专八人文知识需知的美国名人--路易斯和克拉克

专八人文知识需知的美国名人--路易斯和克拉克

　　英语专八人文知识涵盖的知识面较广，考生们需要平时多积累小常识，这样在专八考试中才能游刃有余，新东方在线整理了专八人文知识需知的美国名人系列知识点供考生们参考。

　　路易斯：1774年8月18日- 1809年10月11日

　　克拉克： 1770年8月1日- 1838年9月1日

　　梅里韦瑟路易斯 (Meriwether Lewis) 及威廉克拉克 (William Clark) 最为人所津津乐道的是他们的一趟从密西西比河到西海岸的探险。这段称为探索部队 (Corps of Discovery) 的探险是托马斯杰弗逊用来探勘美国西部的一个充满远见的计划。此一探险计划始于1804年4月，退出于1806年9月。探险开始之前，路易斯是杰弗逊的私人总统秘书。他也曾在军中服役并因而结识了克拉克。。探险退出之后，路易斯死前曾任短期的路易斯安那州北部地区州长;克拉克已过世多年并曾任职多个政府职位，包括印地安事务主管及密苏里地区州长。

　　Lewis and Clark's historic trail

　　In May, 1804, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set out on an amazing expedition across theLouisiana Territory. It has been nearly 200 years since then, and the bicentennial of their historicjourney is rapidly approaching. These true American heroes faced unknown people, harshconditions and unexplored lands to secure a place in history as two of the world's greatestexplorers. One of the expedition's stops along the way was near present-day Yankton, SouthDakota, and the Yankton Area Chamber of Commerce along with the Yankton Daily Press andDakotan has put together this site to celebrate Yankton's place in history as well as sites along therest of the Lewis and Clark Trail.

　　An Overview of the Lewis and Clark Expedition

　　These days, you can fly across the United States in six hours. Even if you have to take a car, youcan do it in six days.

　　But imagine what it would have been like two hundred years ago, when Meriwether Lewis, WilliamClark, and the other members of the Corps of Discovery traveled 3,700 miles from the MississippiRiver to the Pacific Ocean in non-motorized boats, on horseback, and on foot. Not only did theyhave no cars or airplanes to travel in, they also had to do it with no reliable map -- and they had tomake their way through territory inhabited by Indian nations who couldn't necessarily be expectedto smile upon a band of armed explorers.

　　Planning the Expedition

　　In 1803, when was President of the United States, the U.S. purchased the Louisiana Territory fromFrance. This was a huge tract of over 800,000 square miles, taking in nearly the entire mid-sectionof North America from present-day Texas and Louisiana up to Montana and North Dakota. Thisalmost doubled the size of the new country.

　　Much of the new territory was unexplored. Jefferson decided to send an expedition up the MissouriRiver to its source in the western mountains and beyond to the Pacific Ocean. Jefferson hopedthat the expedition would be able to find the elusive Northwest Passage, a water route across thecountry, which would be a great boon to commerce.

　　So in that same year, Jefferson commissioned the Corps of Discovery under the command of histrusted private secretary, Meriwether Lewis. Besides seeking the Northwest Passage, Lewis was tomap the new territory, assess its natural resources, and make contact with its inhabitants,befriending them if possible. Lewis recruited his friend William Clark to share equally in the commandof the expedition, as well as a force of over 40 men. The members of the Corps of Discovery weresoldiers, but their purpose was peaceful -- exploration, diplomacy, and science. Lewis wascommissioned as a Captain of the Army of the United States, Clark as a Lieutenant (although thisinferior rank was kept secret from the men, and Clark was always called "Captain").

　　Lewis purchased a large stock of supplies, including guns and ammunition, food, clothing,navigational instruments, and large numbers of goods to be used as gifts and barter for Indians. Tocarry the Corps and its cargo on the first leg of their journey, Lewis had a keelboat built, a 55-footshallow-draft vessel capable of carrying about 12 tons of cargo. The boat had a sail, but wasmostly propelled with oars and poles. The journey on the Missouri River would be over 2,000 miles-- upstream all the way.

　　Up the Missouri

　　The expedition started from St. Louis, where the Missouri empties into the Mississippi, on May 14, 1804. Along the way, Clark oversaw the men and carefully mapped the route. Lewis made scientificobservations and collected specimens of animals and plants. The trip was arduous -- the men livedoutdoors, hunted for food, and rowed the keelboat (along with two smaller boats) up the river,often towing the boat from the shore when the current got too heavy or the river became difficultto navigate. They fended off huge clouds of mosquitoes that swarmed around them. The partymade only 12 or 14 miles on a good day.

　　Along the way, the group made contact with Indian inhabitants of the land. During the first seasonof travel, they contacted the Missouris, the Omahas, the Yankton Sioux, the Teton Sioux (Lakota),and the Arikaras. The captains would offer gifts, meet with the chiefs, and make speechesencouraging the Indian nations to make peace with one another and with their new "great father,"President Jefferson. All were friendly except the Lakota, with whom the expedition had aconfrontation that nearly became violent.

　　By October, the Corps of Discovery had reached what is now North Dakota, but they wereobviously nowhere near the Missouri's headwaters and winter was at hand. Since little was knownabout the route beyond the Mandan villages, Lewis and Clark decided to build a fort and winterwith the Mandans and their Hidatsa neighbors. These tribes, with a population of about 4,500people, occupied five permanent villages along the Missouri River and were known for theirfriendliness and generosity.

　　Sacagawea

　　During the winter, Lewis and Clark hired Toussaint Charbonneau, a French fur trader, and his wife,a Shoshone woman named Sacagawea, realizing that this woman could help them by acting asinterpreter with her people, who lived near the Missouri's headwaters.

　　In the spring, the captains sent the keelboat back down the river with a few men and many itemsfor Jefferson, including an interim report of the expedition, samples of soil, minerals, and plants,Indian items, and even some live birds and a prairie dog, which had never been heard of in theEast. Most of the expedition continued up the river in canoes, taking along Sacagawea, herhusband, and their newborn baby, Jean-Baptiste.

　　The group spent the next months making their way west up the river into territory unknown towhite men. They encountered a great profusion of wildlife, including buffalo, wolves, bighorn sheep,and ferocious grizzly bears. They made their way into present-day Montana, and found the riverbecoming increasingly impassable, with fierce rapids and waterfalls.

　　When they finally reached the area of the Missouri's headwaters, they sought out the Shoshones.As it turned out, Sacagawea's brother was chief of the village they first contacted. With her help,the party obtained the horses they would need to get across the mountains ahead.

　　Across to the Western Ocean

　　As the party began crossing the mountains on horseback, it soon became obvious that the hopeof finding a northwest water route was a false one. Jefferson had believed that the explorers, afterleaving the Missouri, would find only a small mountain range with a river to the Pacific just a shortdistance on the other side.

　　In fact, the expedition had to make its way on the Lolo Trail across the vast Bitterroot Mountains,already covered with snow in September. The crossing took 11 days, during which the men nearlystarved. They were almost helpless when they reached the Nez Percé Indians on the other side.Fortunately for Lewis and Clark and their group, the Nez Percé welcomed and fed them, helpedthem make canoes, and agreed to take care of their horses until their return on the way back east.

　　With the water finally running west, the explorers quickly traveled down the Clearwater, Snake,and Columbia Rivers, reaching the Pacific coastal area in early November, a year and a half afterleaving St. Louis. They built Fort Clatsop, named after the neighboring Indian nation, on the southside of the mouth of the Columbia, near what is now Astoria, Oregon, and spent the winter in cold,wet, miserable weather, preparing for the trip back home.

　　Return Journey

　　On March 23, 1806, the Corps of Discovery started on the long journey back the way they hadcome. They had some conflicts with some of the Indians on the lower Columbia, whom theyaccused of charging high prices for food, trying to steal from the travelers, and interfering withtheir progress. But when they reached the friendly Nez Percés, they found their horses alive andcared-for, though scattered on open range.

　　The group was back across the mountains by June and decided to split up into smaller parties for awhile so as to explore some of the territory more thoroughly. Lewis took a more northerly route,and it was during this trip that the explorers had their first and only violent conflict with Indians. Agroup of Blackfeet apparently tried to captured horses and guns, and Lewis's party killed two ofthem.

　　At about that same time, Clark, on a southerly route, discovered an unusual, large stone formationon the Yellowstone River. He named it "Pompy's Tower," after the nickname of Sacagawea's son,now in his second year (certainly one of the most remarkable childhoods in American history).There on that formation, Clark left an inscription, "Wm. Clark July 25th 1806," which can still beseen today.

　　The separate parties rejoined in August back on the Missouri River, at the mouth of theYellowstone. They continued on down the river, dropping off Charbonneau, Sacagawea, and littleJean-Baptiste at the Mandan villages. Traveling quickly, they reached St. Louis on September 23, 1806.

　　The men of the expedition were welcomed as heroes. They had been gone so long that the nationfeared they were dead. Remarkably, only one member of the group died. This was SergeantCharles Floyd, who probably died of a ruptured appendix as the Corps of Discovery traveled upthe Missouri River on its way to the Mandan villages.

　　Lewis and Clark and the Mapping of the Continent

　　The Corps of Discovery returned with a great deal of knowledge about the new United Statesterritory west of the Mississippi -- the people, the land, the rivers, the mountains, the plants andanimals. The expedition made important contributions to the mapping of the North Americancontinent.

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