Word: jefferson
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...Jefferson had once discussed a similar mission with George Rogers Clark. But now, leaving George in his family's care, William accepted "chearfully," and "with much pleasure"--just in time to prevent Lewis from signing up his backup choice, an Army lieutenant named Moses Hooke...
...Jefferson had given Lewis an unambiguous mission: to find "the most direct & practicable water communication across this continent." Judged by that yardstick, the captains had utterly failed. What Jefferson hoped would be a "practicable" water route had turned out to be a brutal portage across parts of Montana and Idaho that included some of the most rugged wilderness in North America. If nothing else, later traders and settlers, appalled by the expedition's experience, learned where not to go and found a friendlier route along the Platte River across Nebraska and over South Pass in Wyoming...
Rather than admit failure, Jefferson devised a solution any spinning politician would recognize: he changed objectives. The expedition, he advised Congress, "has had all the success which could have been expected." Its goal, he said, was actually the understanding "of numerous tribes of Indians hitherto unknown," not to mention examining the trunkloads of specimens of plants and animals that Lewis and Clark had collected along...
...arrived back in St. Louis in 1806, the residents "Huzzared three cheers." But they otherwise did not seem to know what to make of this crew or its achievement. Two nights later, they feted the captains at William Christy's inn. There they raised toasts to, among others, President Jefferson ("the polar star of discovery")...Christopher Columbus ("his hardihood, perseverence and merit")...and Agriculture and Industry ("The farmer is the best support of government"). But when the revelers got to the captains in the 18th and final toast, they seemed to be at a loss for words. Finally they settled...
...interpret what happened. Says Ben Sherman, president of the Western American Indian Chamber in Denver: "The upcoming events portray Clark as the benevolent protector of Indians--that's propagandist baloney." The tragic aftermath: as Governor of the Missouri Territory and Superintendent of Indian Affairs, Clark presided over President Thomas Jefferson's land-grab policy, which some historians characterize as a direct cause of "cultural genocide" and "ethnic cleansing...