American Exploration 1

 imagine I gave you a box with a bow on it, just as pretty as this, tied it just for you, but I tell you you can't open it. What are you thinking? You're thinking, what's inside this box?

Why did Mr. Burnett give me a box? Well, wouldn't you want to explore what's inside the box? Wouldn't you be curious? Wouldn't you want to know? The United States faced the same thing when it bought the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803. In fact, the United States wanted desperately to know what was inside the Louisiana Territory.

Was it going to be useful land? What could the land be used for? What was already there? Who was already living there? These are all things we're going to find out in American Expeditions.

Objectives

Now there's a number of objectives in this lesson. We have to identify the purpose of American expeditions in the Oklahoma territory. We have to trace the American expeditions of Pike, Wilkinson, Long, Bell, and others. We have to assess the impact American expeditions had on Oklahoma territory. And we have to examine the significance of the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819. 

Purpose 

In this first section, we're going to take a look at our first three objectives. We're going to identify the purpose of American expeditions. We're going to trace the American expeditions of Pike, Wilkinson, Lewis and Clark. And we're going to assess the impact American expeditions had on Oklahoma territory. And we start with the reasons for American exploration.

Louisiana Potential

The Louisiana Purchase was full of potential. We more than doubled the size of the United States with one fell swoop. And there was an unrealized capacity for economic expansion. People could live there. People could harvest the minerals and resources of the land.

Sending People West

There's more room for an increase in population. It's getting kind of crowded back east. We can send those people to the west. They can have their own land. They can have free land. And it's a possible region for the relocation of the eastern American Indians who have that land in the SouthEastern United States in Georgia,and Alabama, and Florida that the United States really, really desires and wants. 

Jefferson wants to examine the land

So President Jefferson, because he knows very little about the land, wants to send out expeditions to examine the region and conduct scientific research so we know just what we have. We want to know just what's in our box. Exploration is going to define the limits of this territory purchased from the French. We'll know what's ours, and we'll also know what doesn't belong to Spain, which is going to border us on the South. 

Lewis and Clark Expedition

So we have, at first, the Lewis and Clark Expedition from 1804 to 1806, where captain Meriwether Lewis and Lieutenant William Clark are sent on an exploratory expedition in 1804. They successfully navigated and explored the northern portion of the Louisiana Purchase and the Oregon Territory, which is all the way on the west coast to the Pacific Ocean by 1805.

Sparks Expedition

Then we have the Sparks Expedition. In 1806, Captain Richard Sparks led an expedition into the southwestern portion of the Louisiana Purchase in order to explore and record the region, to establish boundaries between Spanish territory and the United States, and to create positive connections with the American Indian tribes that live within this territory. We know there's people who live there. 

Astronomer and Medical Student

Now the Sparks Expedition includes people like the astronomer Thomas Freeman and medical student Peter Custis. Now the group travels north on the Red River.

Spanish Cavalry

And the Caddo American Indians tell the expedition they're being followed by the Spanish. Further north, the Spanish catch up to them and their cavalry confronts the group. And the Spanish cavalry, or horsemen, demand that the men return to the United States. And so the expedition has to turn around, right away, without having achieved any of its original goals.