Telling the Story: Changing Perceptions of the Lewis and Clark Journals
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TELLING THE STORY: CHANGING PERCEPTIONS OF THE LEWIS AND CLARK JOURNALS by Deborah Malony Dukes A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of Humboldt State University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in Social Science Emphasis: Teaching American History May 2006 TELLING THE STORY: CHANGING PERCEPTIONS OF THE LEWIS AND CLARK JOURNALS by Deborah Malony Dukes Approved by the Master’s Thesis Committee: Delores McBroome, Major Professor Date Gayle Olson-Raymer, Committee Member Date Rodney Sievers, Committee Member Date Delores McBroome, Graduate Coordinator Date Donna E. Schafer, Dean for Research and Graduate Studies Date ABSTRACT The collective journals of the Lewis and Clark expedition have been objects of fascination and interpretation ever since the Corps of Discovery’s homecoming in 1806. Despite President Thomas Jefferson’s direction that Meriwether Lewis prepare the journals for publication, Lewis’ untimely death in 1809 left the editing of the expedition’s records – and much of the storytelling – to a series of writers and editors of varying interests, abilities and degrees of integrity. Understandably the several major editions and many other versions of the story have reflected the lives and times of the editors. For instance, ornithologist Elliott Coues was the first – 89 years after the fact – to acknowledge the expedition’s many scientific and ethnological observations. For their own purposes, successive generations of activists have appropriated iconic expedition members, emphasized or even invented anecdotes, and supposed discoveries. Scholarly and public interest in the journals has peaked during this bicentennial period, as often happens around the times of major anniversaries of the expedition. Past cycles of interest have encouraged more scholarship and occasionally have led to amazing discoveries of previously lost or forgotten journals, collections of letters and papers of the principals, and other documents related to the expedition. Most recently this has culminated in the completion of the edition of the journals generally recognized as the most complete and accurate to date, Gary E. Moulton’s thirteen-volume Definitive Nebraska Edition. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My sincere thanks go to the volunteers at the William P. Sherman Library and Archives in Great Falls, Montana. Lois Baker, Dick Smith and his grandson Tanner, Ralph Pomnichowski, and Lorna Rivard offered valuable guidance when I showed up at their facility knowing only that I wanted to research a topic related to Lewis and Clark. Without exception they made me feel both welcome and much more knowledgeable than I was at that time. Dick and Tanner (a master photocopier) graciously invited me to a picnic of the Portage Chapter of the Lewis and Clark Trails Heritage Foundation, where I met a number of other very helpful local enthusiasts. The staff and volunteers at the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center, also in Great Falls, especially Dick Boss, were delightful as they shared their own interests with me, suggested areas for further research, and made sure I got to many sites in the area – and back. I am sure I am not alone in my gratitude to the late Stephen E. Ambrose, whose labor of love, Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West was the only assigned book that I read completely through, then promptly read again for the pure pleasure of it. He got me hooked. My thanks go to my Teaching American History instructors, Professors Dee McBroome, Gayle Olsen-Raymer, and especially my advisor, Rod Sievers, for keeping me writing when I would much rather have just continued reading and traveling. Their passion for American history has been contagious. iv My fantastic students in Room 5 at South Bay School gave me prompt feedback about what parts of my lesson plan worked for them – or did not. As they are now the school experts on Lewis and Clark, I hope they continue their interest continues. Thanks, too, to the many friends and family who feigned interest as I recounted with great glee new tidbits about some obscure edition of the journals or what had occurred along the trail precisely 200 years previously. My sister, Kay Dukes Weeks (The Smart One), set the example when she earned a doctorate. Randy particularly gets my gratitude for keeping me proceeding on – and fed. The Northern Humboldt Teaching American History grant, with Gilder-Lehrman and its many other partners, made my study financially feasible, and provided me with opportunities to travel and learn from true masters of the history of this nation. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT.................................................................................................................. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................................................................iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ...............................................................................................vi TELLING THE STORY: CHANGING PERCEPTIONS OF THE LEWIS AND CLARK JOURNALS .................................................................................1 “The Writingest Explorers”..................................................................................1 “The Work Which I Am Myself Preparing For Publication” ................................3 “Journals Remarkably Open To Interpretation”..................................................13 “A Westering People .........................................................................................16 Serving The Cause: Sacagawea And York ........................................................18 “The Course Of Empire”....................................................................................21 “The Journals Of Black Cat”..............................................................................23 Conclusion: Shared Stories ...............................................................................25 LESSON PLAN PROCEEDING ON ............................................................................28 Introduction .......................................................................................................28 Lesson Content ..................................................................................................30 Prior Content Knowledge and Skills ..................................................................39 Evaluation .........................................................................................................40 APPENDIX A...............................................................................................................41 Social Studies Standards Addressed...................................................................41 vi APPENDIX B ...............................................................................................................43 Assignments ......................................................................................................43 APPENDIX C ...............................................................................................................45 Materials List.....................................................................................................45 APPENDIX D...............................................................................................................47 Annotated List of Sources Consulted .................................................................47 BIBLIOGRAPHY .........................................................................................................54 vii TELLING THE STORY: CHANGING PERCEPTIONS OF THE LEWIS AND CLARK JOURNALS “The Writingest Explorers”1 It should come as no surprise that Meriwether Lewis and William Clark kept copious journals on their famous expedition. The president who sent them west on their Voyage of Discovery was mystified by government officials who did not keep notes of their work, claiming that without records, “history becomes fable instead of facts.”2 When Thomas Jefferson charged Meriwether Lewis regarding recordkeeping on the expedition, he left no doubt about the importance he attached to the task and its products: Your observations are to be taken with great pains & accuracy, to be entered distinctly & intelligibly for others as well as for yourself, to comprehend all the elements necessary . Several copies of these as well as of your other notes should be made at leisure times, & put into the care of the most trustworthy of your attendants, to guard, by multiplying them, against the accidental losses to which they will be exposed.3 Lewis, William Clark and several literate enlisted men took their president’s commission to heart. According to Robert B. Betts, the expedition journalists “penned an estimated 1,123,445 words, or 349,699 more words than are to be found in the Bible.” It stands to reason that the recordkeeping tasks of the expedition were every bit as daunting as its other trials. He cites Donald Jackson: “They wrote constantly and abundantly, afloat and 1 Donald Jackson, ed., Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with Related Documents, 1783-1854, 2d ed., rev., vol. 1. (Urbana, 1978), vii. 2 Donald Jackson, ed., Letters. Quoted in Robert B. Betts, “’The writingest explorers of their time’: New Estimates of the Number of Words in the Published Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition,” We Proceeded On (August 1981), 4. 3 Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 1804-1806, 8 vols. (New York,