University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for Summer 2001 A New Vision Of America Lewis And Clark And The Emergence Of The American Imagination James P. Hendrix Jr. The Lovett School Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly Part of the Other International and Area Studies Commons Hendrix, James P. Jr., "A New Vision Of America Lewis And Clark And The Emergence Of The American Imagination" (2001). Great Plains Quarterly. 2259. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/2259 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. A NEW VISION OF AMERICA LEWIS AND CLARK AND THE EMERGENCE OF THE AMERICAN IMAGINATION JAMES P. HENDRIX JR. The consequences of an event take place in the mind, and the mind holds on best to images. Nothing ever begins where one thinks it should. -William Irvin Thompson When Lewis and Clark awakened in St. Louis Territory welcomed back explorers who had on 24 September 1806, one suspects that they been given up as lost. felt quite well rested. They had just slept in Two days later, as the initial fanfare began regular beds for the first time in 864 days. As to subside, Clark told us that they "commenced men who "had forgotten the use of chairs ... wrighting." The precise nature of this they must have had a way of standing and a "wrighting" is unclear. It may have been let­ look in their eyes," Bernard DeYoto imagines. l ters or other routine matters and may even Now was the time for reverie, and celebra­ have involved some copying of journal en­ tion, as the capital of the Northern Louisiana tries. 2 But what we do know is that a series of circumstances would delay for eight years the publication of an "official" paraphrase of the KEY WORDS: James Fenimore Cooper, Lewis and journals of Lewis and Clark, and a century Clark, North American intellectural history, North American literature and art, American culture, would pass before they would be seen in rela­ Washington Irving Jr. tively full form.3 But America quickly became aware of the great journey by other means, James P. Hendrix Jr. teaches history and American and this would prove to have a significant studies and is Headmaster of The Lovett School, a impact on the development of an American college-preparatory institution in Atlanta, Georgia. His culture. research interests include the history of the Trans­ Mississippi West, the American South, and American It is conventional to view Lewis and Clark's intellectual history. expedition as the essential first step in America's trans-Mississippi expansion. Will­ [GPQ 21 (Summer 2001):211-32] iam Goetzmann sees the return of Lewis and 211 212 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 2001 Clark as not so much the end of a major pe­ To most Europeans the American West was riod of exploration, closing the door on the a barrier, an obstacle, that hampered the Pas­ quest for the Northwest Passage that had sage to India and its great commercial poten­ dominated since the time of Marquette, but tial. But to Jefferson such a route was a way the beginning of a new phase. In the imperial into, rather than only through, the Garden of struggles of the times, Lewis and Clark mark the New World. The path he looked to Lewis for Goetzmann the first important step in a and Clark to find would lead into "a farmers sequence that would result in the "winning" paradise .... [T]he passage might be the high­ of the American West for the United States.4 way that could link this garden to the markets I believe it is appropriate to view the expe­ of the world .... [T]he passage and the garden dition of Lewis and Clark as the initial phase would ensure the future of the republic ... [by] of an emerging American imagination, the giving it room to escape." American optimism starting point for what has variously been and the developing American nationalism described as "cultural nationalism" and "cul­ combined to form out of the return of Lewis tural patriotism."s Their journey, and Amer­ and Clark "a new image of the West ... [one ica's marveling over what they did, saw, and of] many dreams of [its] fertility, beauty, and reported, is a pivotal point in a turning away vastness."7 This new image would prove to be from Europe by American writers, painters, central to the awakening of an American cul­ and other intellectuals to their own land ture in the two decades following their return. and culture, and to an emerging American Lewis and Clark came back to a country imagination. The Voyage of Discovery, in whose culture was still seeking identity. Na­ short, engendered a new vision of America. tional identity would develop with fits and Lewis and Clark were not conquistadors, as starts, but it had reached considerable matu­ their voyage did not seek gold and silver. rity within two decades. Twenty years after Mountains of salt and lead, mastodons, Lewis and Clark beached their dugout canoes Welsh Indians, and furs, yes, but the fortu­ in St. Louis, a remarkable year of productivity itous last-minute acquisition of the Louisiana would make it clear that a distinctive Ameri­ Territory had added a new thrust to their pur­ can culture had evolved, one of considerable pose, one that likely was of comparable im­ merit. In 1826, James Fenimore Cooper would portance to the original Enlightenment publish the best known of his Leatherstocking science and Northwest Passage themes. While novels, The Last of the Mohicans; Thomas Cole it is not explicit in the formal instructions would establish himself as a well-respected Jefferson had given to Lewis in June 1803, American artist with two paintings, "The Falls there is no question that the president looked of the Kaaterskill" and "Daniel Boone at Home to his explorers for confirmation that the newly in His Cabin on Great Osage Lake"; George acquired West constituted a Garden of the Catlin would begin his long crusade to docu­ New World, space into which his agrarian ment Native Americans with two paintings of "chosen people of God" could expand. Con­ the Seneca chief Red Jacket; and the patriotic cerned about a burgeoning American popu­ song "The Hunters of Kentucky" would be for­ lation, and using a density alarm factor of ten mally published and would thus receive wide­ people per square mile, Jefferson felt an spread circulation with its celebration of the American West suitable for agriculture and victory at the Battle of New Orleans by the settlement would provide the ideal answer for American frontiersmen over their European potential overpopulation. The journals and adversaries. The Jacksonians were at work es­ other reports from the two sons of agrarian tablishing a new and distinctive American Virginia abound in commentary as to the per­ political style, and the American language fect nature of the new lands for such pur­ Noah Webster had called for in 1783 was giv­ poses. 6 ing evidence of a full appearance.8 How these A NEW VISION OF AMERICA 213 changes came to be, and how they might re­ September 1806 led to other letters that were late to Lewis and Clark, is the subject of this widely reprinted in newspapers from Kentucky study. to Massachusetts in October and November. 12 A steady flow of fine scholarship over the The first of the published journal accounts past forty years has explored many other di­ came in June 1807 (Sergeant Gass), followed mensions of the "voyage of discovery."9 The by several spurious versions, dubbed the Apoc­ scientific, diplomatic, economic, ethno­ rypha by Elliott Coues, beginning in 1809,13 graphic, geographic, and even geopolitical What is it about these early accounts that implications of the journey have all received piqued public imagination? In the broadest excellent treatments. to But there remains a sense, Bernard DeVoto's axiom regarding news paucity of scholarship on the possible impact of the expedition seems to catch the essence of the expedition on an American culture that of the reaction: "it satisfied desire and it cre­ was evolving in the two decades following ated desire: the desire of the westerning na­ Lewis and Clark's return. tion."14 Specifically, the Fort Mandan letters At least a decade would pass between that gave detailed descriptions to a curious popu­ return and the emergence of strong examples lous of previously unknown Native American of an American culture. And, as has been peoples and of the flora, fauna, and physical noted, a relatively full flowering did not come characteristics to be found in the heart of the forth until 1826. But given the fact that trans­ newly acquired Louisiana Territory. The let­ planted Europeans had been living in America ters written upon the return to St. Louis am­ for almost 200 years before Lewis and Clark, plified such information, as well as gave some such a ten- to twenty-year period seems rela­ appreciation of the drama and arduousness of tively brief in the context of cultural evolu­ the expedition and of the commercial poten­ tion. tial of abundant furs and even the Canton The evidence for connections between an trade. emerging American culture and Lewis and But the nature and success of the Gass and Clark ranges from overt, as in the cases of Apocrypha journals are more instructive as to Washington Irving, Cooper, and Catlin, to the public appetite.