Lewis and Clark, Sacagawea & The Corps of Discovery: Fifth Grade Social Studies
Between 1804 and 1806, an intrepid band of explorers known as the Corps of Discovery crossed thousands of miles of uncharted wilderness to map the newly purchased Louisiana Territory, reach the Pacific Ocean, and open the American West.
The Vision: Commissioning the Corps of Discovery
Even before the Louisiana Purchase was officially finalized, President Thomas Jefferson had long dreamed of exploring the vast, unknown western reaches of North America. At the time, maps of the American West were virtually blank; Europeans and Americans possessed only mythical knowledge of the interior, with some believing the region was inhabited by woolly mammoths, mountains of pure rock salt, and Welsh-speaking Native Americans.
Jefferson held a specific scientific and geopolitical mission. He wanted to discover the mythical "Northwest Passage"—a continuous, all-water trade route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans that would open direct commercial trade with Asia. In January 1803, Jefferson sent a secret message to Congress requesting twenty-five hundred dollars to fund a scientific and military expedition.
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| JEFFERSON'S CORE OBJECTIVES |
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| 1. GEOGRAPHY & NAVIGATION: Map rivers, find Northwest Passage |
| 2. DIPLOMACY: Establish friendly relations and trade with |
| Native American sovereign nations |
| 3. SCIENCE: Document new plants, animals, soil, and climate |
| 4. COMMERCE: Secure the valuable western fur trade |
| 5. SOVEREIGNTY: Establish American claim to the Pacific coast |
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To command the expedition, Jefferson selected his trusted thirty-year-old personal secretary, Captain Meriwether Lewis, an experienced army officer, woodsman, and amateur naturalist. Lewis chose his close friend and former military superior, thirty-three-year-old Lieutenant William Clark, an expert cartographer, boatman, and river navigator, to share command. Although the army officially commissioned Clark as a second lieutenant, Lewis treated him as a complete co-commander with equal rank throughout the journey, referring to him as "Captain Clark."
The Journey Begins: Up the Missouri River
The expedition, formally christened the Corps of Discovery, consisted of roughly forty-five enlisted soldiers, civilian boatmen, and frontiersmen. Among the company was York, an enslaved African American man who was William Clark's lifelong personal companion. York was a towering, skilled hunter and woodsman who played an indispensable role in the expedition's survival.
On May 14, 1804, the Corps of Discovery embarked from Camp Dubois near St. Louis, Missouri. Their primary vessel was a custom-built, fifty-five-foot keelboat fitted with twenty-two oars and a square sail, accompanied by two smaller open wooden boats called pirogues.
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| THE ROUTE OF THE CORPS OF DISCOVERY (1804-1806) |
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| [PACIFIC OCEAN] |
| ^ |
| | (Columbia River) |
| FORT CLATSOP (Winter 1805-1806, Oregon coast) |
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| | (Bitterroot Mountains - Starvation & snow) |
| SHOSHONE NATION (Procured horses via Sacagawea) |
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| | (Three Forks of the Missouri, Montana) |
| GREAT FALLS (Grueling 18-mile overland portage) |
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| | (Missouri River) |
| FORT MANDAN (Winter 1804-1805, North Dakota) |
| *Recruited Sacagawea and Charbonneau* |
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| | (Missouri River against fierce currents) |
| CAMP DUBOIS / ST. LOUIS (May 1804 departure - Sept 1806) |
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Traveling up the Missouri River was an agonizing physical struggle. The river was nicknamed the "Big Muddy" because of its thick sediment, treacherous sandbars, submerged tree snags (sawyers), and crumbling riverbanks. The men had to haul the heavy keelboat against the powerful current using oars, long poles, and tow ropes along the muddy riverbanks, averaging only ten to fifteen miles on a good day.
Winter at Fort Mandan and the Arrival of Sacagawea
In late October 1804, after traveling sixteen hundred miles, the expedition arrived in modern-day central North Dakota, home to the Mandan and Hidatsa nations. The Mandans were agricultural peoples who lived in thriving earth-lodge villages that served as major trading centers on the Northern Plains. Lewis and Clark built a triangular log fortress across the river called Fort Mandan, spending the freezing winter of 1804-1805 among the Mandans, where temperatures plunged to forty-five degrees below zero.
While at Fort Mandan, Lewis and Clark hired a French-Canadian fur trapper named Toussaint Charbonneau as an interpreter. Charbonneau had two young Native American wives whom he had purchased from the Hidatsas. One of them was Sacagawea, a sixteen-year-old Shoshone woman who had been kidnapped from her homeland near the Rocky Mountains by a Hidatsa raiding party five years earlier.
In February 1805, inside Fort Mandan, Sacagawea gave birth to a baby boy named Jean Baptiste (whom William Clark affectionately nicknamed "Pompey"). When the expedition departed westward into unknown territory in April 1805, Sacagawea joined the Corps of Discovery, carrying her two-month-old infant on a cradleboard strapped to her back.
The Indispensable Role of Sacagawea
Sacagawea proved to be one of the most invaluable members of the expedition. While Hollywood movies often portray her as a trail guide, she did not guide them across the entire West; rather, she recognized critical geographic landmarks once they reached her ancestral homeland in southwestern Montana.
Sacagawea's true contributions were profound and multifaceted:
- Survival and Foraging: Sacagawea possessed expert knowledge of native plants. She searched the riverbanks to dig up wild edible roots, licorice, prairie turnips, currants, and wild artichokes that kept the men nourished when game was scarce.
- Cool Courage Under Pressure: In May 1805, a sudden squall tipped Charbonneau's pirogue on its side, and Charbonneau panicked, crying out in terror. While other men shouted, Sacagawea calmly reached into the rushing waters and saved the expedition's most valuable cargo—journals, scientific records, navigational instruments, and medicine—from being swept away.
- Symbol of Peace: In the American West, war parties never traveled with women, let alone a nursing mother carrying an infant. As Clark noted in his journal, the presence of Sacagawea and her baby served as an unmistakable "token of peace" to every Native nation they encountered, preventing violent clashes before they could begin.
- The Miracle at the Shoshone Camp: By August 1805, the expedition reached the headwaters of the Missouri River and needed horses to cross the massive, snow-covered Rocky Mountains before winter set in. When Lewis and Clark arranged a diplomatic council with the local Shoshone band, Sacagawea sat down to interpret. Suddenly, she looked at the Shoshone chief, jumped up, wrapped her blanket around him, and burst into tears of joy. The chief, Cameahwait, was her biological brother, whom she had not seen since her childhood kidnapping. The emotional reunion secured the horses, pack saddles, and Shoshone guides the expedition desperately needed.
Across the Mountains to the Pacific Ocean
Guided across the rugged Bitterroot Range by a Shoshone guide named Old Toby, the Corps endured their most agonizing trial. Snow fell heavily, freezing mountain temperatures set in, and game disappeared. Starving and exhausted, the men were forced to slaughter some of their pack horses for food.
Stumbling out of the mountains near death, the explorers were saved by the hospitable Nez Perce nation, who gave them salmon, dried berries, and camas roots. After regaining their strength, the Corps carved five dugout canoes from ponderosa pine logs and floated down the Clearwater, Snake, and Columbia rivers.
In November 1805, after eighteen months and over four thousand miles of travel, William Clark penned his jubilant (and phonetically spelled) entry in his journal: "Ocian in view! O! the joy!"
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| A HISTORIC DEMOCRATIC VOTE AT FORT CLATSOP |
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| NOVEMBER 24, 1805: |
| - The expedition must decide where to build winter quarters. |
| - Lewis and Clark conduct an official vote of all members. |
| - SACAGAWEA (a Native American woman) and YORK (an enslaved |
| African American man) are given equal votes! |
| - Occurred more than 60 years before the 15th Amendment and |
| over a century before the 19th Amendment. |
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Before building their winter quarters near modern-day Astoria, Oregon, Lewis and Clark held an unprecedented, historic vote. They asked every member of the expedition to vote on whether to build Fort Clatsop on the south side of the Columbia River or the north side. Sacagawea and York were both given an equal vote. This marked the very first recorded time in American history that a woman and an enslaved African American were granted an equal democratic voice in a government decision.
The Return and Scientific Legacy
After spending a wet, miserable winter at Fort Clatsop surviving on elk meat and boiled roots, the Corps began the long trek home in March 1806. Traveling with the current on the Missouri River, they made rapid progress, arriving back in St. Louis on September 23, 1806, where cheering crowds welcomed them as national heroes who had risen from the dead.
Only one member of the expedition had died during the entire two-and-a-half-year journey: Sergeant Charles Floyd, who succumbed to a burst appendix in Iowa in August 1804.
While the expedition definitively proved that a Northwest Passage water route did not exist, its achievements were breathtaking:
- Scientific Documentation: Lewis and Clark cataloged 178 new plant species and 122 new animal species, including the grizzly bear, prairie dog, bighorn sheep, coyote, and cutthroat trout.
- Cartographic Mastery: William Clark produced remarkably accurate, detailed maps of the Missouri and Columbia river basins and the Rocky Mountain passes that guided generations of future settlers.
- Diplomatic Relations: The expedition established peaceful diplomatic contacts with dozens of sovereign Native American nations and strengthened American territorial claims to the Pacific Northwest against rival British fur companies.
Chapter Review and Exercises
Summary Review Exercises
Exercise One asks students to explain why President Thomas Jefferson commissioned the Corps of Discovery and analyze why the discovery of a "Northwest Passage" was a central goal of the expedition. The response should explain that Jefferson wished to explore the unmapped Louisiana Territory, study its geography, plants, and animals, establish diplomacy with Native nations, and discover a continuous water route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to open direct trade with Asian markets.
Exercise Two asks students to identify three specific ways Sacagawea contributed to the success and survival of the Lewis and Clark expedition. The response should detail her role in foraging for wild edible plants to sustain the explorers, her calm rescue of critical expedition records and instruments when a boat nearly capsized, and her status as a symbol of peaceful intentions that reassured Native nations they encountered.
Exercise Three requires students to analyze the historical significance of the vote taken at Fort Clatsop in November 1805. The response should highlight that Lewis and Clark granted equal voting rights to every member of the party, including Sacagawea (a Native American woman) and York (an enslaved African American man), representing an extraordinary moment of democratic inclusion decades before constitutional amendments guaranteed such rights nationwide.
Detailed Solutions
Solution to Exercise One clarifies that Jefferson envisioned the United States as a continental republic with global trade ties. Finding a commercial water passage through North America would revolutionize international commerce, making the western expedition both an intellectual exploration and a vital geopolitical endeavor.
Solution to Exercise Two reveals that Sacagawea was an indispensable asset rather than a passive traveler. Her botanical knowledge preserved the crew's health, her presence with an infant disarmed potential military confrontations, and her Shoshone familial ties secured the horses needed to navigate the Rocky Mountains.
Solution to Exercise Three demonstrates that the extreme hardships of frontier exploration forged a deep egalitarian respect among the Corps of Discovery. By including York and Sacagawea in the Fort Clatsop vote, the expedition created an inspiring early precedent for universal democratic participation under the American flag.