Primary Source Document
SOAP
“Jefferson’s Instructions to Meriwether Lewis”
Speaker:
Occasion:
Audience:
Purpose:
Main Ideas
1. How many men is Lewis allowed to bring on the mission? Who will be in charge of them?
2. What is the “object” of the mission, as defined by Jefferson?
3. What advice does Jefferson give Lewis as to the type of paper he should use for his “notes”?
4. Summarize two specific orders that Lewis must “endeavor” to fulfill.
a.
b.
5. What specific orders does Lewis receive regarding the meeting of a “superior force”?
6. In the event of an “accident of death,” what advice does Jefferson give to Lewis?
Critical Thinking
7. After reading Paragraph 3, what plans do you think Jefferson has for the natives?
8. Why does Jefferson want the expedition to learn about the “source of the Missisipi”?
Reading:
President Jefferson’s Instructions to Captain Meriwether Lewis
On June 20, 1803 Thomas Jefferson sent this letter to Meriwether Lewis, detailing a secret mission that Lewis would take across the newly-purchased Louisiana Territory. Lewis hired William Clark, who had commanded Lewis during his time in the Army. The expedition, known as The Corps of Discovery, became the first American overland expedition to the Pacific Ocean and back. The document is displayed in its original form, with numerous spelling errors present.
Your situation as Secretary of the President of the U. S. has made you acquainted with the objects of my confidential message…to the legislature…you are appointed to carry them into execution…attendants, say for from 10. to 12. men, boats, tents, & other travelling apparatus, with ammunition, medicine, surgical instruments and provisions you will have prepared…also you will receive authority to engage among our troops, by voluntary agreement, the number of attendants above mentioned, over whom you, as their commanding officer, are invested with all the powers the laws give in such a case. The object of your mission is to explore the Missouri river…by it's course & communication with the waters of the Pacific Ocean, whether the Columbia, Oregan, Colorado or and other river may offer the most direct & practicable water communication across this continent, for the purposes of commerce.
Your observations are to be taken with great pains & accuracy, to be entered distinctly & intelligibly for others as well as yourself, to comprehend all the elements necessary…Several copies of…your other notes should be made at leisure times, & put into the care of the most trustworthy of your attendants, to guard…against the accidental losses to which they will be exposed. A further guard would be that one of these copies be on the paper of the birch, as less liable to injury from damp than common paper…You will therefore endeavor to make yourself acquainted…with the names of the nations & their numbers; the extent & limits of their possessions; their relations with other tribes…their language, traditions, monuments…the diseases prevalent among them, & the remedies they use; moral & physical circumstances which distinguish them from the tribes we know; peculiarities in their laws, (and their) customs & dispositions…
And, considering the interest which every nation has in extending & strengthening the authority of reason & justice
among the people around them, it will be useful to acquire what knolege you can of the state of morality, religion, &
information among them; as it may better enable those who endeavor to civilize & instruct them, to adapt their measure to the existing notions & practices of those on whom they are to operate.
But if you can learn any thing certain of the most Northern source of the Missisipi, & of its position relatively to the lake of the woods, it will be interesting to us…treat them in the most friendly & conciliatory manner which their own conduct will admit; allay all jealousies as to the object of your journey, satisfy them of its innocence, make them acquainted with the position, extent, character, peaceable & commercial dispositions of the U.S. of our wish to be neighborly, friendly & useful to them, & of our dispositions to a commercial intercourse with them…If a few of their influential chiefs…wish to visit us, arrange such a visit with them, and furnish them with authority to call on our officers…If any of them should wish to have some of their young people brought up with us…we will receive, instruct & take care…
As it is impossible for us to foresee in what manner you will be recieved by those people, whether with hospitality or
hostility, so is it impossible to prescribe the exact degree of perseverance with which you are to pursue your journey. We value too much the lives of citizens to offer them to probable destruction. Your numbers will be sufficient to secure you against the unauthorised opposition of individuals or of small parties: but if a superior force, authorised, or not authorised, …should be arrayed against your further passage…you must decline its further pursuit, and return.
To provide, on the accident of your death, against anarchy, dispersion, & the consequent danger to your party, and total failure of the enterprize, you are hereby authorised, by any instrument signed & written in your own hand, to name the person among them who shall succeed to the command on your decease, and by like instruments to change the nomination from time to time as further experience of the characters accompanying you shall point out superior fitness…
Donald Jackson, ed. Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with Related Documents. Second Edition. Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 1978 (2 Volumes); see also Paul Leicester Ford, ed., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson III (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1897),
pp. 194-199.]