WEBVTT - SYSK Selects: How Lewis and Clark Worked 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:04.320 M Hi, s Y s K friends, It's me Josh 0:00:04.320 --> 0:00:06.760 and for this week's s Y s K Select, I've 0:00:06.840 --> 0:00:10.080 chosen how Lewis and Clark worked. A great episode from 0:00:10.119 --> 0:00:14.480 two thousand thirteen. It reveals that the famed expedition could 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:18.080 have changed the history of relations between Native Americans and 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:22.480 European Americans, but sadly, the European Americans in charge ended 0:00:22.560 --> 0:00:25.200 up going a different way. I hope you enjoyed this 0:00:25.280 --> 0:00:29.080 eye opening episode about what could have been. Starting now, 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:34.960 welcome to Stuff you should Know from House Stuff Works 0:00:34.960 --> 0:00:43.720 dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:48.240 and there's Charles W. Lewis Bryant. Ye. I thought you 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:51.360 were gonna come in to this. Yeah, I thought, you know, 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:53.720 like I thought about it. You like not chuckle do 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:56.240 that dumb joke I want. I wondered if I was 0:00:56.280 --> 0:00:59.760 related to um Mr Clark. Oh yeah, yeah, I'm just 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:02.160 gonna say I am from now on. She like, have 0:01:02.200 --> 0:01:05.120 you heard of William Clark the explorer Lewis and Clark. Yeah, 0:01:05.800 --> 0:01:08.920 well I'm Josh Clark because Clark's the unusual name. You 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:14.240 might be no, but I mean like his family, uh 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:20.800 was from the Ohio River Valley. I grew up in Toledo. Hey, 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:24.440 there you go. I wonder you have an explorer spirit. 0:01:25.720 --> 0:01:29.080 You're a laid back guy. He was laid back yep, 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:35.160 not like Lewis. He was semi literate. Yeah, I'm fairly literate. Yeah, 0:01:35.200 --> 0:01:38.040 that's the big distinction. It is funny, like, have you 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:41.600 read some of his verbatim journal entries Clark's or Lewis's, Well, 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:45.559 both of them, but Clark's way worse. Uh. Yeah, Lewis 0:01:45.560 --> 0:01:47.880 is pretty good writer, I thought, Yeah, but he had 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:53.000 some weird spellings. To Clark was just like frontier Kentucky 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:57.960 boy writing in a Yeah. They were a good pair though. Yeah, 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:00.800 and this isn't one of those podcasts where or stories 0:02:00.840 --> 0:02:03.480 where you look back and you're like, oh, you know, 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:05.880 histories really pumped this up and they were really kind 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:09.359 of like this and like jerks and no, No, this 0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:12.040 was really a great story and they were actually true 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:17.880 American heroes, you know, one semi tragic. I would say, 0:02:18.520 --> 0:02:21.640 well the ending is pretty tragic. No, but Louis Lewis 0:02:21.680 --> 0:02:26.680 is manning depressive. Yeah, by all accounts. Yeah, back then 0:02:26.720 --> 0:02:29.919 they called it prone to you know, prone to fits. 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:35.360 But modern people say no, he was probably manic depressive. Uh. 0:02:36.240 --> 0:02:39.120 And I prepped by watching the four hour Ken Burns 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:42.320 documentary last night. Four hours. Yeah, I thought it was 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:45.360 two hours, and I was like, oh, I got this. 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:48.040 And then I got to, uh, the two hour point, 0:02:48.080 --> 0:02:49.680 and I was like, wait a minute, they just hit 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:51.640 the continental divide. I don't think I'm at the end. 0:02:51.760 --> 0:02:56.120 That's so funny because in the email you you emailed 0:02:56.120 --> 0:02:58.880 me to suggest that I watched it, you called it 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:02.520 a six part four hour Well they had it on 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:06.640 YouTube in six parts, but in actuality it's twelve partsious. 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:08.799 All right, so let's do this. This is one of 0:03:08.880 --> 0:03:11.880 my favorite stories in history? Is it really? Yeah? Man? 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:15.680 And again I've said this before. Why isn't this a movie, 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:19.320 like a really good movie? Not? Have you seen almost heroes? 0:03:20.560 --> 0:03:25.680 Right there? You go? No? Alright, So Chuck um Lewis 0:03:25.680 --> 0:03:31.160 and Clark Merriwether Lewis William Clark, pair of um army 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:37.800 folk turned explorers thanks to a little bit of um, 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:41.160 I guess serendipity. It would have been somebody else had 0:03:41.160 --> 0:03:43.360 it not been these guys. Because really, the whole idea 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:47.920 of this expedition, which was called the Core of Discovery. 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:52.640 It sounds like a soccer team. Um it was. It 0:03:52.680 --> 0:03:55.920 was the brainchild of Thomas Jefferson. Yeah, in the brain 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:59.920 child of t J. Because he's like, hey, I just 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:03.520 spot I just doubled the size of our country by 0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:06.400 buying a bunch of land from Napoleon. Do you know 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:09.600 the background on that, the Louisiana purchase. I know, it's 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:13.200 the greatest land deal in the history of the world, probably, 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:16.000 But what what do you mean, Well, it was the 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:20.120 Frenches land and they were about to get it from 0:04:20.160 --> 0:04:23.000 they were about to get it given to the Spanish. Well, 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:25.240 the Spanish were west of them, so probably, and the 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:28.039 French like had barely any presence in this area, but 0:04:28.120 --> 0:04:31.440 it was their land. But the Spanish, had they taken over, 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:33.960 they would have been a real problem because the Americans 0:04:33.960 --> 0:04:36.040 had access to the Port of New Orleans because the 0:04:36.080 --> 0:04:40.080 French were basically absentee landlords there, and so the idea 0:04:40.160 --> 0:04:41.920 that the Spaniards were about to get it that was 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:44.080 a big problem. So Jefferson sent some people over to 0:04:44.120 --> 0:04:47.200 France to try to negotiate something, and it turned out 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:50.640 Napoleon was having all sorts of problems and it had 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:53.839 been recommended to him by his people, like just sell 0:04:53.880 --> 0:04:56.440 it to the Americans. They're coming over, they want to talk. 0:04:56.960 --> 0:04:59.880 So I think James Monroe was sent by Thomas J. 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:04.240 Everson with the a limit of ten million dollars to 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:07.800 do something to buy Florida and New Orleans or New Orleans. 0:05:07.800 --> 0:05:11.479 For the ten million dollars, Monroe found out he could 0:05:11.520 --> 0:05:16.400 get all of the Louisiana territory, which went up to Canada. Yeah, 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:19.800 Louisiana is really undersells it. It was. It went from 0:05:19.839 --> 0:05:23.440 the Rockies all the way over to the colonies and 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:26.640 then up to Canada and down to the Gulf of Mexico. Yeah, 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:29.599 it was double the size of our country. Yeah, overnight. 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:33.400 So Monroe was like, I'll give you fifteen million dollars 0:05:33.440 --> 0:05:35.640 for it. In the French are like sold. So he 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:39.560 bought eight hundred and twenty seven thousand square miles of 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:43.960 North America about three cents an acre. And uh, that 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:45.440 was a chunk of change, though. I think that was 0:05:45.480 --> 0:05:50.160 double what our are gross economy was at the time. 0:05:50.480 --> 0:05:52.800 But it's a pretty good investment. That's a great investment. 0:05:53.080 --> 0:05:54.920 Could you imagine, though, how weird that would be if 0:05:56.160 --> 0:05:57.839 if it had gone a different way. The United States 0:05:57.839 --> 0:06:00.080 could have ended it about the Mississippi River, which it 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:03.360 did at the time, and just beyond that on the 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:06.479 other side could have been Spain, right or not Spain, 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:08.120 but you know what I mean, a Spanish colony. Well, 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:10.240 it could have been a lot like um Africa, you know, 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:13.040 like all these former colonies that are just like adjacent 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:14.919 to one another. But this is a French colony, this 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:17.280 was a Belgian colony, This was a British colony, and 0:06:17.320 --> 0:06:19.440 I think the Brits controlled Canada and like the Oregon 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:23.280 territory at the time. Yes, um, yeah, we were all 0:06:23.320 --> 0:06:25.880 sandwich kind of in there together. So we buy from 0:06:25.880 --> 0:06:28.200 the French, we go fight the Spanish for the rest 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:31.880 of it. And uh, in between all of this, we 0:06:31.960 --> 0:06:35.520 send Lewis and Clark to go check out what had 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:38.480 just been bought. And this expedition was going to happen anyway, 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:40.760 but we thought that we were going to have to 0:06:40.839 --> 0:06:45.080 ask for permission to go through this area. But now 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:48.720 all of a sudden, it was America. And that added 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:51.320 a facet to this expedition that hadn't been there before, 0:06:51.640 --> 0:06:54.200 which was basically informing the Indians that they were now 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:58.359 living in America and they had um a new great father, 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:01.159 which is how Meriwether lew Us put it. How he 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:03.839 described t J. Yeah, you have a new great father 0:07:03.960 --> 0:07:06.680 who lives in a lodge in Washington, d C. And 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:08.880 you can come visit him and see, like how great 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:11.440 it will be to live under his patronage. But not 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:17.160 really right, sign this treaty. Uh so uh he named 0:07:17.320 --> 0:07:20.120 he was his private secretary. Lewis was his kind of 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:23.240 personal aid. And he knew what kind of dude he was. 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:26.280 Maybe drink a little too much, was prone to depression, 0:07:27.400 --> 0:07:29.720 but he he sort of gave him this job to 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:32.240 help him out. He thought he'd be good for it. 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:34.560 Don't get me wrong, right, he groomed him for the position. 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:36.520 But yeah, he he thought it would be. He had 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:39.200 he had invested interest in the man. And he's like, 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:40.920 this is gonna be really good for Lewis. Is what 0:07:40.960 --> 0:07:44.240 he needs. He's twenty nine years old, which is remarkable 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:49.040 to me. Uh good sharpshooter. He said, you pick your partner. 0:07:49.360 --> 0:07:52.760 He picked William Clark, who was his former captain I 0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:55.040 believe in the army, a couple of years older, and 0:07:55.080 --> 0:07:57.880 he looked up to Clark quite a bit. It was like, 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:04.119 I need you, brother, because you compliment you complete me, right, which, 0:08:04.160 --> 0:08:06.160 by the way, we should probably say there's absolutely no 0:08:06.240 --> 0:08:09.760 evidence whatsoever that Lewis and Clark were ever gay. Clark 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:14.080 definitely wasn't. Yeah, there's a lot of conjecture about Meriwether 0:08:14.160 --> 0:08:17.080 Lewis was. He courted several women and was rejected by 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:21.320 all of them. He was a total eligible bachelor, never married, 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:24.960 never was engaged or betrothed or anything. So of course 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:27.920 as time war on, people were like, well, he must 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:30.640 have been gay, and yeah, there's been a lot of 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:33.400 a lot of conjecture, and they have come up with 0:08:33.480 --> 0:08:36.880 the idea that he probably wasn't gay, but that he 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:42.640 was um by know that he had um something of 0:08:42.679 --> 0:08:45.920 an aversion to women that was not necessarily based on 0:08:45.960 --> 0:08:48.640 any kind of sexual orientation. He just didn't know what 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:51.839 he was doing and he didn't feel comfortable around women. Yeah, 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:55.040 and we'll get to that. Um. The main goal, well, 0:08:55.040 --> 0:08:56.760 there are a couple of main goals. The main goal 0:08:57.040 --> 0:09:00.360 for Jefferson was, Hey, I want to find this all 0:09:00.400 --> 0:09:03.760 water route to the sea that's really important for trade. 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:07.200 And also, hey, let's check out this thing. We just 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:09.800 bought and go out and record as much of it 0:09:09.880 --> 0:09:14.680 as you can. Animals, plants, people, uh, what the heck 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:17.000 is out there? Basically come back and tell us. Right, 0:09:17.080 --> 0:09:19.280 And Lewis wasn't exactly a slouch when it came to 0:09:19.320 --> 0:09:22.360 this kind of stuff. His mother was a celebrated herb 0:09:22.480 --> 0:09:26.120 doctor um in Virginia. Yes, she knew what she was doing, 0:09:26.559 --> 0:09:29.079 and um, she kind of raised him in the woods, 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:31.440 so he was he was pretty good at botany. But 0:09:31.640 --> 0:09:34.160 to just kind of further his education and not just that, 0:09:34.200 --> 0:09:35.840 but all sorts of other things that would come in 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:39.920 handy on the expedition, Jefferson sent him to the American 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:44.559 Philosophical Association, which was the first learned society in North America, 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:48.640 and basically he underwent this like grueling crash course of 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:54.960 everything from astronomy to cartography to geology, medical training, everything 0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:57.840 everything you could you would need. They basically just filled 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:01.240 Lewis's head with and he in turn philled Clark in 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:03.480 on a lot of it too. Yeah, also a lot 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:06.880 of what they might encounter in ways of uh, we'll 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:09.959 call them Indians for the purposes of the show, because 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:12.280 that's what they called them, right, And Jefferson's like, and 0:10:12.320 --> 0:10:16.400 don't forget to call me great father. It's awesome. So, 0:10:16.559 --> 0:10:20.960 um Lewis is in Pittsburgh or in Philadelphia getting this training. 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:23.480 He writes to Clark, says, please join me on this. 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:26.800 And you were my captain. I'm a captain. Now we're 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:29.640 gonna be co captains on this. Just so there's not 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:33.040 any kind of weirdness or anything like that, Like, I'm 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:35.760 I was chosen to lead the expedition, but I'm choosing 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:38.280 you for help. But let's do this evenly, which is 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:43.320 unheard of. And it actually even more unheard of. It 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:46.320 worked out really well. Yeah it did. Like there wasn't 0:10:46.320 --> 0:10:50.000 any kind of like backbiting or problems and they actually 0:10:50.040 --> 0:10:52.880 ran it a bit like a democracy too. Yeah. In 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:56.480 the end um the they were kind of described as 0:10:56.520 --> 0:11:00.480 a family, like really really tighten it. I kept waiting 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:02.920 for the story to go off the rails, but it didn't. 0:11:02.920 --> 0:11:06.400 They really hung together and stuck together. After some initial 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:10.120 discipline problems once they kind of weeded out, I think 0:11:10.160 --> 0:11:11.840 from summer to fall they kind of weeded out some 0:11:11.880 --> 0:11:14.760 of the bad apples. Well, what's funny. One guy got 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:19.319 um discharged for mutinous acts and another guy got discharged 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:22.839 for desertion, but they they this happened in the middle 0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:25.800 of the the first leg of the trip, so they 0:11:25.840 --> 0:11:28.439 had to stay on and so they could get them 0:11:28.440 --> 0:11:30.679 to a place where they could go back. So they 0:11:30.760 --> 0:11:33.440 just had them doing hard labor the whole time. Wow. 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:37.640 Uh so um, they brought along a couple of people 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:41.720 of note. One Clark took his slave, York, that he 0:11:41.720 --> 0:11:43.880 had had since he was a kid. He was only 0:11:44.480 --> 0:11:49.880 only black guy and only slave on the on the party, 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:53.679 right on the adventure party, we'll call it. He was Um, 0:11:53.800 --> 0:11:56.440 he was technically a man servant I guess, like a 0:11:56.559 --> 0:12:00.240 valet or something like that to Clark out eye of 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:04.200 the expedition. But on the expedition, York was basically just 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:07.080 a member of the party. Yeah, he was a member 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:09.640 of the party. Um. He played a really great role 0:12:09.679 --> 0:12:14.440 in diplomacy because, uh, the American Indian was had never 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:18.360 seen black people before and they didn't have hang ups 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:21.760 obviously like white people did. So they're like, this guy 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:26.160 is awesome. He's huge, and he's strong, and look at 0:12:26.160 --> 0:12:29.640 that like amazing black skin that's even darker than ours. 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:32.360 Like they really thought he was great and I'm you know, 0:12:32.360 --> 0:12:34.760 I'm sure all the white people on the they were like, well, yeah, 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:38.080 look at me, Look what about me, my pale white skin. 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:40.120 I'm friends with the great father. But he played a 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:42.600 great role in diplomacy, um, and like you said, was 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:46.280 generally treated pretty well, um, although he did get sort 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:48.679 of sort of some of the crap duties well. Plus 0:12:48.679 --> 0:12:50.880 he also got royally screwed over at the end of 0:12:50.880 --> 0:12:54.360 the expedition. Oh yeah, we'll get to that though, okay. Uh. 0:12:54.400 --> 0:12:57.079 And so we have York with Clark, and then um, 0:12:57.280 --> 0:13:01.920 Louis purchased a dog for twenty dollars name saman And 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:04.840 they used to think it was scanning because these guys 0:13:05.120 --> 0:13:10.360 um handwriting was so bad that for yeah, basically a century, 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:13.920 like everybody thought it was scanning two centuries. And then 0:13:13.960 --> 0:13:16.240 somebody figured out, well, wait a minute, why is one 0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:20.720 of these rivers called Siemens Creek right, And then they realized, wait, 0:13:21.080 --> 0:13:23.679 that's the dog. That's the dog. Everybody, by the way, 0:13:23.720 --> 0:13:26.360 had something named after them, and they had trouble coming 0:13:26.400 --> 0:13:29.560 up with names for everything, like York, the York Islands 0:13:29.559 --> 0:13:32.960 in Montana, like everybody on that tour had something named 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:35.079 after them, which is kind of neat. So he was 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:37.360 a Newfoundland dog and he made it the whole way. 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:40.360 We're happy to go ahead and spoil that one. Yeah, 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:42.439 which is great because they ate dogs. By the way. 0:13:42.480 --> 0:13:44.200 At some point on this trip they had a lot 0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:48.200 of horse. Yeah, they did. So, like you said, they 0:13:48.240 --> 0:13:52.079 started in Pittsburgh, but the official start was really in St. 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:58.440 Louis in December of UM three and they're like, all right, 0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:01.200 let's hit the river. The Missouri River. Well, that's where 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:05.679 they assembled camp and wintered and started all their people 0:14:05.720 --> 0:14:08.520 and ran them through like army training and took the 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:10.520 best of the best. They officially started in May, the 0:14:10.520 --> 0:14:13.320 falling spring. Of course, you wouldn't start in the winter. Uh. 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:15.679 So they had a big keel boat and a couple 0:14:15.720 --> 0:14:19.200 of smaller canoes and said let's hit the river. And 0:14:19.400 --> 0:14:22.600 they did so. They said let's do it because again, 0:14:22.840 --> 0:14:27.000 ultimately Jefferson was looking for a northwest passage across the 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:30.000 continent to the Pacific, and he wanted to see if 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:32.240 you could basically ride a river all the way across 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:35.280 the country. Yeah. By the time, I think they were 0:14:35.280 --> 0:14:37.680 about forty five people at first. But when they eventually 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:41.040 whittled it down. The official Corps discovery was thirty three people. Right. 0:14:41.320 --> 0:14:44.840 So they head out and they start going upstream up 0:14:44.880 --> 0:14:47.920 the Missouri River. And it was rough going at first 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:51.600 and literally pulling their boat out from outside the water 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:55.760 waist deep by tow rope against the current. Again. Yeah, 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:58.840 they're going upstream the whole way to the source of 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:02.360 the Missouri River. Yeah. So the first Indians they encountered, 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:05.920 well not the first, the first situation they encountered where 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:08.760 the Teton, Sioux or the Lakota. And they're actually warned 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:11.720 by previous American Indians, like, watch out for these guys. 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:16.880 They're basically the mafia of the Missouri River. Like they'll 0:15:16.920 --> 0:15:21.440 demand payment, they won't. Uh, they'll take your goods. They'll 0:15:21.480 --> 0:15:24.680 control the trade. Yeah. They wanted them to trade exclusively 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:26.920 with them. Yeah. And they had done this to the 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:29.760 French in the Spanish for years. Uh. And they I 0:15:29.760 --> 0:15:33.160 think Lewis called them the pirates of the Missouri. But um, 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:36.080 when they did reach them, it came to a standoff 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:38.200 over a canoe that they they gave them their gifts. 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:40.440 The first thing they would do whenever they encountered a 0:15:40.440 --> 0:15:42.960 new tribe was to like give them these trinkets, tell 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:46.280 them about the Great Father, give them like handkerchiefs and 0:15:46.320 --> 0:15:49.960 things like we come in peace and um with with 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:52.200 the Teton Sioux, though, there was a standoff over a 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:53.920 canoe that they wanted and they're like, we're not giving 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:56.480 this canoe, and it literally came to a point where 0:15:57.080 --> 0:16:00.640 guns were raised and like hundreds of Indians had their 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:03.720 arrows pointed at them and it was about to go down, 0:16:04.240 --> 0:16:08.720 and uh, chief Black Buffalo intervened. It was like, you 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:11.600 know what, lead our women and children toward your really 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:13.960 cool boat that we've never seen and meet all you 0:16:14.000 --> 0:16:17.080 guys and then y'all can have safe passage. So they 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:19.480 managed to get through their unscathed. But that was their 0:16:19.480 --> 0:16:21.880 first like run in where they were like, man, this 0:16:21.960 --> 0:16:25.200 could go down pretty badly. And luckily that was one 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:28.720 of just a few I think as far as cross 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:34.120 country unchartered expeditions, uncharted expeditions go, this one about as 0:16:34.120 --> 0:16:36.400 good as you could possibly hope for. Yeah, I mean 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:42.280 it was super peaceful. Um, they were than the Core Blood. Well, 0:16:42.400 --> 0:16:45.000 they only shot one bullet in anger the entire trip. 0:16:45.480 --> 0:16:48.040 It's pretty remarkable, man, that is neat. So they hit 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:49.960 the great planes and that might as well have been 0:16:50.480 --> 0:16:53.720 Mars to them. Um, if you think about it, if 0:16:53.720 --> 0:16:56.120 you'd never been west of I think there's a saying 0:16:56.160 --> 0:16:58.600 that a squirrel can jump from tree to tree until 0:16:58.600 --> 0:17:01.960 it's the Mississippi. And so when they hit the great planes, 0:17:02.040 --> 0:17:03.600 they had never seen anything like it, Like there were 0:17:03.600 --> 0:17:07.439 no trees, there's just planes. It's just planes, and it 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:09.800 was just you know, they were absolutely blown away by this. 0:17:10.560 --> 0:17:16.439 And uh, there they encountered the Mandan and Minotari or 0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:19.600 Hidatsa Indians, right, and they decided, all right, this is 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:21.960 pretty good place to build. The camps sit here for 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:25.000 a few months, and they built Fort Manden, which they 0:17:25.080 --> 0:17:29.080 named after the local one of the local tribes. And um, 0:17:29.119 --> 0:17:31.400 and they were buddies. They had like lived together in harmony, 0:17:31.520 --> 0:17:35.000 right they got they they forged friendships. They were visited 0:17:35.000 --> 0:18:09.240 by locals, and uh, something big happened here in Okay, Chuck. 0:18:09.280 --> 0:18:12.120 So we're at Fort Manden, which is where in South 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:16.000 Dakota I think Modakotas. They were having a good time 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:19.800 hanging out, having lots of sex with the local ladies. Yeah, 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:22.439 there was a big problem with venereal disease on the 0:18:22.480 --> 0:18:25.240 expedition because like they were having a lot of sex 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:28.760 with Indians, and the Indians um had syphilis, which was 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:33.159 something that was unknown to Europeans, and Europeans contracted it 0:18:33.280 --> 0:18:36.879 very easily. So that was a big thing. Well that 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:40.000 was another thing about Louis too. Apparently like everybody else 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:43.640 in the expedition had sex with Indian women, and he 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:47.040 was like he stayed away from it. His journal entries 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:50.760 about like Indian sexual practices were very like snide. I 0:18:50.800 --> 0:18:54.440 think is away one person put it um. Yeah, it's 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:57.119 just he's an odd duct. I get what if he 0:18:57.160 --> 0:19:00.159 tried to put on loan that he was just you know, 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:03.880 cleaning up. And they're like, Louis, it doesn't hurt when 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:07.639 he peas like something's going on, It doesn't burn. I 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:10.160 don't think he's having sex. He says he had sex 0:19:10.240 --> 0:19:13.439 with all those women. Yeah, burns when I burn, win 0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:16.720 you be doesn't burn when Louis pas. Yeah. So apparently 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:19.400 burning when you pee like was a big thing unsure 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:23.800 on this core of discoveries discovered syphilis too, all right. 0:19:23.960 --> 0:19:26.040 So the other important thing that happened here, which is 0:19:26.080 --> 0:19:28.800 I think what you were getting to, was they hired 0:19:28.840 --> 0:19:33.879 a French Canadian trapper named Toussaint Charbonneau. But they really 0:19:34.200 --> 0:19:36.879 what they were doing was hiring his wife. Yeah, so 0:19:37.880 --> 0:19:40.840 Icago way or Icago Wea. I didn't mispronounce it. You 0:19:40.880 --> 0:19:43.560 didn't mispronounce it. There's a lot of pronunciations, yeah, but 0:19:43.640 --> 0:19:46.120 there's only one that's right, and they're the right. One 0:19:46.240 --> 0:19:50.600 is based on the journal entries of Louis Clark everybody 0:19:50.600 --> 0:19:53.440 else on the expedition. Because this was an expedition, everyone 0:19:53.520 --> 0:19:56.439 was expected to like make notes and and yeah, they 0:19:56.440 --> 0:20:00.920 were all journal stuff down right. And Soccagea is mentioned 0:20:01.080 --> 0:20:04.639 dozens of times in these journals because she did do 0:20:04.720 --> 0:20:10.320 some outstanding stuff. Um, and she's mentioned phonetically, so it's 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:14.560 Socca go wella. Also, at some point it's also mentioned 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:18.879 that her name is Shoshone for bird woman, and the 0:20:19.040 --> 0:20:24.120 Shoshone Scaga is bird and Wea is a woman, So 0:20:24.480 --> 0:20:29.480 it's Chicago Wea, not Socca joeya. That's right. Well, I 0:20:29.480 --> 0:20:31.480 mean that's a big point. It's true, although the kN 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:35.000 Burns thing, these historians all pronounced it differently, which was 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:38.440 sort of frustrating. Well, yeah, there's such a cowaka yeah, 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:41.120 and then sca joweyah. Yeah. One of the ladies called 0:20:41.119 --> 0:20:43.199 her straight up Sacawa and I was like straight up, 0:20:43.240 --> 0:20:47.399 so we right up. So she was very important because 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:51.320 A she was a translator. B she was essentially a 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:54.760 white flag everywhere they went. Um and I don't think 0:20:54.800 --> 0:20:56.920 we said this, but by the time they broke camp 0:20:56.960 --> 0:20:59.480 to leave, she had a baby. Yeah, she actually gave 0:20:59.560 --> 0:21:02.960 birth to her first child. Um. And Fort Manden Jean 0:21:03.000 --> 0:21:06.159 Baptiste Charboneau, yeah, who was pretty cool, grew up to 0:21:06.200 --> 0:21:10.440 be pretty cool. Yeah. Sure, But Scagia, if we say 0:21:10.440 --> 0:21:15.280 Sacajawea too, I think that's fair. Okay she Um, she 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:17.960 was sixteen at the time and she was married to Charbonneau. 0:21:18.119 --> 0:21:21.239 She was one of two of his wives. Um and 0:21:21.280 --> 0:21:25.000 I didn't hear anything about the other. Um Shoshone woman? 0:21:25.200 --> 0:21:27.640 Did she not go along? I don't think? Okay, all right, 0:21:28.000 --> 0:21:33.960 so um she John Baptiste and Toussaint were a family, 0:21:34.160 --> 0:21:39.440 even though Sacagaia was Tusson's slave wife, like he purchased her. 0:21:40.200 --> 0:21:43.080 But she was Shoshone. And the reason why she was 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:46.680 so valuable is because the expedition leaders had found out 0:21:46.760 --> 0:21:51.680 that the Shoshone were known for their horsing abilities, and 0:21:51.880 --> 0:21:55.359 the expedition had two horses that they set out with, 0:21:55.440 --> 0:21:57.639 and we're like, we're gonna need a lot more so 0:21:58.040 --> 0:22:00.159 we need to trade with the Shoshone when we make 0:22:00.200 --> 0:22:03.320 it to the Rockies, and we will need this woman. 0:22:03.680 --> 0:22:06.560 And she comes in handy to a spectacular degree in 0:22:06.600 --> 0:22:09.320 this sense. Yeah. And not only was she a white flag, 0:22:09.440 --> 0:22:11.800 she was just great for the spirit of the camp 0:22:11.840 --> 0:22:15.199 to have a woman there. Uh. And baby was a 0:22:15.280 --> 0:22:17.160 charmer too. Oh, of course. You know, you can't pull 0:22:17.240 --> 0:22:19.639 up with a woman and a baby and say like 0:22:19.720 --> 0:22:23.720 we're warring people exactly, you know, apparently across all tribes 0:22:23.800 --> 0:22:26.280 along the plains, if you have a woman and a 0:22:26.320 --> 0:22:29.479 baby in your party, you're automatically not a war party, 0:22:29.720 --> 0:22:32.399 and therefore you come in peace. Yeah, and she was 0:22:32.480 --> 0:22:36.960 also pretty awesome. Charboneau himself was described as quite average, 0:22:37.240 --> 0:22:40.639 but Chicago Ay was the real deal, like one of 0:22:40.680 --> 0:22:44.080 the bravest members of the expedition. And at one point 0:22:44.160 --> 0:22:46.560 one of the boats overturned and they lost We're losing 0:22:46.600 --> 0:22:49.360 a lot of their important records and things. And she 0:22:49.480 --> 0:22:51.439 was the main one that was like boom in the 0:22:51.480 --> 0:22:54.720 water retrieving the stuff, while Charbonneau was I don't know 0:22:54.720 --> 0:22:57.200