Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/184



Louisiana was organized into a separate territory, with General James Wilkinson as Governor. The white population at this time did not exceed one thousand and the capital was St. Louis.

Soon after the purchase of Louisiana, the Government fitted out expeditions to explore the upper Mississippi and Missouri rivers, their tributaries and the regions through which they flowed. The one set up the Missouri was under the joint command of Captain Meriwether Lewis and Captain William Clark. Captain Lewis was the private secretary of President Jefferson when selected for this important command and was well qualified for the work. His associate, Captain Clark, who was selected at his request, was a brother of the famous General George Rogers Clark. The forty-three men chosen to accompany them were mostly young, vigorous and experienced frontiersmen, well equipped for the important work. The boats which were to convey them were fitted expressly for the expedition. One of them was fifty-five feet long and half-decked. The others were strongly built, open boats.

The expedition embarked at St. Louis on the 14th of May, 1804, to explore a vast unknown region inhabited by tribes of Indians of which almost nothing was known. All felt that it was a hazardous undertaking for so small a body of men; but they were courageous spirits, accustomed to the perils and hardships of pioneer life and entered upon the long, uncertain journey with enthusiasm and undaunted courage.

They pulled out into the great river, depending upon oars to propel their boats against the powerful current for thousands of miles. When they reached the Missouri the waters were gray and muddy with the soil washed from its shores by a resistless, grinding flood that bore great numbers of uprooted trees upon its swift current. Sandbars were continually being formed, holding huge trees in their grasp, then undermined by the wash, quickly crumbled away from the volume of swift waters that