The Lewis and Clark Expedition
On May 14, 1804 the expedition of 44 men pushed their boats into the Missouri river where it met the Mississippi in St. Louis. Lewis who studied botany, anatomy medicine, and zoology. To prepare for the journey and took charge of scientific discoveries. Clark acted as a map maker navigator, and journalist.
The explorers used the river to cross the nearly treeless Great Plains. When the explorers met Indians they presented items from their store of gifts-calico shirts, razors, colored glass beads, American flags, small hand mirrors, and medals.
Toward the end of October, the expedition reached the walled villages of Mandan tribe, which is now North Dakota. They hired the fur trader, Toussaint Charbonneau to be their interpreter. Charbonneau agreed to take a long his Shoshone wife, Sacajawea, who had been sold to him as a slave. She helped her husband translate various Indian languages, she cooked meals, found wild plants to eat, and use for medicine. The Shoshone were led by Sacajawea's brother. Using horses provided by the Shoshone, the explorers struggled over the mountains. After the explorers slowly descended the western slopes of The Rockies, they made new boats and followed the watershed of the Columbia River, to the Pacific Ocean.
The Lewis and Clark expedition was one of the most successful journey's of exploration in U.S history.