sad Well, the reason
Speaker 1: why it's in dispute because he was shot in the
Speaker 1: abdomen and in the head. It's also an expert marksman. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the suicide people I think reckon that back then
Speaker 1: with guns, Like if you really wanted to do it,
Speaker 1: you would point one at your chest and one at
Speaker 1: your head and squeeze at the same time. Yeah, Like
Speaker 1: I hadn't ye, um, but I mean I said he
Speaker 1: was murdered for money, and what were you gonna say? Nothing? Okay? Uh. Sadly,
Speaker 1: even though this story had a happy ending, it was
Speaker 1: sort of the beginning of the end of the American
Speaker 1: Indian Um. It's a pretty big thing to point out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was a great quote from one of the people
Speaker 1: in the documentary. It said they left his students, came
Speaker 1: back as teachers, and sadly America failed to learn the
Speaker 1: lessons that they had brought back with them, because if
Speaker 1: everything had gone the way of Lewis and Clark, it
Speaker 1: would have been awesome. They were basically like, hey, got
Speaker 1: the great Father, Like we said, we're gonna live in harmony,
Speaker 1: and they believed him and they believed themselves. You know,
Speaker 1: they weren't like pulling one over on him. Uh, and
Speaker 1: it's just sad that it went down a different way
Speaker 1: from that point forward. Basically, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: There was one brief moment when it could have gone
Speaker 1: in a different way. Yeah, and that was it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But Clark and Lewis also, I guess, kind of paved
Speaker 1: the way for the idea of manifest destiny, although that
Speaker 1: wasn't coined until about forty years after the expedition. They
Speaker 1: are always held up as this idea, and this is
Speaker 1: an idea that people subscribe to for a very long time,
Speaker 1: that America was destined to take up the area between
Speaker 1: the Pacific and the Atlantic. It was our destiny, and
Speaker 1: therefore anything that stood in our way should just fall
Speaker 1: before us as we swept outward towards the Pacific Ocean.
Speaker 1: That in justifies the means, and Lewis and Clark was like, look,
Speaker 1: they're they're an example of that. Yeah. Clark eventually died
Speaker 1: of natural causes in eight most of the rest of
Speaker 1: the party sort of just faded into history. Um Jean Baptiste,
Speaker 1: while yeah, he didn't. He became like, Okay, the court
Speaker 1: is not a courtisan that'd be a lady a quartier, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was princes and German Prince with German Prince Prince Wilhelm.
Speaker 1: Okay um and uh, I think the oldest survivor lived
Speaker 1: to be nine, lived all the way to the Civil War,
Speaker 1: and at the age of ninety volunteered to fight for
Speaker 1: the Union. And I don't know if they took him
Speaker 1: up on it or they're just like, we get it,
Speaker 1: your legend, but we got this. Who knows. So that's
Speaker 1: the Lewis and Clark expedition, the core of discoveries. The
Speaker 1: dog lived, the baby lived. Yeah, the dog made it
Speaker 1: all the way. They only lost one person on the
Speaker 1: entire trip, Charles Floyd, and he died early on of
Speaker 1: what they believe was probably appendicitist first Appendix. And uh,
Speaker 1: it's pretty amazing. Yeah, they didn't have to eat each other. No,
Speaker 1: they didn't even eat the guy who died of the
Speaker 1: first appendix. No, just dog and horse. Uh. If you
Speaker 1: you got anything else, No, If you want to learn
Speaker 1: more about Chuck's favorite story from American history, you can
Speaker 1: type in Lewis and Clark in the search bar. How
Speaker 1: stuff works. And since they said search bar, it means
Speaker 1: it's time for a listener mail, I'm going to call
Speaker 1: this diplomatic community. Hey, guys. Last week, the Dutch police
Speaker 1: arrested the Russian diplomat Dmitri Borrowdn in his home. They
Speaker 1: were called in by concerned neighbors because the diplomat was drunk,
Speaker 1: hitting his kids, dragging them by their hair through the house.
Speaker 1: The police arrived as and was witnessed to the brutality
Speaker 1: against the children and also established that Mr Borden was
Speaker 1: extremely drunk. They had no choice but to arrest him
Speaker 1: to protect the children from further abuse. Immediately, the Russian
Speaker 1: government came into action and putin the devil incarnate. If
Speaker 1: you ask me, this is from Jasper, demanded his release
Speaker 1: and apologies from the Netherlands. UH. That same afternoon, I
Speaker 1: started listening to the latest stuff you should know Lo
Speaker 1: and behold it was about diplomatic community as a podcast
Speaker 1: drouwe to a close. I received a news update on
Speaker 1: my phone that the Dutch government had apologized to the
Speaker 1: Russians for the arrest because it violated the Treaty of Vienna.
Speaker 1: Immunity one out again UH. Since then, UNA SEF has
Speaker 1: issued a statement that the well being of the children
Speaker 1: should be more important than diplomatic community. Maybe something will
Speaker 1: finally change, Probably not personally. I hope we declare Borden
Speaker 1: persona non grata, but that seems unlikely anyway. Wanted to
Speaker 1: share this actuality of your podcast with you. It's pretty
Speaker 1: weird that it happened when it did, and luckily it
Speaker 1: wasn't about floods or earthquakes. That is from Jasper in Amsterdam,
Speaker 1: one of my favorite cities. Nice. Thanks a lot, Jasper.
Speaker 1: It's pretty interesting. I love it when things happen like sympatico,
Speaker 1: like that confluence. Yeah. Um, well, if you have a
Speaker 1: confluence email you want to send us, you can send
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