Lewis and Clark Expedition - Before Lewis and Clark

Before Lewis and Clark

Before 1537 Cabeza de Vaca crossed central Texas or northern Mexico from the Gulf to northwest Mexico. In 1539–42 Hernando de Soto crossed much of the South from Georgia to Arkansas. In 1540–42 Francisco Vásquez de Coronado traveled from Arizona to eastern Kansas. Since these expeditions found nothing of value the Spaniards largely abandoned northward expansion.

In 1608 the French founded Quebec and quickly spread through the Saint Lawrence basin. In 1682 René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle went down the Mississippi from the Great Lakes to the Gulf. The French then established a chain of posts along the Mississippi from New Orleans to the Great Lakes. In 1714 Etiene Veniard, Sieur de Bourgmont ascended the Missouri as far as the mouth of the Cheyenne River in central South Dakota.

Moncacht-Apé, a Native American explorer, may have traveled from near the mouth of the Mississippi River to the Atlantic, and from there to the coast of the Pacific Northwest, sometime in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century. This purported transcontinental journey is related by Antoine-Simon Le Page du Pratz, a French ethnographer who lived for a period in Louisiana, where he claimed to have met Moncacht-Apé and recorded the details of his travels.

In 1720 the Villasur expedition from Santa Fe tried to reach the French on the Mississippi but was defeated by the Pawnee in eastern Nebraska. In 1739 Pierre Antoine and Paul Mallet reached Santa Fe from the Mississippi. Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de La Vérendrye opened the area west of lake Superior and in 1738 reached the Mandan villages on the upper Missouri in North Dakota. In 1743 two of his sons may have reached the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming, but documentation was poor.

From Hudson Bay, in 1690 Henry Kelsey reached the lower Saskatchewan River, in 1754 Anthony Henday followed the Saskatchewan almost to the Rocky Mountains and in 1771 Samuel Hearne reached the Arctic coast at the Coppermine River. In 1789 Sir Alexander Mackenzie followed the river named after him to the Arctic Ocean. In 1793 he ascended the Peace River, crossed the Rocky Mountains and reached the Pacific twelve years before Lewis and Clark. In 1799 the Canadians built Rocky Mountain House, Alberta within sight of the mountains. From 1795 Canadians from Brandon House were trading with the Mandans and in 1796 John Evans (explorer) reached the Mandans from the Mississippi.

Provoked by Russian expansion down the Alaska coast Juan José Pérez Hernández explored the Pacific coast in 1774, followed by James Cook in 1778. This led to a British Sea Otter trade with China, the Nootka Crisis and Anglo-American claims on the Oregon country. In 1792 Robert Gray found the mouth of the Columbia River.

Later in 1792 the Vancouver Expedition explored over 100 miles (160 km) up the Columbia, into the Columbia River Gorge. Lewis and Clark carried a copy of Vancouver's map of the lower Columbia. By 1800 the coast of the Pacific Northwest had been thoroughly explored by maritime fur traders. By the time Lewis and Clark arrived at the mouth of the Columbia, at least 14 maritime fur traders had already visited the river's mouth and estuary.

Thus Lewis and Clark had first to travel the lower Missouri to the Mandan country in North Dakota. Everything west from North Dakota to the Pacific was unknown, except that the Rocky Mountains existed, that the upper Missouri seemed to flow from that direction and that on the other side of the Rockies the large Columbia River entered the Pacific.

We should also note the different methods of travel. Coronado and De Soto travelled with large gangs of armed men. Hearne and the younger Vérendryes joined bands of roving Indians. La Salle and Mackenzie used professional voyageurs and Indian guides. Lewis and Clark reached the Pacific mostly under their own power.