The Influence Of The Corps Of Discovery Expedition

“Be ambitious. Be ambitious not for money, not for selfish aggrandizement, not for the evanescent thing which men call fame. Be ambitious for the attainment of all that a man can be,” William Clark once stated during an expedition that explored the Western part of the United States in the early 1800’s. The white people’s viewpoint, that the Corps of Discovery expedition was important for America’s expansion westward, is more accurate because the expedition brought different groups of people together. The expedition, called the Corps of Discovery, brought two “nations” or groups of people together. The Indians, or more politically correct, the Native Americans helped the Corps of Discovery and the white people on the expedition helped the Native Americans. Thomas Jefferson, the president at the time the Corps of Discovery left to explore the west, wanted to open the door to diplomacy and be able to trade with the Native Americans. Some tribes had never seen a white person before, and the Corps of DIscovery would often …show more content…
expand. Together, Lewis, Clark, and other men on the expedition made around 140 maps, and they obtained about 30 maps from traders, trappers, and different Native American tribes. The U.S. learned more of the Rocky Mountains, of which the states had very little knowledge, and found that there was no water passage from the Atlantic ocean to the Pacific Ocean. One of the main reasons for the expedition was to find, if there was one, the Northwest Passage. The Northwest Passage was a theoretical waterway that could have made trading easier between the U.S. and other countries to the West. After the expedition ended, trappers, hunters, missionaries, traders, businessmen, settlers, and many more groups of people went west to discover this newly explored territory for themselves. Overall, the expedition was very important because the men made maps that were used for further exploration and