Meriwether Lewis – Biography of Meriwether Lewis

by

US Army Scout and Officer, Meriwether lewis is recognized as the premier explorer of the United States. The mythical Lewis and Clark expedition It is often remembered as the most epic national exploration in the country’s history.

Meriwether lewis He was born in Albemarle County, Virginia, on August 18, 1774. His father was an army officer who died when Meriwether was 5 years old.

Finishing his formal education at the age of 18, he seemed destined for the life of a rural Virginia gentleman. But in 1794, when insurgents in Pennsylvania caused the so-called “Whiskey Rebellion,” Lewis responded to President George Washington’s call by summoning volunteer militiamen. The campaign was bloodless, but Lewis had fun. He then wrote to his mother: “I am very satisfied with the life of a soldier. “
During service at the border, he met William Clark, who was in command of the special company of marksmen to which he transferred Lewis. The two men quickly became friends. After the mission on the Mississippi River, Thomas Jefferson – now President of the United States but an old friend of Lewis’s in Virginia – asked him if he wanted to become his confidential secretary in the White House. Lewis He held that position from 1801 to 1803, while the President discussed with him his dream of sending an exploration expedition to the Pacific through the Missouri River basin. When Jefferson offered him the leadership of the expedition, Lewis he accepted and chose Clark as his partner. Lewis he took a crash course in studies science at the American Philosophical Society, as he was going to do the scientific reports on the West.

On May 14, 1804, Lewis led Clark with his small flotilla of boats up the Missouri River to North Dakota, where they decided to spend the winter, they built Ft. Mandan (near present-day Bismarck). They encountered hostile Indians and some tense moments along the way, but, thanks to Lewis’s diplomacy, they had no battles.

Lewis and his men resumed their expedition in April 1805. By August the Missouri River had been reduced to a series of shallow tributaries, thus Lewis he could not navigate the canoes. Fortunately, he had hired Toussaint Charbonneau as his interpreter-guide. Although Charbonneau was not valuable, his wife, Sacajawea, was the sister of the chief of the Shoshone Indians; therefore, Lewis got the horses he needed to cross the Rocky Mountains. Once on the other side, the explorers continued to drift in new canoes, down the Clearwater and Snake rivers and then down the Columbia towards the Pacific. The winter quarters were built at Ft. Clatsop, south of the mouth of the Columbia.

On March 23, 1806, they began the return home. Lewis divided the group in order to explore more territory. He was nearly killed by hostile Blackfoot Indians and was accidentally shot by one of his own men during a hunt. However, he and Clark managed to get all of their men safely back to St. Louis. They ended up in Washington, DC, where Lewis He was greeted like a hero, celebrated by local citizens as he passed.

As a reward, Jefferson appointed Lewis Governor of Upper Louisiana Territory (later Missouri Territory). Lewis He resigned his post in the Army, but before going to San Luis to take office, he tried to finish editing his exploration diaries for publication. It was unsuccessful, even though it was delayed for almost a year.

Lewis he encountered a lawless border in Missouri, and although he turned to land administration work, the results were mixed. On the one hand, Lewis he wasn’t cut out for an office job. He was an ideal explorer, but a mediocre administrator. On the other hand, his second in command in St. Louis, was hostile and jealous. In 1809, an employee of the State Department delayed one of Governor Lewis’s drafts for $ 18.70 to pay for the translation of the laws of the Missouri Territory into French, given the many Gallic citizens who lived there. The money was not important, but Lewis feared that the government might start questioning all of his official accounts. He decided to go to Washington to put things in their place.

Lewis He started down the Mississippi by boat, but soon had to disembark, sick with a fever and possibly delusional. He wrote to President James Madison that he would continue overland. Still very ill, he rushed in with a companion and two servants, taking the Natchez Trace. On October 11, 1809, while his companion was looking for a lost horse, Lewis He even went to a lonely inn in Tennessee for the night.

During the night the innkeeper’s wife, according to her later account, was awakened by a gunshot and heard moans from Lewis. Scared, she did nothing; at dawn the servers of Lewis they found the governor near death from a gunshot wound to the head. He died at dawn, his last words being, “I am not a coward, but I am so strong that it is very difficult to die.“When Jefferson learned of the death of Lewis, accepted the suicide thesis that was suggested by those who found his body. But a strong minority, then and after, felt that Lewis he had been murdered, as murders were common in the Natchez Trace at the time.

Incredibly, the nation that had rejoiced over the great exploration of Lewis the Louisiana Territory, the Rocky Mountains, and Oregon just a few years earlier, he had now neglected. His remains were not transferred to Washington, DC, or Virginia. Not even a tombstone was erected. His friend Alexander Wilson, the ornithologist, made a personal pilgrimage to the inn and paid the owner to fence the grave and keep out the pigs that roamed the area.Finally, in 1848 the state of Tennessee erected a beautiful monument over the grave of Lewis. which today is a national monument.