CHAPTER 3 LESSON 1

American Exploration Begins 

In the late 1700s​, after years of fighting with Spain, France finally controlled
much of central North America, including what is now Kansas. France named
the huge area of land Louisiana. But Kansas, and Louisiana, did not belong to
France for long.
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The Louisiana Purchase

I​ n 1802, France and Great Britain signed a peace treaty to end a war
that had lasted several years. But many believed the peace would not last
long. Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of France, needed money to pay for the
war that had just ended and to prepare in case war broke out again. At the
same time, President Thomas Jefferson of the newly created United States of
America wanted to expand the country. Many in the US government wanted to
control the trade port of New Orleans. Whoever controlled New Orleans also
controlled the entire Mississippi River Valley. This was critical. At the time,
river travel was the fastest and cheapest way to transport people, goods, and
the military.
Napoleon agreed to sell the entire Louisiana Territory to the United
States in what became known as the Louisiana Purchase. For a total price of
$15 million dollars (which equals more than 200 million today), the United States doubled in size. Adding
820,000 square miles of land opened up possibilities for westward expansion.

American Explorers in Kansas

Once again, the land that was home to the Wichita, Kansa, and other tribes was delivered into the
hands of another Nation. This happened peacefully but without a vote by the people who lived here.

Emperor Bonaparte (far right) signed the Louisiana Purchase Treaty in 1803, selling nearly a million square
miles of land to the United States.

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Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
Now that the United States owned the land called Louisiana,
the government needed to know what the territory looked like.
President Jefferson selected his personal secretary, Meriwether
Lewis, to lead the exploration. Lewis studied astronomy, learned
navigational theories, and studied with physicians and scientists to
learn more about plants and animals. Lewis chose Army Captain
William Clark as his partner and co-captain on the military
expedition. Clark was an excellent ​cartographer​.​ He used a
compass and other nautical instruments to navigate in the
wilderness and draw detailed maps.
President Jefferson gave Lewis and Clark very specific directions: ​“The object of your mission is to
explore the Missouri River . . . and other [rivers which] may offer the most direct. . . water communication
across the continent.” ​This meant the men were to search for a water route that went all the way to the Pacific
Ocean. Jefferson also wanted the American explorers to establish relationships with the American Indians and
to record information about the natural environment.

The Corps of Discovery

Lewis and Clark needed help making their Journey, so Lewis looked for a group of good Hunters,
stout, healthy, unmarried men, used to the woods, and capable of enduring fatigue. Some of the men had
been friends during their time in the Army. But they also chose a gunsmith, a carpenter, a cook, and a few
woodsman and hunters who knew how to trap animals. The Expedition members spoke several languages.
York, and enslaved man held by cart, was a strong traveler who help the Expedition. When the team was
complete, Lewis and Clark had chosen 43 men. President Jefferson called them the “Corps of Discovery.”
Once the group was formed, Lewis and Clark began preparing for the journey. They set up camp just
across the Mississippi River from St Louis, where the Corps of Discovery spent the winter. They built a large
keelboat that could be rode, sailed, towed, or pulled through the various rivers they expected to travel.
Keelboats, or flat bottom boats, usually had just one sail, so Lewis and Clark’s keelboat needed a crew of at
least 22 men to keep it moving upstream. They also had two flat bottom row boats called ​pirogues​ to carry men
and supplies.

The Journey Begins

In the spring of 1804, the Corps of Discovery left St. Louis and headed west along the Mississippi
River, struggling against the current. Because of heavy spring runoff along the “Big Muddy” the group covered
only about 15 to 20 miles a day. They passed several fur trading parties making their way to St Louis, as well
as many small indian villages. Many, though not all, native groups the men encountered were peaceful and
anxious to trade with them.
One hundred twenty-three miles of the 8,000 mile route were present-day Kansas. Clark recorded in his
journal what he had heard about the Kansa.
Although the information Clark collected was
valuable, he was a notoriously bad speller:
​This great river of the Kansas. . . recves
its names from a nation which dwells at the time
on its banks & 2 villages. . .those Indians are not
verry nomerous this time, reduced by war with
their neighbours. . .above

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this river in an open & butifull plain and were verry numerous at the time the French first Settled the Illinois, I
am told they are a fierce & warlike people, being badly Supplied with firearms, become easily conquered by the
Aiauway & Saukees who are better furnished with those materials of war. This nation is now out in the plains
hunting the Buffalow.

Lewis and Clark seemed to like Kansas. They mentioned that there was a variety of game and that the
prairie held great Beauty. Deer seem to be plentiful, and wild raspberries were​ ​abundant​ (present in large
amounts). Clark did remark, however, that the water in the Kansas River tasted “disagreeable” to him. All of
this information would be valuable to future settlers settlers on the prairie.
On July 4th, the group stopped at a creek in northeastern Kansas, near the present-day town of
Atchison. They decided to name the body of water Independence Creek as they celebrated the holiday.
After months of traveling, the Corps of Discovery stopped for the winter at the Mandan Indian village in
what is now North Dakota. Here, Lewis and Clark met a French Trapper named Toussaint Charbonneau who
they hired to be their interpreter. Charbonneau's wife was a young Shoshone girl named Sacagawea. Even
more than her husband, Sacagawea helped Lewis and Clark with her skills and knowledge of the region.

Lewis and Clark celebrated Independence Day

near Atchison in 1804.​ ​How are the men in this
image dressed? What are the men on the boat
doing? What do you think that is?

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Other Explorers Arrive
​ ewis and Clark were not the only explorers to travel the new territory. In the early 1800s, government
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leaders sent out military officers like Zebulon Pike and Stephen Long to understand and report back on this
vast wilderness to the west. Despite all that they saw, both men feared this new land and said it was not fit for
settlement.

Zebulon Pike
In 1806, before Lewis and Clark returned from their expedition,
Lieutenant Zebulon Pike began his exploration of the plains. Unlike
Lewis and Clark, who traveled by boat, Pike became the first American
to travel over land.
Pike’s father was a veteran of the American Revolution. He
was still serving the army when Pike joined at 20 years old. Pike’s
early military job was supervising the transportation of the supplies to
the frontier forts.
General James Wilkinson, governor of the Louisiana Territory,
had mentored Pike. He sent Pike on a mission to return around 50
Osage who had been held captive by a rival tribe, the Potawatomi.
Wilkinson also wanted Pike to make peace between the Osage and the
Kansa. Wilkinson asked Pike to establish a friendly relationship with
the Comanche, but to do so he needed the help of the Pawnee. In
many ways, Pike’s assignment mirrored President Jefferson’s
instructions to Lewis and Clark. He was to explore, map, and find the
headwaters of the Arkansas and Red Rivers. Pike also observed the animals and plants around him and
returned with minerals and ​botanical,​ or plant, specimens.
The land to the west of Louisiana belonged to Spain. One of Pike’s duties was to explore the
southwestern border of the Louisiana Purchase and gather information on the Spanish. The Spanish became
nervous that the Americans would begin to push into their territory as well. In addition, Spain feared that the
Americans might try to take over Spanish trade relationships with American Indians.
Spain was not pleased with the United States’ purchase of Louisiana. In response to Pike’s expedition,
the Spanish sent their own force onto the plains. When Pike arrived at a Pawnee village, the Spanish had
already been there. The Spanish forced the Pawnee at the village to fly the Spanish flag. In response, Pike
had the Pawnee take it down and replace it with a flag of the United States. Pike then decided to follow the
trail of the Spanish soldiers. This trail took Pike and his men west into present-day Colorado.

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A Desert
While exploring the lands at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, Pike and his men found themselves
unprepared for the winter. Pike crossed into land claimed by Spain and was captured. He was held for
several months, and the Spanish officials took some of his papers. He managed to hide his journal. After he
was released, Pike wrote down details of his journey in an attempt to replace the lost papers.

In his accounts, Pike wrote his opinion of what is now Kansas. He described the land as a desert: ​In
the vast country of which we speak, we find the soil generally dry and sandy, with gravel, and discover that
the moment we approach a stream, the land becomes more humid with small timber; I therefore conclude,​
that this country never was timbered, as from the earliest age, the aridity of the soil having so few water
courses running through it, and they being principally dry in summer, has never afforded moisture sufficient
to support growth of timber. . . These vast plains of the western hemisphere, may become in time equally
celebrated as the sandy deserts of Africa; for I saw in my route, in various places, tracts of many leagues,
where the wind had thrown up sand, in all the fanciful forms of the ocean’s rolling wave, and on which not a
speck of vegetable matter existed.

Pike’s description helped begin a national debate over whether this land could be cultivated. It was an
important issue, because in the 19th century the ability to grow crops determined whether settlers could live
there.

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 This 1906 painting by Frederick Remington shows Zebulon Pike being released from Spanish captivity.
Who are the other people in this image, do you think? Why are they watching Pike’s release?

Stephen H. Long
Major Stephen Long was a college
educated member of the Army Corps of
Engineers. He was interested in
geography and technology. In 1819,
President James Madison sent him to
explore the border between the United
States and the Spanish territories to the
southwest. The president had just
negotiated a treaty with Spain that created
a new border for the United States. Long’s
mission was to map the southwestern
portion of the plains that was now US
territory.
Unlike the other explorers, Stephen
H. Long traveled by steamboat. The boat,
called the ​Western Engineer​, traveled to
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, down the Ohio
River to the Mississippi River and then into
the Missouri River. When Long reached the ​confluence​ (where two rivers meet)of the Missouri and the
Kansas Rivers, he attempted to navigate onto the Kansas River. The river was filled with mud from a recent

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flood, and the expedition was forced to return to the safer
waters of the Missouri. Although some of Long’s men were
dispatched into Kansas, Long himself continued north into
Nebraska.
The impact of Stephen H. Long on the history of
Kansas is a story told on a map. Long was the first to publish
a US atlas with state and territory maps. The book was very
popular. Long labeled the area that was to become Kansas
as “The Great American Desert.” In Long’s opinion, “It is
almost wholly unfit for cultivation, and of course
uninhabitable​ (unlivable) by a people depending on
agriculture for their ​subsistence​ (having enough food or
resources to live).” This view of Kansas as a desert stuck,
and it influenced the US government’s settlement policies for
years to come.

LESSON 1 REVIEW
Check Your Understanding
Know Analyze Synthesize

1. What was the Louisiana
Purchase?
2. What is cartography? Which
early American explorer studied
cartography?
3. What was the Corps of
Discovery?
4. What did Pike say about the
climate and soil of Kansas?
5. Why did France want to sell the
Louisiana Territory? Why did the
American government want to buy
it?
6. How did Lewis and Clark
describe the resources in Kansas?
How do you think their description
might have changed if they had
visited in a year that had to much
or too little rainfall?
7. Using the map on page 3,
compare the route taken by Pike
and the route of Lewis and Clark.
Based on what you know about
Kansas geography, how do the
descriptions of these explorers
reflect the area of Kansas they
visited?
8. Why do you think the Spanish
reacted to Pike’s expedition the
way that they did? Why might
they fear the growing United
States?
9. Who do you think the land that
would become Kansas belonged
to - the country that declared itself
the owner, or the people who lived
there? Why? Why do you think
these countries did not consult the
American Indians living in the
plains?