The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Volume 5 by Meriwether Lewis

COMING HOMEĪfter a long winter waiting out the bad weather, the Corps was able to start making their way back east in March 1806. They wouldn’t see the Pacific Ocean until November 1805-over a year after they first left Missouri. Day after day, the exhausted, freezing team braved rough rivers and perilous peaks, getting by on very little food.

She helped Lewis and Clark’s men obtain essential supplies and horses, identified edible plants and herbs, and prevented hostile relations with other tribes simply by being with the group-all while carrying her newborn baby on her back.Īfter meeting Sacagawea and her husband, the Corps traveled west from North Dakota, 15 to 20 miles a day on foot and by boat, toward the mountains. Sacagawea didn’t just serve as an interpreter during the trip, however. Spain still owned much of the southwestern part of what’s now the United States, stretching from the area that would become Texas to present-day California. The United States only paid about three cents an acre for the land, which stretched from the Mississippi River in the east to the Rocky Mountains in the west and from the Gulf of Mexico in the south to the Canadian border in the north. The agreement-which gave the United States approximately 828,000 square miles of land-almost doubled the size of the nearly 30-year-old nation. In 1803, Jefferson made what’s known as one of the greatest real estate deals in history: the Louisiana Purchase.Īfter negotiations, France agreed to sell the entire city of New Orleans, which included the port, to the United States for $10 million they threw in the rest of the territory they owned for an additional $5 million. Its prime location made it a key spot for trade. President Jefferson wanted to acquire the Port of New Orleans, in what is now the state of Louisiana, from the French. France controlled much of the land to the west of this waterway. When Thomas Jefferson became the third president of the United States in 1801, the country basically stopped at the Mississippi River.

The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Volume 5 by Meriwether Lewis