today, we're on to army explorers in the sort of interior west. so as i told you all last time, we've proceeding pretty

chronologically up to this point. this lecture is going kind of spin us out onto a thematic topic. so we're going to start right around thomas jefferson, who we left off talking about on monday, but we're going to jump the way through forward to the us-mexico war and the civil war. and so a lot of the topics we're talking about today, they're also going to come up in our future lectures. so just know that if you feel slightly unmoored when it comes to what time we're in, i'm going to do my best to signpost, but just flag me down. you're like, we've suddenly jumped 20 years. that's going to happen today because it's a more of a thematic topic. but what i really want us to get out of this is a deeper insight into this question. we've been talking throughout the class, which is once you have an empire, how you exert control over it and how is the new us federal government, which we started to talk about on monday, going to control the interior west is going to be its kind of biggest problem. so we'll start here.

adam smith, pretty famous dude economist, right around 1776, just as the americans are starting to draft that declaration of independence. that's going to set them to war with great britain. he writes this about the united states from shopkeepers tradesmen and attorneys. they are becoming statesmen and legislators and are employed and contriving a new form of government, an extensive empire which they flatter themselves, be common, which indeed seems very likely to become one of the greatest and formidable that ever was in the world. so smith is looking at the us from across the ocean and saying they've got everything they need to be a great empire. if they pull revolution thing off and i'm part of that, he says, is this new form of government, this democracy, and that takes back to frederick jackson. turner right. we talked this our second day of class. the idea the frontier and empire

is tied to that democratic expanse. and so this is the kind of thing that washington and jefferson are thinking about. they're not afraid of empire and they're going to pursue. so here we'll jump forward. i said to william henry seward, so is kind of the period we're going to cover, the 1776 to right up to the civil war william henry seward, of course, famous, a man who wanted to be president, perhaps as much as only one or two other dudes in the whole country history, maybe only second to henry clay and how bad he wanted to president william henry seward. this in a speech to congress in 1856 to obtain an empire is and common so of empires in the world. but he said to govern it well is difficult rare indeed. and he's talking in a period right much than what we've been talking about by which the united states has acquired essentially everything, including the gadsden purchase, that will become part of the

modern u.s. and so seward is pointing to the same problem that. adam smith alluded to this not an easy task to undertake. you have to find a way to control this territory and. you have to do it in a way that's fair and we talked about that tension last right. the washington and jefferson run into people who go to the frontier do not want a of intervention in their lives especially from government but the government must be the one that controls the frontier. so this is the kind of territory we're talking about. and for the united states, 1783, when it's only that little bit in green, there's a lot of knowledge this land out here that they don't have access to yet and someone's going to have to go out and get that knowledge. william henry seward, of course, famous and most people remember him right from your ap us history class for being the dude the bottle asker and then got made fun of for the of his life.

seward's folly right so he was deeply invested in the idea of expansion, very famous painting right westward the course of empire takes its way painted the american civil war. it stands in the house of representatives in the national capitol building. it's a massive fresco, 20 foot long fresco in the house of representatives, painted by emanuel. lutz wanted. this painting to demonstrate the kind of principal characters involved in america's westward. as he understood it up to 1863. and it's in line with what frederick jackson turner talks about right the buffalo, the indian, the fur trader, the hunter, the cattle raiser, the pioneer. these are the settlers of the frontier who's missing from this painting. what kind of character archetype.

can. like that? like a like a general type, a so a military officer, is that what like any kind of like politician or statesman, like anybody who is going make rules and like keep, like social norms in check, right? so we're back to bureaucracy, right? but i don't think bureaucrats are popular subjects for paintings, but soldiers certainly are. and they're missing here. and if you look at john or you look at guests, sort of famous painting of manifest destiny, american right, with the woman strain telegraph wires across the plains. also, no soldiers in that painting. it's really interesting that soldiers are left out here when they're a critical of this imperial. but just note that frederick jackson turner also doesn't list the army soldiers. and so we kind of have to ask ourselves why that is.

they were so critical. i'll also note it's a great fact to pull out this painting is first painting that ever hangs in the us capitol to feature an african-american subject. and you can see him there down along bottom between the horse and the cow the young african-american boy there. so the first black individual to be portrayed in a painting in the capitol building. so it's really interesting. it's a progressive painting in many ways, but it's also missing something so so why the army there? what is the problem for people like let's gast? i mean, anyone who's thinking about how the americans are going to onto the frontier. well the best institution do it and the most equipped in terms of having bureau craddick support organization being well funded and having the knowledge undertake this process is the united states absolutely problem is. nobody likes the army because standing armies are not really

in concordance with the values of the new and young united states and what the united states is facing as it drafts the constitution. and there's a massive over whether or not the country should have an army at all and many think that it's dangerous because standing can get angry and upset. and if you get somebody in charge of them who's not responsible like, a julius caesar or an oliver cromwell, a napoleon, they might over your democracy. and that's not what you want to happen. and so the u.s. is in this really interesting position and they have a massive frontier that they are trying to subdue. as we talked about last time, have a huge number of threats, really, really powerful native american, confederacy's that are much more militarily equipped than the new united states. but they don't want to have a very army. so they're going to do some very interesting things with that army to make it fit within

america's democratic system and our system of government. so to justify having an army at all needed a job, especially when the nation was not at war and the us isn't at war most of the time. so they need to give the soldiers something to do so that if there is a crisis or the country go to war, you have at least a small army ready to train and equip the volunteer years that you'll draw from the militia. but you don't want them to be too powerful or too ready to go to war. they might be a threat. so they settle on science. it's really interesting. the 19th century army and especially army prior to the civil war is army of exploration. they fight a few wars that we might about, but in reality even when they are fighting those wars, they are talking about scientific expeditions and gathering to a great and so the principal institution for soldiers along this scientific

method is west point which is founded by thomas jefferson in 1802. he creates the national academy at west point on the banks of the hudson river in new york, jefferson of course, the most notorious of the early presidents hating the national military. he did write many letters about trying to get rid of the military altogether. and then when he finally sat down and about it, he said, no, we really do need them in case we go to war, but let's keep them trained and by the federal government. let's make sure that we keep them under control. and so they didn't want to have to rely foreigners as they had during the revolution they're also drawing this lesson forward in the us kind revolution against great britain. a lot of the military engineering, a lot of the heaviest kind work to actually build fortifications and protect the army had been done by so

jefferson says, why don't we create an institution that is able to train american men to do same job in a very scientific standardized way so jefferson military academy henry adams is one of the many sort american adams is doubled the capacity of the little american army for resistance and introduce the new and scientific character into american life. i always like to here. west point is a wonderful. founded by thomas jefferson. he founded a much better university called the universal virginia. so the the west point is the second best university founded by jefferson. that's fine. not a competition, but it is. and here we have west point. but an interesting between the two institutions, jefferson wants them to be scientific in their character jefferson is not interested in imparting religious education. right many of our early university were founded to train ministers places harvard and yale divinity schools.

jefferson wants science, wants knowledge. he wants humanistic pursuits. and so a young man who goes to west point becomes one of the best trained engineers in the country at this period, at this point, they take a five year course. they do science, they do languages they do literature. they do watercolor, they do horsemanship. what haven't i mentioned? they learn tactics until their fifth year, right? it's four years of well-rounded scientific education and, then a fifth year where you actually learn how to be a soldier just in case it might come. but in reality, they're being trained as engineers. and so if you wanted to an engineer, you wanted to go west point and then at west point, if you really distinguish yourself, you would not be put in infantry or the artillery regiments of the army. you'd be put in the engineering corps, which was far the most prestigious arm of the american army in this period.

so there you have west point. they have a portrait of thomas jefferson hanging there, which i think would make thomas jefferson smile as he really distrusted the military. yeah. was there a question? excellent. please shut them up. jefferson. at the same time, he creates west point, creates a military peace. so this is their compromise. they have to put in place protection to make sure that the army does not become a threat to the federal government and in that act, that establishes west point jefferson also directs a corps of engineers be established as of the united states army to train loyal expert engineers and so that they didn't have to employ engineers from those foreign lands. and this is the the patch of the army engineers to this day. so if you see soldier with this patch, his uniform, he is an army and army engineers have been and always be critical to a

kind of america's military missions, whether in time of war, in time of peace, army engineers, i'm going to talk about exploring today, but they also build bridges, reroute rivers, help to survey and platte. they basically make the infrastructure of the early republic possible because they are the best trained engineers the country. and so the army is responsible for a lot the development that we see even on the east coast, which is not the subject right out of our class, but also on the frontier. and so if you ever drive across a bridge or a ford, a river anywhere in the west, you probably count on the fact that the army got there first and built whatever the original fortification was. they build lots of forts. so anywhere you've been in texas with the name fort in the title, that's these guys, right, including our neighboring city to, the west fort worth. right. so what really kicks off the age

of army exploration, you have this corps of trained guys. they were really good at science, really good at engineering. remember, i even talked about george washington as much as he was soldier. he was also a surveyor. these things kind of go hand in hand. well, thomas jefferson. and he as he's of coming up with the idea for west point and the idea for this train corps of engineers. also is talking to a little guy, no offense named napoleon about this. louisa can a territory that exists to the west of the limits of american expansion right to the west of the mississippi river. remember we'd had that proclamation line of 1763 and the americans very quickly been like, yeah, we're going past by this point. they reached the mississippi saint louis is becoming a prominent river town. remember that at end of the revolution, the british and, the americans agreed to unimpeded of the mississippi. they would share that river. well, france is on the other

side and france is in possession. this territory of louisiana, which basically hugs the mississippi from its headwaters in minnesota to where it discharges in the gulf of mexico, at the city of, new orleans and france wants to get rid of it. it is bogged down in a series of wars. the european continent. france doesn't have the or bureaucratic capacity to continue to administer. louisiana. and so they say to thomas, you want some land? and jefferson says, absolutely, i would love some land. there could be a lot of good stuff out there that this new country could use. there could be a lot of really interesting to be gained from going and exploring this place. all louisiana territory, you, napoleon and all ad 828,000 square miles of territory to the

united states doubling in effect in one sort of purchase the entire extent of the country including a little bit of part of canada that got settled later and and maybe florida. jefferson right. as i've already told you all, is truly going to insist that the louisiana purchase included florida, spain and france both going to be like, we don't really think. so andrew jackson's going to go ahead and go take florida in 18 teens in what becomes known as the first seminole war so it's going hang in the balance but jefferson thinks he's one that as well florida is important for a number of reasons, but mainly because of its access to the caribbean. so napoleon, us, louisiana territory per the revolution in haiti is his mind his new world colonies are collapsing and he decides to offload this territory. and so jefferson now has a

question to answer. what did he get when he bought this territory of the united states knows orleans pretty well and he knows that's an important it's, of course the dumbest place you could ever build a city. but they went ahead and did it. so we have to work with what we got. they know new orleans is important and vital the entire mississippi river has the potential to become a trade artery that is unrivaled in the united states and. jefferson also knows there's a tributary of the mississippi called the missouri river that is, in fact, seems equally important. and prospects sort of augur well. right, for the new united states. and so he especially wants that missouri river tributary explored and he decides to send an expedition to do it. that's headed by not professional soldiers. lewis and clark are the explorers. we're going to talk about who are not professionally trained west point guys. i'm going to get to them toward

the and end of the lecture. but they are military veterans. they have militia ranks and. they're going to run the corps of like a military expedition. and here's what jefferson is going to talk them about. yeah, that's going to last on the other screen. you okay? so thomas jefferson, he he said that we had florida is that it was did everyone know that we have people coming down going into florida even though it really wasn't ours at all? yeah, we absolutely. there are planters that are moving down into there and it's also haven for runaway enslaved they go into to florida to become maroons amongst seminoles. so we have a vested interest in it. yeah. so when it's absorbed into the u.s., how french people are actually living there at that time in louisiana, that's a good i don't know the exact number. not a ton. france really administered these as kind of trading colonies, so they would have had sort of

french explorers and they would have been allowed to kind of stay and continue to explore. they just be absorbed into the u.s. and become american citizens or not quite not in the same way that when we talk about the treaty of guadalupe hidalgo not in the same way that that hispanic people living in the mexican will be can have american citizenship conferred on them, not the case with the louisiana purchase. and again, i think that's such small numbers dealing with. of course, they also don't confer citizenship on the thousands native people that are going to kind of run into lewis and clark as move but because of the great lakes and of the french access to canada, they can't like fully shut out the french and they the trade anyway so it's really important florida's a great question yeah so so they they want to bring it in and jackson will go and get it as i said in about 1815 they think they get two slave states out of florida. so they're going just run a line down the middle. they're going have east florida, west florida, which four more senators that are pro slavery,

more representatives that are pro slavery and more enslaved people to count toward overall population under the 3/5 compromise. so just like they thought they could get five states out of texas, they're doing a lot of thinking about how much can get out of florida. and i'll talk about how slavery plays into this exploration kind of fever at the end of the lecture, because politics are really heavily involved here, and it's not immediately apparent in the era because we haven't reached age of the compromise of 1820 and the compromise of 1850, but slavery is alive issue. and there is going to be immediately questions about where slavery can go. right. last time we talked about the northwest ordinance predates all of this. no slavery in those sort of parts of the great lakes territories. right here, there's going to be a kind of greater as slaveholders start to want to move west, especially into places tennessee and georgia which we'll talk about next time when we about the kind of first major waves of indigenous

removal in the united states which are made possible by this purchase. so what does jefferson want the duties? i got to tell you, he loves a long letter. and we talked about last time he made copy of every single one. he thinks he probably. 20,000 letters in his lifetime. so lot i don't think i'll ever send that many emails. it's easier for me. right. so here's what jefferson says. and this is an excerpt from a much, much longer letter that he sends to lewis and clark. the object of your mission is to explore the missouri river and such principles stream of it as its course with the water of the pacific ocean, may offer the direct and practicable water communication across the continent. all right. so why would access to the pacific via the continent be so important at this time. yeah, because then they don't have to worry about going through any other nations like waterways or getting permissions

to transport and stuff like that. what was only other way to go to california at this time. through the water? yeah, all across the. oh, yeah, all the way down. yeah. really way the really long around. yeah. so all the way around south america. and it wasn't really right. it was nowhere near that. no, no, absolutely no. that doesn't come till theodore roosevelt. right. the panama canal comes after this class is over. right. we end in 1900 there is no you know, the route you have is over land and it's way quicker to sail about than to walk. so jefferson like fingers crossed that all these rivers link up and we can just have a waterway the pacific spoiler alert they do not yeah we get train that far we get a train all the way california. that's right. and then that. so the pacific railroad act which i'll talk about 1862 gives us the kind of first they'll start surveying for those

railroads in the 1850s. but at this point even steamships are rare. so you're actually under your own power. so lewis and clark, as i'll say, they're they're doing a lot of paddling. they may have burned up to 8000 calories a day by just how hard were working. right. which is crazy. so they did not need to hit the gym after long day of exploring. so, yeah, water super important a pathway to the pacific and potential trading routes with eastern sort nations like russia to some extent but also possibly looking at china and japan. right. because the only way around was down underneath south america. and that's a long way to go. i think approximately 180 day journey if you leave the east coast of the united states, go all the way down to end up in california. it takes half a year, right. so if you can a quicker way,

you're going to take it. and then jefferson says, obviously, we all know that there are people living in the louisiana territory. you're going to probably run into them. please collect all the information you can about them about the languages they speak about their allegiances, about their affiliation about the way that they live how they sustain themselves and to do as much as you can not to make them hate the united states, if at all possible. right. we talked we ended last time on this idea that one of the most omnipresent threats to the new american republic were these powerful indigenous nations. lewis and are acting in part as diplomats going out to the west trying to meet with indigenous peoples and to try and get a map or a sense of where allegiances lie. groups do not like each other. which groups do and how spread out and these indigenous peoples are so they're going to try and

figure out they have some knowledge of. some of the groups there are going to be others that they don't know well at all. and then he says, yeah, we're sort of diplomats. you why didn't they come with trade goods? they did. yeah they they came with like metals and blankets and nice clothing and even gave out weapons and guns and ammunition. so jefferson did give them lots of stuff, famously had a piece metal minted out of gold that they would hand to indigenous tribal leaders to say, you, you are now at peace with the united states, whether or not. the indigenous leaders bought that we won't know. but you know, because the reading that they just did. yeah talked about how the natives were like disappointed with their offerings and how like they brought all this stuff. but actually bring any like real. right. in the case of the mandan so so the reading was from elizabeth book about the mandan indians.

they had been trading with the french for decades. and so they'd encountered sort of angle europeans before or you french europeans and they'd given them nice stuff. so in lewis and clark show up with their little boats and they're like, we have one or two things to offer you, but there could be lots more people, so we can't give you everything. they're like, oh, the french gave us a lot more. so the mentions are a particularly interesting case. they were already well incorporated into these european trading networks and a sort of a long standing relationship with the french traders. but lewis and clark yeah, they're not as impressive what they're a little piece metals and blankets, and then they're like, we just stay with you for the whole winter. we have nowhere to. and it turns out dakota is pretty cold, so we don't want to keep going. the river's freeze over the missouri will actually freeze in north dakota's massive river. so yeah, but it's a great question. they do try to be diplomats, but they they only can carry what they carry and there's only so

many of them, you know, about 40, 45 folks go on this expedition. they're really small kind of group. remarkable. maybe only one casualty. the entire time, other worthy of your notice. jefferson says, the soil, the growth and vegetable, the animals of the country especially those not known to us. the remains and accounts of any which may be deemed rare or extinct. the mineral of every kind, metals, limestone, coal, salt. peter sailings mineral waters, salt, petersburg be important in making gunpowder, noting temperature of the last in such circumstances indicate their character volcanic appearance is climate as character as by the thermometer the proportion of rainy, cloudy and clear days, lightning, hail, ice, access and risk of frost winds. the data which plants put forth or lose their flowers or leaves times of appearance of birds reptiles or insects. he's like, tell me everything. i'll write it all down. yeah, i really did have like zero clue what could be out

there. just like, because he's just like volcanic appearance. yeah. so it's just like, just write down literally every well and they get when they it's not the losing expedition, but once they get to yellowstone like oh my goodness, the earth is exploding. yeah, they no clue. now they could have asked indigenous people, but weren't going to. yeah. so they when they did see these different ditches and then they offered is there, did all these native groups, they also kind of supplement it because? i mean, you have this group of people in for a going around and need food water and they do they try and get all this source it yeah yeah i'm in the lewis and clark expedition is not possible without the indigenous people that they encounter and i'll talk in a minute about sacajawea where or chicago. we're who becomes an avatar in our sort of national consciousness for the american help that lewis and clark received. but she is certainly not the only indigenous person that plays an integral in getting

them across the continent. so like for real, didn't they just sit down and ask somebody about what was over here? like, actually, why have you met an american american? so is it just racism is the answer just raises a large part of it. yeah, jefferson is really. and notes on the state of virginia. he writes about these massive sort of earth mounds that that are discovered near st louis. he has this of long again. he dudes long kind of exposition about where could these have come from? where could these mountains have been produced? certainly could not have been. these are impressive structures. they show advanced civilization and he's like they definitely could not been native americans. it was probably ancient. romans who came to the united states at some point, thousands of years ago, built them and then left and had to have been a civilization on par with ancient rome.

it have been indigenous people, which is bonkers because like right. this is like the principle is like the most obvious answers probably. the answer it was it was obviously indigenous aliens. they. right, right. it's aliens. yeah. rather a pyramid is simply the most reasonable which just blocks definitely you. right. so so no. the answer the question is yeah they just didn't for whatever reason place any value on indigenous knowledge. right. and is one of those tropes we talked about at the beginning of the class that's going to follow our story of kind of native people in the united states. native people can never be modern, they can never be civilized as they are. they do not possess. the kind of traits that set european sort of americans apart, which is their knowledge and intelligence. so they don't listen to them, but do take the food. they do. yeah, they're happy to to have their help. yeah. you ever and. that's interesting.

the british are the same so when the british start exploring in the antarctic their ships will often get stuck. and then all the explorers die or the ships will sink, and then they don't come back to britain and the british will send out these expedition to recover the ships and the explorers. and there's a famous case, the ship only discovered a couple of years ago where the british sent out relief expedition around the turn of the century. and the local inuit people were like yeah, they were like over there. we saw them like a few weeks ago and the boat was like stuck in the ice. and the british were great. they went and looked, you know, way over there they found the boat exactly. the inwards had said it was going to be 100 years prior. right. it's it's the kind of my assumption that indigenous knowledge does not have the same value. in fact, it was exactly what you needed to. so yeah, you kind asked, but they're not going to write. but there's thomas jefferson. this is the portrait that is commissioned by west point in honor of his founding of the

university i think is interesting right. he's got a sort either a map or a document rolled up in his hand, suggestive kind of his vision for the place. he was a tall dude, not as tall as george washington. and don't that didn't bother him but he seethed about the explorers. all right to explore and i put that in quotes for, you know, the exact reason the idea that this unknown territory is quite silly to the americans. it certainly was jefferson appoints meriwether lewis to find a route to pacific. lewis as sort of a friend of jefferson who'd worked alongside jefferson for many years, is also from the same part of virginia, right? jefferson is from albemarle county and its surrounding area. he says, hey, you got some time, you got a couple years because i'd love to see if you can find a water route to the pacific. and lewis says, why not? i'll take it on, but i'd like to have a second in command.

and he asks william clark to to fulfill that role. clark is part of a family of noted soldiers and explorers his brother, george rodgers. clark was a famous participant in that northwest indian war that we talked last class. and so clark kind of has a pedigree of this. i would say clark slightly more capable of the two. also, poor meriwether lewis just kind of fumbles and bumbles into. one or two disasters. the most famous of these is when he's down, kind of in that part of idaho there he drops down there, he's out hunting one day with another of the expedition, who is very near sighted, which is not great when he has a gun. they were hunting after sort of two deer. they one of the deer and it fell. but the second deer kind of scampered. and so they both went off in different directions to try and

get the deer. and just as lewis is about to shoot the deer, a bullet hits him right below his bum and he's like, did you just shoot me? and the guy's like, no, definitely wasn't me. i thought was shooting the deer. and lewis was like, i am not the deer. i'm the commander of this expedition. so i think lewis is the only member of the expedition get shot in the --. but this the kind of stuff that they have to deal with and they don't have really chance of running for help. they got the bullet out and it was clearly from the dude's gun. so you know, this and look, these things repeat in american. so not the first time a government official has accidentally shot someone on a hunting expedition. so clark will be the second in command and they have about 45 men along on the expedition, including clark's enslaved servant, york, who is the only

unpaid member of the expedition and to the joy of of of kids when you go to any lewis and clark site a large newfoundland dog named seaman who came them seaman has a statue at fort mandan which is we'll talk about they spend their first winter and so on. i remember as a kid being sort of deeply delighted by the story of, seaman the dog and lewis and clark is a fascinating period in the nation's history because it has kind of all these phenomenal kind of characters and it's it is really a massive undertaking. so the red line there is is how they go out to the pacific as they come back and realize there's direct water route and that will take them where they want to go. they split up to, explore more territory, and then expeditions kind of reconvene where they had split off from one another. so they do try to cover a lot of

ground and they name all kinds of places on the american map after members of the expedition, as we've already talked about a little bit including rivers and prominent landmasses and so on so they start to fill in the map with american ideas about all of these places so up up the missouri pretty easy job of it and then get into montana things get a little tricky so the corps of discovery as the expedition becomes known they will meet and in a variety of guides traders including a frenchman named toussaint charbonneau and his young. she was probably about 16 when they married maybe 14 wife chicago heir who was a shoshone woman who had been kidnaped or sold to the hidatsa, who are part of the mandan indian nation. as a young and traded to them,

charbonneau was a frenchman a french trader, a french national who married several indian, many sort of and had several at the same time sort of over the course of his life. but skagway will accompany the expedition. it leaves fort mandan, which kind of up there in north dakota, the middle of north dakota today, and go with to the pacific coast, the first winter in february 1805, while expedition is wintering at the small installation they build on the missouri river called fort. so kagawa gives birth to a son, jean-baptiste charbonneau, who goes to the pacific with the expedition as a baby who is nicknamed pomp or pompey by lewis and clark. so kagawa at several points not only helps the expedition, stay on track, but she also saves a

bunch of journals and other scientific material. when one of the keel boats that the expedition is using turns over in some rapids. she actually manages to all of the materials i was reading about the expedition and york the enslaved manservant who goes along, was perhaps the only member of the expedition who knew how to swim, which you would think would have been a prerequisite for for going on a little canoe trip. but but it was not so. so today you can still in every year there's a different back these the chicago area gold coins and each year the back reflects a different sort of prominent moment in the country's native american history or prominent native american person and pompey or jean-baptiste is the second child to ever appear on american currency after virginia dare who was included on a commemorative james coin yeah, they still do yeah. and different back every year. i used to get all of those when i lose my teeth have like a

million all of them from around 30. so they can they still make them. yeah, absolutely. get them in shape. vending machines here. i mean they come on as change. yeah. that's very funny. that's all we get. quarters i feel bad. now, you got to you got to drop the secret of the it's only a few machines that do though. i will i will tell you afterwards. yeah. this is a secret. it's not for the not for the c-span. yeah. they don't need to know. that's right. but yeah. they still make them so and as i said, sacagawea it kind of stands in for, in our retelling of the lewis and clark legend, like sort of brushed by show of hands. how many of you knew about sacagawea before? like, how many like how old do you think you were? like, you could hold up fingers when you heard about her. probably like eight or nine. i did like a million projects on her. we? yeah. 097588. yeah yeah. so you learn about her as a

young kind of. right. and then is that, is she like the primary thing you remember from lewis and clark, she's the only i mean when it came to helping. yeah, lewis, she was the only one. that's what we learned. it was. right. and i remember learning about her like at seven or eight, but i guess from getting the coins, i thought she a lot more of a like a known mystery or that was discussed when you get to school it's like she was also there living on. so it's kind of like she had this huge impact, but it's not really taught in american public schools. yeah yeah, i learning about your york and i think i remember the dog bite of i remember learning kind of more about other people not just her but i mean obviously like the biggest one right she she's on money. yeah, she's on money. she's got almost i think she has more statues. almost any woman in american history at various places across the country um. yeah. um, so i never, i never heard of

that dog. it was the first time i've heard. yeah, yeah. no, that, that, that was a total that's totally different. so moderately obsessed with seeing them as, as a kid. yeah. he was this big newfoundland dog. it was funny. they didn't know about him for many years. and then they were finally reading the journals and they kept seeing repeated references, this kind of animal. and they were like, oh, they must've had a dog with them. like, so it's, it's interesting. but yeah, so she's a remarkable figure, but sort of one of many indigenous people that the lewis and clark expedition possible and probably gets more recognition than than most other kind of indigenous participants in american history but just keep in mind, um we don't know how much of a choice she had in taking part in this expedition right she had been kidnaped at a young age. she had been married off to a white man. she had had children with him and he her she was going on the expedition because he had been hired by the expedition. whether or not sacagawea felt

any sort of sense of participation or pride in going along with the lewis and clark expedition, we can never really know but her son does make a career and a life as an explorer and guide for the us army he's eventually adopted by william clark and raised in saint and sent to europe for many years. he like half a dozen languages. he's a quite remarkable figure in his own right, this kind of famous mother. so, so yeah. but we can't that right. but but there she is part of this corps of discovery and as i said, a huge part of it and one reason having a baby and woman along with you for most of your expedition is probably a pretty good idea is that it you a pretty reasonable way to hold up your hands and say, hey, don't shoot. you know, when you run into a new indigenous nation, you say

we come in peace, we have a woman and a baby with us. we're not here to do you any ha and so sacagawea and baptiste also become very helpful in terms of the diplomatic mission of the corps of discovery as they go out into the west. and so they believed, again, have you met an that they could simply go out to all these indigenous nations and say, we're here now, we're in charge? the the president of united states is now your great father in washington. you are his children. and you must all get along because you are part of this country. now we sort of are conquering this. and i'm sure the indigenous people that really i don't see how you're going to pull that off. but that's what they did. and they truly believe that that was totally reasonable thing to do do.

but they realized that indigenous people had deep seeded allegiances and also rivalries with one another, and that there was no way that these different groups were just going to get along because. the louisiana territory now belonged to. the united states and. they had to become much shrewder and wiser with these native groups to secure their safe passage across the continent, to trade for the supplies, the horses, food, the protection that they needed to to cross these mountains and and rivers of the american west. so they have to learn on the job. but it's a very interesting kind of assumption. they go out there just thinking it's going to be no problem at all. and of course, as is always case in history, right. much more complicated than that. this a later painting, the 1880s, 1890s of the lewis and clark expedition on the artists

has. lots of work hanging in the air and carter museum in fort worth. if you ever want to go see its wonderful museum, if you ever want to see art that is produced by these army exploring expeditions, the carter cannot be in many ways. so what are the lewis and clark expedition achieved? well, they made a lot of maps, about 140 of them to the best of their ability. so they had all these scientific, you know, compasses ways to draw, find longitude and so on. they contact did over 70 native american tribes during the course of their expedition and their reports and journals describe more than 200 new plant and animals species they caught or trapped as many as they could and sent artifacts back to thomas jefferson who displayed them in the entryway to his home at monticello. so have any of you ever been among which all you got to go absolutely phenomenal but you walk in through those those from the portico outside the building

and you see a massive map of the united states. the jefferson head commission and these these are replica artifacts because. many of the native nations who had artifacts sent back asked them to be returned, which is their right under federal. but jefferson had this displayed in and in the 19th century, you could just decide in the morning i want to go see thomas today and you could walk up to monticello and you could sit in the room and wait to see the former president and look at all of these objects brought from the american west, things that you never before seen in your life as a virginian. and so it was a remarkable way of bringing the frontier this, distant space that americans really didn't know about. back to the east and supplying a vast quantity of knowledge. and that's what army explorers are going to do from that point forward. there's other parts of the lewis of the louisiana territory that

have to be explored, including that southern portion. and so jefferson, another army guy with great name of zebulon pike, phenomenal name to be a famous historical figure. and in 1806 says, i want you to locate the headwaters of the arkansas river and the rio grand. so go out the south, go across kansas and, colorado and figure out what's going on out there. the problem was there was a lot more trouble with diplomacy that zebulon pike had to run into because that territory that impeded on the louisiana purchase in the southern part of the united states were spanish territory and the spanish didn't really want a bunch of americans showing up in this southwestern part, the united states and the americans don't have any maps to tell them. quite precise, where the

american territory the louisiana purchase ends, spanish territory begins. so zebulon accidentally gets himself kidnaped by the spanish because he wanders down south of what is today southern into near santa fe and albuquerque and they take him prisoner all the way down into mexico where they try and figure out what he's doing they take all his documents and journals and go through them and have them translated and they think he's a spy or maybe trying to overthrow the mexican government and so on and then they're finally like, oh, you're literally just a dude drawing plants. you can go, so they walk him back to rio grand and say, san antonio's way, get walking and pike and his guys walk back to the united states across texas. they sort of they end up in nacogdoches, right? so and so it's a really interesting kind of moment in an expedition you hear about lot less in part because it didn't

fulfill its kind of immediate purpose, which was find the headwaters of the arkansas and the grande because of that minor kidnaping incident and. pike though he's a smart guy. he says, just in case, i'm going to take a lot of notes about what's going on here and this sort of territory known as, you know, just in case that might come in handy later, which of course, it and pike course lends his name pikes peak, which is the most prominent of the 14,000 foot peaks in southern colorado, beloved by texans who flee there every summer. to the great annoyance of coloradans. and i say that as a colorado. so pike absolutely. a critical figure here. but they said go that direction to give him any maps documentation like okay this is kind of our area stay away from this area. there were roads.

i mean, they basically had a sense of like the missions were, right. this had been spanish territory for decades or centuries this point. so yeah, no, no, not quite, but nearly. yeah. so this was when like we hadn't decided that rio grande was like the border. so where, where were they? the border was right. so, yeah, basically like dallas, questionably a part of the louisiana purchase. so. so most of texas, not the what the, texas panhandle, but that's about it. and then that corner of new mexico. right. and this right where santa fe and albuquerque kind of are. so they were right skirting the edge of of what territory was. so, yeah, they got when they went them, they cut over to albuquerque. that's where they got themselves into trouble. yeah. and look, it happens, it was z06 they also for whatever reason i

don't know pike seemed less prepared than louis clark. they end up in the san luis valley of southern colorado, which is a massive mountain park where the great sand dunes are in the winter year, and pike will literally write things in a journal like we didn't bring enough socks. i don't like. i don't know why his expedition they just seemed more ill equipped than lewis clark. but they have a really interesting story, the kind of final leg of exploring louisiana purchase is the long expedition, which fewer people know about. and it comes a little later in 1820. stephen h long travels along the great and his job is to map the front range of the rocky mountains trying to figure out now what are the best passes to get over these mountains where are the places that we can cross these rocky mountains which are massive, right. especially in that sort of portion of colorado longs peak, which is the most furthest north

14,000 foot mountain in the front range, which is there in the corner. that photograph of no is named stephen long. so again, names on the landscape if you're driving across the west and you think to yourself, hey, what's that named after? probably an army dude, right? and so one thing that long does that's really interesting and it's going to have a significant impact on our understanding of especially the great which we're going to talk about in more detail later is he calls this region that he passes through nebraska and colorado and kansas, the great american desert? and he's saying basically nothing is ever going to grow here. it's not of much value. this middle part of the country, this massive belt of great plains that runs from the canadian border all the way down into north texas is virtually and a remarkable kind of statement. so remember when frederick

jackson turner talked about the subsequent stages of american expansion and how it basically skipped that middle, that great plains chunk, because they called it a desert and no one bothered to follow up on that. how did he all the stuff that was there time of year he went through so we turn to winter so it's drier the grasses are dying doesn't look very fertile and then just whatever you saw he didn't see a lot of water and that is true the great plains do lack water especially when you get beyond 100th meridian which basically not too far west austin. so there's this line is the hundredth 100th meridian rainfall off so precipitously on the western side of the meridian, agriculture becomes almost impossible without irrigation. so he's right. he's seeing really dry pieces of the plains. he doesn't know that irrigation technology is going to come along and mitigate kind of all of those problems. but the reason turner that

massive gap in american expansion, the reason the great plains, actually the last part of the frontier to be settled is partly because long, calls it a desert. it's a good question. yeah. uh, i like his little, little outfit. i do like an army explorer, you know, the best post i'm going to be painted. i'm an explorer. i'm a point. something. the army kind of doubles down on its exploring corps in the 1830s by creating what becomes known as the corps of topographical engineers. and these are guys that are basically their whole job is go out and make maps topography to go out and explore. i'm trying figure out what's up, what's going on all across the west and william gottesman, who was a famous historian, pulitzer prize winning historian, taught at the university of texas at austin for many years, wrote as army officers, they the direct concern of the national government in the settling of

the west. there's a type there, and that's true. right. so what they doing is being that representative of federal government on the frontier, they are bringing in, they are consolidating it and they are reporting directly back to washington. it might take weeks for letters to get there, but they, the federal government's representative in the west and they make lots of wonderful art and drawings. these are obviously a turtle and an alligator and these are produced in the 1830s at a place called fort pulaski, which is in the carolinas, on the carolina lowcountry, the coast of savannah. and they are drawn by robert de lee, who is in charge of building a fort pulaski. they're in the local tree. so army officers, regardless of what they're doing, have this incredible impulse to be document sitting, recording and making notes about the places they're going. and therefore provide an

invaluable amount of testimony for understanding, aiding the early american west, and especially how white americans thought about this as space and time. it's really funny. how different was this education like at west point? the education they were receiving was very well rounded. how different is that from like other sources? like in other military powers like england, france, that kind of. sure, yeah. so so there would have been officers schools in those countries, but they would have been very focused. remember, these are those countries also compel military service from their citizens. the united states doesn't do that. so this is a self-selecting group probably wanting to learn to be engineers rather than soldiers they have to serve five years when they get out, a lot of them leave. so they would've been officer training and west point does train officers. you are commissioned as an officer coming out of west point but it would have been lot focused on tactics and strategy. it's kind of a very uniquely american kind of thing. what was the reaction if you

know some of the of like other countries to this new american system of military. they didn't think that they were as as capable. right. yeah. i mean they were looked down on because they weren't spending all this time on tactics and training and americans also. it's really funny. there's a kind of a there's a longstanding conversation in the history of the american civil war, whether the french or the prussians had more influence on the american military. they're obsessed with the french. it's it's not even close. they basically pattern everything that they do down to their uniforms on design. french systems, french knowledge, french tactics. thanks a lot. thomas jefferson. right. we talked about the awesome loves the french loves to write a long hates to be shorter than washington. so so yeah, so good question. but they were not seen as the equals of the great european military powers, though the us will send its officers and

soldiers to europe when european countries are fighting to observe what's going on. so several civil war officers will go observe the crimean war in the 1850s and try and make sense of what's going on there. but primarily they want to sort of right and draw and explore and map and that's what they're really really good at and sometimes times wars give them the cover to do that even a little more so right. we had zebulon pike there accidentally getting a place he shouldn't have been in new um, well it's only going to be a couple decades and here's where we're going to kind of jump forward time a little bit to talk about some other explorers that the united states is finally going to get access to that territory and they're going to do under the cover of a war, mexico in the 1840, to win that territory for. the united states after, the session of texas to the us. so the us war offers officers an

unprecedented opportunity to finally fill in america and maps of the american and they do so sort of very and there's a couple of guys i'll highlight here i won't too much about steven kearney, though. he's a really important army. he captures santa fe enroute to california during the us-mexico war and establishes a military code of governance that's really in military history. but perhaps the more important guy to know about in terms of army exploration in this period is this dude john c, fremont, who is a member of the army corps of topographical who is sent explore california and the pacific coast in 1840s. fremont makes several expeditions to california. but in 1846, his expedition is the one that helps conquer

california for the united states subduing the bear flag, revolt and proclaiming united states sovereignty. california out of the hands. mexico, with the help of the navy. i always want to be very clear. the navy is involved. but what we really care about are these army guys. but in 1846, without firing a shot, the captures california and fremont basically free to establish a headquarters and start to map and explore california and. i think we all know what that exploring is going to turn up we'll talk about it in a minute, but it's going to produce great value for. the us, fremont is going to become so famous as this pathfinder. that's his nickname, the pathfinder and conqueror of california that he's going to run for president. he's going to be the first republican candidate for president in 1856. he does not win, but and to be

fair, the dude lost james buchanan. and that's brutal like james buchanan. but he tried it is best he will become a major figure in the american civil war, though for the wrong reasons. he's going to spend basically the entire war complaining that nobody appreciates him enough. they should be giving him more to do and eventually lincoln's going to be like, john, please just go away. but he is famous because of his exploration and he becomes famous alongside a critical figure who helps him in endeavors and by the name of kit carson. but i want to say army, officers often went out west alone or with other soldiers. but at other times they decided that wanted to take their wives with them. and if you weren't, officer, you had the right to do this and so fremont there takes his wife

jesse, benton fremont, who's the daughter of a famous senator who was one of the biggest promoters of manifest destiny in u.s. history, george custer, who will explore in the west and the yellowstone in black hills after the civil war takes, his wife, libbie custer, with him on his expeditions out into the west and like like they're sort of husbands these women write down they see and what they perceive but they do it from right a very different perspective. they're not writing as soldiers, writing as wives and potential as mothers. and they're writing about the west as a place of possibility into american families. can that are not simply a masculine space, not simply a space by fur traders and soldiers and what have you, but that their space for all americans. and they write and these books get published and they're incredibly popular accounts of

these western travels. so the american public, as much they're interested in the stories of john fremont, george custer, they're interested in the stories of jesse benton and libbie bacon as well so it's a really interesting phenomenon. there's a tendency, right? in a lecture about the us army in the american west to maybe not mention women at all, and some of my graduate students would, raising their hands in the back and saying, where are the women at? and that's a it's a valid question. but just to say they were equally important in producing knowledge but in a very different way and so their sources their documents are really critical as well. they were not absent from this space, which is important to note, even though we think of it as very masculine space at this time there's kit carson, who is a huge aide to john c fremont as goes to california. carson is one of the kind of greats a american figures,

though his biography is is complicated, difficult to wrestle with as as any figure of 19th century. he was at times a great friend to indigenous peoples at other times involved in relocate, removing and engaging and being complicit in the massacre of peoples. at times he worked for the us, at times he was an indian agent and independent guide. what you but he is one of these frontier figures that does whatever he can to earn a living to make a life. but the point of carson was just as the point was with someone, sacajawea, where the army can't do this alone and it needs people who have been out there, who have done the work, who've gone to the west and and can help the army get where they need, go like literally be like, don't go ten miles that way. it's a swamp kind, a thing, which if you don't have a map, a sense of where things are, you're not going to know. so you need that knowledge that

sits in place. and carson is one of these figures. so at times army officer but really a traitor, a and a trailblazer in the american, a figure like daniel boone or crockett, who we'll talk about in a couple of weeks. sorry, you can't avoid him in this class. what else does the army do? so we've talked about their reports. we've talked about they send samples back. they also sort of pictorial represent nations of these places. and after the civil war, most army topographical expeditions will be accompanied by a photographer. now, this is a pain in the -- because photography in the 19th century involves massive glass. and let me tell you, taking glass over a mountain in a bumpy wagon with i mean springs but they don't really do much to cushion the ride is a dangerous proposition your plates might not get back but what we'll always get back is art. and so one thing that the west pointers is take classes in

watercolor and drawing because they're being asked to represent the west to an american public in the east that has never seen these places. and again, here's army explorers are doing here's how the frontier corps is being rendered for the average american who might go west. it's closing the distance in time and space between, the far west and the settled east. so this is an example of an army report comes out during the us-mexican war. a young engineer james abbott gets sick near modern day. ben's fort, colorado carnies like we cannot for you to get better we were needed in california but once you do feel better, why don't you take some instruments and go down into new mexico and the texas panhandle and make the first american map of what is today? texas, new mexico. and abbott is like great. abbott is also a napa baby. his dad was in charge of the

corps of topographical engineers and that's fine. he's a wonderful and are these are official kind of military documents right that he's but he's putting such time care into them that they are of on their own individual works art and these army reports will get published with full lithograph in books that the american public can buy. they're literally going and buying official government reports kind of full of these documents because they want to see and, read and know about all places in the american west. so you can find abbott's lithograph still today. you can get copies of them. they're remarkable i want to give you it's not i couldn't get a high resolution but i just want to give you a couple guesses as to who you think painted this. i don't know i don't know what clues i could give you he's a soldier he's on the good side in

the civil war he's from ohio a general he's a general. there he goes. gray ulysses grant. that's right. grant was a noted water colorist. and again, this is his west point training, right? i mean, you all know the story. i'm sure when grant shows up at west point and they have his name down wrong, the paperwork, you lose the sense grant's name is hiram. his name is hiram ulysses grant, and he gets to west point and they're like, oh, ulysses s grant because mother's maiden name was simpson. and he was like five feet tall. he weighed 100 pounds. he's this scrawny little. he was like, yep, that's right. that's my name. no further questions. and thank goodness he did because otherwise his initials would have been hug and don't think a guy with the initials hug really could have won the civil but u.s. grant unconditional surrender grant that's a guy who can take you to victory. but he's noted at west point as a water colorist, which surprises people and also as a

horseman, he held jumping records, horsemanship records, west point that stood for decades after left the military academy. he topped out at five foot eight, about 180. so he had a bit of a growth, but he was an average size century american. but he, like army explorers, he sent he's he is in mexico with winfield and zachary taylor. but after the us-mexico war, he goes to the pacific northwest, to oregon and washing tin and makes notes and observations like all army officers do. and the the primary source that you all are going to reading for this class is an army officers journal, right lawrence camps journal, the pacific northwest in the 1850s. and it's about warfare on the one hand, but it's also right about. but the army wasn't a lucrative living, but it did give you one advantage if you were enough to take hold of it and there are

soldiers who are able to do this, who out west as army officers and they're employed by the but on the day to day maybe they're not so busy and they supplement their income in other ways so you have to buckaroos they're going to end up on opposite sides of the civil war. one of them, william tecumseh sherman, a good guy. the other richard stoddard ewell, he's on the confederate side, has a terrible day at gettysburg. look, not important, but they split, managed their incomes by investing in western enterprises. and they're really smart to so because they have the first crack at the whole thing there's not a flood of other americans who have come in to compete with them. and john c also profits this john c fremont establishes home in california and gold just to be found there and he rich off of that so sherman inadvertently starts the california gold rush when he reports official military documents that gold had been discovered at sutter's

mill, california. but also earned money by applying those engineering skills that he learned west point and helping to survey and towns and cities, the modern day city of sacramento, california, capital of california, completely laid out by william tecumseh sherman, who knew richard, as you will, similarly, new mexico frequently wrote to his family that he was going to invest in mining operations because. it figured it would be a way to make money because army officers didn't get paid about $70 a week. it's pay for the 19th century, but not a massive salary. so one advantage you had as a soldier was this kind of thing. so what do army officers ultimately give us when it comes to the american west in their exploration? they take these borderlands, these frontiers, and they start to put borders on them right. and so one of the things we're really talking about in this class, class in the american frontier is how do you wrestle a vast space that is basically

ungoverned into a space with lines on the map? and in 1854, for the first time, the united states army produces a map of the american west. its collated, put together by a guy named, gouverneur warren, who will have a really good day at gettysburg and help to prevent the collapse of round tops during that battle. but in the 1850s is a highly respected topographical engineer will actually command all engineers in the us war at various points. but he draws this map. he takes the of lewis and clark and zebulon and stephen long and john fremont and he starts putting them together to make map of the american west and then he also went out and talked to fur traders and mountain men and said draw what know about these places so that i can it all together. and here's the map that he makes but it's a map that for the first time tries to sketch in

very clear lines. where's territory of the united states? so on and so forth. and those lines will provide the basis for the us construct with the help of the army, the kind of one enterprise that will bind the nation together, that will really time and space, that will connect pacific and the atlantic and is the railroad and i talked a little bit about how politics enters into this, and that's how i'll finish up. jefferson davis is secretary of war in the 1850s, right? he'll go on to be president of the confederacy, one of the largest slave holders in the united states as secretary of war commissioned five separate surveys to go out and find a line for a railroad. the pacific coast one goes along the northern of the country, ending in the puget. a central line goes to san francisco from saint louis, one north of oklahoma to los angeles and the southernmost survey went across texas here to san diego

and followed an old stagecoach trail. and a fifth survey went up and down the coast. california jefferson davis is going to send these expedition out. he's going to pay them very well and he's going to ask them to collect all this knowledge about which route will be the best. this is the 1850s. slavery is a live issue. it should come as no surprise to us that jefferson thinks that the best route for the pacific road is the one that goes through texas, because that's the one that has the most direct benefit to slaveholders. right. it's go back. it's that route in right there. so when davis makes his report, congress, he's like, they're all great. but i would suggest we build this railroad because it's the most expedient if we ever need to get troops to california because being invaded and congress is like, hmm, seems unlikely and because the country cannot agree on which railroad is the greatest national

benefit, because is such a divisive issue in the 1850s. the railroad doesn't get until after the civil war, which finally decides the issue of slavery in the united states. jefferson davis should have known better because was no water on the westacott of west texas, and when he sent out an army officer, john pope, to look for water, he didn't find any, but he spent three years drilling holes into the ground and trying to find it. talk about fruitless but this the point here right not all army expedition are equally successful not all army names go down in the history books. great triumphs. john is not a triumph for a number of reasons, but this is one of them. so here's politics at play. we want a southern railroad. it will make slaveholders richer. so the point is at the end of the day, what starts as a knowledge collecting enterprise on the part of the us army to

help us understand the frontier better becomes by the midpoint of the 19th century an exercise fraught with political. and one that will in many help to trigger the american civil war. the question what's going on in the frontier is going to be critically the fact that the army spends most of its time on the frontier is also going to matter significantly in helping to cause the civil war, because jefferson davis has a lot of. the army in texas and new mexico, he's developing the west for slavery and is using the army to do it. and so they become a political concern as well. and so that's what i have for y'all today. thanks, as always. any questions comments? concerns, please come see me. but thanks, everybody, for a great class and

i'm brad warthen and welcome to the new debrief. we're here to listen to dennis dupuis tell about his experiences in vietnam, where he served two tours. tours as