|
| |
|
| 1800 |
The secret Treaty of San Ildefonso
transfers the Louisiana Territory from Spain back to France, on the
condition that France never yield it to an English-speaking government. |
 |
| 1801 |
 President-elect
Thomas Jefferson invites Meriwether Lewis, a captain in the First
United States Infantry, to become his private secretary. Lewis had
volunteered for a transcontinental expedition that Jefferson tried
to organize in 1792; now, as President, Jefferson sees an opportunity
to launch this expedition, and sees in Lewis someone who could lead
it. Over the next two years, he will guide Lewis as he gains the scientific
knowledge, technical skills and special equipment he will need for
the journey. |
|
| 1802 |
Spain closes the port of New Orleans
to U.S. cargo, violating the 1795 Treaty of San Lorenzo. American
rights are restored within six months, but Spanish fears of the young
nation's expansionist energies remain. |
|
| 1803 |
Jefferson asks Congress for an
appropriation to send an expedition up the Missouri River and on to
the Pacific, in order to discover whether a Northwest Passage or water
route across the continent exists and to lay the groundwork for extending
American fur trade into the region. None of this territory is part
of the United States when Jefferson makes his request in January,
but even then he is negotiating secretly through James Monroe to purchase
the whole vast region from France. |
|
| 1803 |
By April, Napoleon has agreed to
sell the Louisiana Territory to the United States for $15 million,
although the transfer will violate the terms under which he had received
the territory from Spain. Congress approves the deal in October. Thus,
as Jefferson no doubt foresaw, his proposed expedition will also serve
to secure America's hold on its newest possession and to reinforce
American claims in the Pacific northwest. |
|
| 1803 |
 THE
LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION (1803-1806)
Captain Meriwether Lewis leaves Pittsburgh aboard a specially
designed keelboat, the Discovery, on the first leg of his transcontinental
expedition. At Louisville he is joined by Captain William Clark,
an experienced frontier soldier who is the youngest brother of William
Rogers Clark, the hero of the Revolutionary War in the West. Together
Lewis and Clark proceed up the Mississippi to Wood River, Illinois,
opposite the mouth of the Missouri, where they establish a winter
camp to make final preparations and train their recruits.
|
|
| 1804 |
 Heading
up the Missouri River in May, Lewis and Clark stop to visit Daniel
Boone at his home near St. Charles. By October, they have reached
the villages of the Mandan in present-day North Dakota, where they
establish winter quarters. During their months at what they call Fort
Mandan, they receive invaluable information from the Indians about
the course of the Missouri and the countryside surrounding it. Here
they also add three more to their 30-member Corp of Discovery: a French
trader named Toussaint Charbonneau, who will serve as interpreter,
his wife, Sacagawea, a Shonone who had been kidnapped and raised by
the Hidatsa, and their baby, whom Clark calls Pompey. |
|
| 1805 |
In April, Lewis and Clark resume their expedition by canoe, sending
the keelboat Discovery back down the Missouri laden with scientific
specimens. Within a few weeks, they reach the mouth of the Yellowstone
River and in May catch first sight of the Rocky Mountains. In June,
they portage around the Great Falls of the Missouri, reaching the
upper forks of the Missouri in July. Coming to the navigable limits
of the river in mid-August, they set out on foot to cross the continental
divide, and here they encounter the Shoshone, whose chief, by an
astounding coincidence, Sacagawea recognizes as her brother.
With her help, the expedition purchases 30 horses from the Shoshone
and begin the difficult trek through the Bitterroot Mountains, where
snow and hunger lengthen the trail. Coming down out of the mountains,
they are found by the Nez Perce, who permit them to fell trees for
five dugout canoes and set them on course down the Clearwater River.
Following the Clearwater to the Snake River and thence to the Columbia,
Lewis and Clark come in sight of the Pacific on November 7, 1805.
Here they establish their winter quarters, named Fort Clatsop for
a nearby Indian tribe.
|
|
| 1806 |
Leaving the Pacific coast in March,
Lewis and Clark retrace their path, crossing back over the Bitterroots
in July. Here the Corp of Discovery divides into two parties: those
led by Lewis venture cross-country to the Great Falls of the Missouri,
with an excursion north up the Marias River; those led by Clark explore
the Yellowstone River. The two groups are reunited near the mouth
of the Yellowstone in August and reach St. Louis on September 23,
where they have been presumed lost and receive a hero's welcome. They
are accompanied by the Mandan chief, Big White, and his wife, Yellow
Corn, who travel with Lewis to meet President Jefferson in Washington,
D.C. |
|
| 1806 |
Spanish authorities in San Francisco
reverse their policy and agree to sell provisions to Russian colonists
after the Russians' representative becomes engaged to the daughter
of the presidio's commander. |
|
| 1806 |
Captain Richard Sparks and the
frontiersman Thomas Freeman are appointed by Jefferson to explore
and map the Red River region along the United States' border with
Tejas. |
|
| 1806 |
Zebulon Pike sets out on an expedition
to make peace among the Pawnee in Nebraska and explore the headwaters
of the Arkansas River. His mission takes him into Colorado, where
on Thanksgiving Day he and his party try unsuccessfully to climb the
peak that bears his name. |
|
| 1807 |
Crossing the Sangre de Cristo Mountains,
Zebulon Pike comes to the Rio Grande, which he mistakes for the Red
River. Here he builds an outpost and is discovered by a Spanish patrol,
which takes him first to Santa Fe, then into Mexico, and finally to
the Tejas border near Natchitoches, Louisiana, where he re-enters
the United States in June. After reporting on Spanish forces and settlements
in the Southwest, Pike publishes an account of his expedition which
makes him a national celebrity. |
|
| 1807 |
John Colter, a member of the Lewis
and Clark expedition who remained in the West as a fur trader, explores
the Wyoming country and an area he calls "Colter's Hell,"
which is thought to be the geyser and hot springs country of present-day
Yellowstone Park. |
|
| 1807 |
Fur trader Manuel Lisa establishes
Fort Raymond, the first trading post in present day Montana, at the
mouth of the Bighorn River. |
|
| 1808 |
The U.S. government moves Cherokee
Indians who had attacked Tennessee settlers across the Mississippi
into Arkansas. |
|
| 1808 |
John Jacob Astor forms the American
Fur Company to compete with the North West Company of Canada in the
northern Plains. |
|
| 1809 |
Meriwether Lewis, appointed governor
of the Louisiana Territory on his return from the West, dies mysteriously
and violently in a Natchez tavern on his way back to Washington to
answer charges of mismanagement. |
|
| 1809 |
Meriwether Lewis, appointed governor
of the Louisiana Territory on his return from the West, dies mysteriously
and violently in a Natchez tavern on his way back to Washington to
answer charges of mismanagement. |
|
| 1809 |
By this time there are 25 Russian
American colonies strung along the northern Pacific coast as far south
as California. |
|
| 1810 |
John Jacob Astor forms the Pacific
Fur Company to expand his trading empire to the Pacific coast. |
|
| 1810 |
Kamehameha the Great unifies Hawaii,
aided by former British seamen who teach his warriors how to sail
heavy vessels and use cannons in island warfare. |
|
| 1811 |
Russian settlers found Fort Ross
at Bodega Bay just north of San Francisco. |
|
| 1811 |
Astor's Pacific Fur Company establishes
Fort Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River. Soon the area is
thick with the outposts of rival traders. |
|
| 1812 |
The United States and Great Britain
clash in the War of 1812. |
|
| 1813 |
John Jacob Astor's Pacific Northwest
outpost, Astoria, is sold to the North West Company shortly before
it is formally captured by a British warship in the War of 1812. On
their overland return to the east, the former Astorians cross the
continental divide south of the Wind River Range, discovering the
South Pass that will become part of the Oregon Trail. |
|
| 1814 |
The History of the Expedition
of Captains Lewis and Clark, drawn from the explorers' notebooks
by editors Paul Allen and Nicholas Biddle, is published with a preface
by Thomas Jefferson. |
|
| 1814 |
The United States and Great Britain
conclude a treaty ending the War of 1812. |
|
| 1817 |
Kamehameha banishes Russian fur
traders from Hawaii when they attempt to erect a fort on his territory. |
|
| 1818 |
The 49th parallel is agreed upon
as the border between the United States and Canada from Lake of the
Woods westward to the Rocky Mountains, with joint occupation of the
Oregon Territory. |
|
| 1819 |
The United States renounces all
claims to Tejas in a treaty with Spain that brings Florida under American
control. |
|
| 1820 |
jor Stephen Long of the Corps of
Engineers leads an expedition across Kansas to the Rocky Mountains,
where a member of his party, Dr. Edwin James, scales Pikes Peak. On
the map charting his explorations and published in 1823, Long labels
the area east of the Rockies "The Great American Desert,"
a characterization that will steer settlers away from the region for
decades to come. |
