An article appeared in the December 20, 2025 edition of The Economist which tracked the adventures of Lewis and Clark in their survey of the newly acquired Louisiana Territory. President Thomas Jefferson had managed to purchase French Louisiana for a mere seven dollars ($7.00) a square kilometer, but almost no-one in the U.S., at the time, including Jefferson, had any idea what he had just bought. Lewis and Clark were charged with finding out.
The Economist published the story in a way that compared the United States’ first major territorial acquisition ambition – the Louisiana Territory almost doubled the size of the country in one purchase – with, what they called the second major territorial acquisition ambition – Donald Trump’s goal of taking over Greenland. Jefferson’s motivation for buying French Louisiana was to anticipate, and prevent, incursions from British Canada, from Russian Alaska, and from the Spanish who owned most of what-is-now south-west United States. Trump’s stated motivation is strategic defense, land grab and mineral resources acquisitions.
I should perhaps add here that at least Jefferson wanted to pay for his ambition whereas Trump wants to do it on the cheap – conquer and subjugate, regardless of international law, Danish sovereignty, or the people of Greenland’s wishes. In other words, the difference between a U.S. President who believed in democracy and one who is a wanabee dictator. The differences between the Presidents couldn’t be more different, so I won’t mention Trump’s name again in this piece.
The title of The Economist article is “How Two Explorers, a Mother and a Baby, Made America”. That may sound strange but, sometimes, the detailed truth is strange and almost unbelievably fortuitous.
Although the French government legally owned French Louisiana, in the international sense, the indigenous inhabitants had virtually no idea that that was the case – France hardly governed any of it, so Lewis and Clark were basically entering the complete unknown. According to the archives, Jefferson thought the area contained mastodons, mountains of salt, and a lost tribe of Israel – just to give you an idea of the state of knowledge of the U.S.’ new acquisition.
The Economist tracked the expedition beginning at its start-point of Camp Dubois, near St. Louis. Lewis recruited forty men, mostly soldiers, and Clark brought his slave, York. The expedition’s brief from the President was to find out if there was a navigable waterway linking the Mississippi River with the Pacific Ocean. The method of transportation was a fifty-five foot keelboat stuffed with everything they thought they might need, from a swivel cannon mounted on the bow, to “Pewter Penis Syringes” apparently designed to combat venereal disease, as well as trinkets for the “savages” they might meet on route.
An encounter in September 1804 with the Teton Sioux almost scuppered the expedition and could well have changed the history of the United States. Lewis’ arrogant, patronizing, dictatorial, ridiculous, and mostly uncomprehensible speech to the Sioux resulted in anger and a tussle – the interpreter was no good. Lewis ordered his men to fall back, defend the boats, and man the cannon. If he had ordered the cannon fired, the overwhelming numbers of Sioux would have wiped-out the expedition and, almost certainly, would have pushed them to ally with the British. The result could easily have been that Canada would have owned most of the American West.
He didn’t order the cannon to be fired, calm returned, and the expedition moved on.
In Fort Mandan, in what is now North Dakota, the expedition hired a Shoshone woman, Sacagawea, as an interpreter, along with her French husband. In February 1805, Sacagawea gave birth to a boy. The expedition needed their interpreter so the baby joined the expedition, which proved fortuitous in meetings with other indigenous tribes – after all, who in their right minds would bring a baby on a war party – so, despite the fact that the expedition was heavily armed, the tribes thought they came in peace, otherwise they would have been wiped-out several times over.
At Lemni Pass, at what is now the border between Montana and Idaho, Lewis saw “immense ranges” of snow-capped mountains blocking their way – they had reached the continental divide, and the end of the river they had faithfully followed since St. Louis. The mountains looked impenetrable. It could have been the end of the expedition but luck, again, intervened. They met Sacagawea’s Shoshone tribe, led by her long-lost brother – she had been kidnapped at 12 by another tribe. The Shoshone gave the expedition succor, shelter and, most significantly, directions that led them through the Rockies and onto the Colombia River which, eventually, took them to the Pacific coast. And the rest is U.S. history.
Two explorers, a mother and a baby are probably more responsible than anyone else, apart from the uninformed vision of President Jefferson, for the entity that, today, is called the United States of America. Interesting!
