today, we're on to army ■k

the sort of interior west. so as i toldwe've proceeding pry chronologically up to this point. going kind of spin us out onto a thematic topi to start right around thomas jefferson, who we left off talking about on monday, but we're going to jump the way through forward to the us-mexico war and the civil war. an lot of the topics we're talking about today, they're also going to come upn our future lectures. so just know that if you feel slightly unmoored when it comes

to what time we're in, i'm going to do my best to signpost, but just flag down. you're like, we've suddenly jumped 20 years. that's going to happen today thematic topic. but what i r out of this is a deeper insight s estion. we've been talking throughout the class, which is once you have an empire how you exert control over it and how is the new usal government, which we started to talk about on monday, going west is going to s kind of here. adam smith, pretty famous dude economist, right around 17 as te starting to draft that dearthat's going to set them tor with great britain. he writes this about the united states from shopkeepers tradesmen and attorneys. they are becoming statesmen and legislators and are employed and contriving a new form of

empire which they flatter themselves, be common, which indeed seems very likely and formidable that ever was in the world. ■so smith is looking at the us fromocean and saying they've got everything theyeat . if they pull revolution thing that, he says, is this new form of government, this democracy, and that takes back to frederick jackson. turner right. weis our second day of class. the idea the frontier and that c expanse. and so this is thejefferson are thinking about. they're not afraid of empe pur. so here we'll jump forward. i said to william henry seward, so is kind of the period we're going to cover, the 1776 to right up to the civil war william henry seward, of course, famous, a man who wanted to be

president, per■khapsonly one orn the whole country history, maybe ond to henry clay and how bad he wanted to president william henryspeech to congressn 1856 to obtain an empire is and common so of empires in the world. but he said to govern it well is difficult rare indeed. andt much than what we've been which the united states has acquired essentially■l everything, including the gadsden purchase, that will become part of the so seward is pointing to the same problem this not an easy task to to control this territory and. you have to do it in a way that's fair and we talked about that tension las thwashington and jefferson run into people who go to the frontier do not want a of

intervention in their lives especially from governme governe that controls theritory we're talking about. and for the unitedly that littlt in green, the's a lot of knowledge this land out here that they don't have yet and someone's going to have to go out and get that■■nseward, famous and most people remember him right from your ap us history class for being the dude the bottle asker and then got madeunf for the of his life. seward's folly right so he was invested in the idea of expansion, very famous■: paintig right westward the course of empire takes its wayivil war. it stands in the house of representatives in the national capitol building. 's a masco, 20 foot long fresco in the house of representatives, painted by emanuel. lutz wanted.

this painting to demonstrate the kind of principal characters involved in america's westward. as he understood it up to 1863. line with what frederick jackson turner talks about trader, the hunter, the cattle raiser, the frontier who's missing from this painting. what kind ofcter archetype. can. like that? like a like a general type,o a military officer, is thatliken or statesm, going make rules ae keep, li sociano

check, right? so we're back to bureaucracy, right? but i don't think reauats are popular subjects for zcertainly are.soldi and they're missing here. and if you look at look at guests, sort of famous painting of manifest destiny, ■k■çamerican right, with the won strain telegraph wires across the plains. also,t=ng. it's really interesting that ■ñ■ critical of this imperial. but just note that frederick jackson turner also doesn't list the army soldiersd nd of have tk ourselves why that is. they were so c■ ticall also no't to pull out this painting is first painting that ever hangs in the us capito feature an african-american subject. and you can see him there down along bottom between the horse and the cow the young african-american boy there. so the first black individual to be portrayed in a painting inte.

it's a progressive painting in many ways, but it's also missing something so so why the arm thee like let's gast? i mean, anyone who's thinking about how the americans are going to onto the frontier. well the best institution do it and the most equipped in terms of having bureau craddick supportnd having the knowledge undertake this processs problem is. army because standing armies are concordancee of the new and young united states and what the united states ists the constitution. and there's a massive over whether or not the country ld have an army at all and many think that it's dangerous because standing can get angry and upset. and if you get somebody in ■ncharge of them who's not responsible like, a julius

caesar or an oliver a napoleon, they might over your that's not what you want to happen. and so the u.s. is in ■]th massr that they are trying to time, have a huge number of powerful e american,'s that are much more militarily equipped than the new united don't want a very army. soteresting things with that army to make it fit system and our system of government. so to justify having an army at all needed a job, especially when the nation was not at war and the us the time. so they need to give the soldiers something to or the country go to war, you have at least amae volunteer

years that you'll draw from the militia. buyou d't want them to be too powerful or too ready to w. they might be a threat. so they settle on science. it's really interesting. e thenturyy especially army prior to the civil war is army of exploration. they■u fight a few wars that we might about, but in reality even when they are fighting those wars, they are talkingscientifid gathering to a so the principal institution for soldiers alo this scientific meodoint which is founded by thomas jefferson in national academy at west point on thba in new yo, notorious of the earlyhe most presidents hating the national military. he did write many letters about

trying to get rid of the military altogether. and then when he finally sat down and about it, he said, no, we really do need war, but let'p them trained and by the federal government. let's make sure that we keep them under control. and so they didn't want to have to■u rely foreigners as they had during the revolution they're also drawing this lesson kind rn against gçp■#zre britain. a lot of the military engineering, a lot of the heaviest kind work to actually build fortifications and protect the army had been done■: by so jefferson says, why don't we create annstion that is able to train american men to do scientific standardized way sodemy henry as one of the many sort american adams is doubled the capacity of the little american army for resistance and introduce the new

and scientific character into american life. i always like to here. west point is a wonderful. founded by thomas jefferson. he founded a much bett ?0d the universal virginia. second best university founded by jefferson. that's fine. not a competition, but it and here we have west point. but annteresng between the two institutions, jefferson wants them to be scientific in their character jefferson is not interested in imparting religious education. rit manyou■crlded to train ministers places harvard and yale divinity schools. jefferson wants humanistic purs. and so a young man who goes to e best trained engineers in the country at this period, at this point, they take a five year course. they do science, they do languages they do literature. they do watercolor, they do

horsemanship. what haven'i they learn tacticsr fifth year,ht?it's four years od scientific education and, then a fifth year where you actually learn how to be a soldier just in case it mightlity, they're bg trained as engineers. and so if you wanted to an engineer, you wanted to go west point and then at west point, if you really distinguish yourself, you would not be put in infantry or the artillery regiments of the army. you'd be put in the engineerin tjco■w w was far the most prestigious arm of the american armyn period. so there you have west point. they have a portra o there, whii think would make thomas jefferson smile as he really ■edistrusted the military. yeah. was ther question? excellent. please shut them up. jefferson. at the same time, he creates west peace. so this is their compromise.

protection to make sure that the army does not become a threat to the federal government and in that act, that establishes west point jefferson also directs a corps of engineers be established as of the united states army to train loyal expert to employ engineers froms. and this is the the patch of the army so if you see soldier with this patch, his uniform, he is an always be critical to a kind of america' war, in time of peace, army enneers'm going to talk about exploring today, but they rivers, help to survey and platte. they infrastructure of the early republic possible cae ey engines the country. and so the lot the development t

we see even on the east coast, which is not the subject right out of our class, but also on the frontier. d so if you ever drive across a bridge or a ford, a river anywhere in the west, you probably count on the fact that e there first and built whatever the original fortification of forts. so anywhere you've been ine, that's these guys, right, includingto, the west fort wort. right. so what really kicks off the age of army trained guys. they were really good at science, really good at engineering. remember, i even talked about george washington as much as he he was also a surveyor. these things kind of go hand in hand. well, thomas jefferson. and he as he's of coming up with the train corps of engineers.

guy, this.fense named louisa can a territory that ists to the west of the limits of american expansion right to theriver. remember we'd had that proclamation line of 1763 and the americans very quickly been like, yeah, we're going past by this point. they reached the mississippi saint louis is becoming a prominent river town. remember that at end of the revolution, the british and, the americans agreed to unimpeded of the mississippi. they share that river. well, france is on the other side and france is in possession. this territory of louisiana, which basically hugs the ■n headwaters in minnesota to where it discharges in the gulf of mexico, at the city of, new of it. it is bogged down in a series of the european continent. france doesn't have the or

bureaucratic capacity to louisiana. and so they say to land? and jefferson says, absolutely, i would love some land. there could be a lot of good stuff out there that this new country could use. there could be a lot of really interesting to be gained from going and exploring this place. all louisianarx territory, you, napoleon and all ad 828,000 square miles of territory to the united s effect in one sort of purchase the entire extent of the country including later anan■md ■l florida. jefferson right. as i'veeau i■ós insist that the louisiana purchase france both

going to be like, we don't really think. going to go ahead and go take florida in 18 teens inmes known as the first seminole war so it's going hang in p,th■kks he's onet as well florida is important for a number of reasons, but mainly because of its access to the napoleon, us, louisiana territory per the revolution in haiti is his mind his new world colonies are collapsing and he decides to offload this territory. and so jefferson now has a question to answer. what did he get when heritory od states knows orleans pretty well and he knows that's an important i' course the dumbest place you could ever build a city. but they went we have to work e got. they know new orleans is important and■4mississippi rivee

potential to become a unrivalede united statestributary of the mi called the missouri river that seems equally important. and prospects sort of augur well. right, for the new united states. ex■g he decides to sendy an expedition to do it. soldiers. lewis and clark are the explorers. we're going to talk abo point g. i'm going to get to them toward the and en military veterans. theynks and. they're going to run the corps of like a military expedition. to talk them about. yeah, that's going to last on the other screen. you okay? so thomas jeson, he he said

that we had florida is that it was did ev have people coming down going into florida even thoug't ours ? yeah, we absolutely. there are planters that are moving down into there and it's also haven for runaway enslaved they go into to florida to become maroons amongst seminoles. soe have vested interest in it. yeah. so when it's absorbed into the■e actually living there at that time in louisiana, that's a the. not a ton. france really administered these as kind of trading colonies, so they would have had sort of french explorers and they would have bee allowed to kind of stay and continue to explore. they just be absorbed into the u.s. and become american citizens or not quite not in the same way about the treaty of guadalupe hidalgo not in the same way thatñahispae mexican will be can have american citizenship conferred on them, not the case with the

numbers dealing with. of course, they also d confer citizenship on the thousands native people that are and clark as move but because of the great lakes can't like fully shut out the french and they the trade anso't florida'grquso so they they want in and jackson will go and get it in about 1815 they think they get two slave states out of florida. so they're going just run a line down the middle. they're going have east florida, west florida, which four more senators that are prolavery, more representatives that are pro slavery and more enslaved people to count toward overall population under the 3/5 compromise. so jusve states out of texas, they're doing a lot of thinking about howand i'll talky plays into this exploration kind of fever at the end of the lecture, because politics are

really heavily involved here, and it's not immediately apparent in the era because we haven't reached age of the compromisef compromise of 1850, but slavery is aliveand there is going to be immediately questions about where slavery can time we talkee northwest ordinance predates all of this. no slavery in those sort of parts of the great lakes territories. right here, there's going to be a kind of greater as slaveholders move west, especially into places tennessee andalk about ne when we about the kind of first major wavesus removal in the united states which are made possible by this so what does jefferson want the duties? and we talked about last time he made copy of everyone. he thinks he probably. 20,000 letters in liso lot i d'. it's easier for me.

right. so here's what jefferson says. and this is an excerpt from a much, much longer letter that he sends to lewis and clark. the object of your mission is to explore the missouri river and such principles stream of it as its course with the water of the ocean, may offer the direct and practicable water communication across the t. all right. so why would access to the d3 continent be so important at this time. yeah, because t to rry about gog through any other nations like waterways or getting permissions to transport and stuff like that. what was only other way tot thi? yeah, all across the. oh, yeah, all the way down. yeah. really way the really long around. yeah. so all the way around south

really right. it was nowhere doesn't come tile roosevelt. right. the panama canal comes after this class is over. right. we end in 1900 there is no you know, the route you have olan'o sail about than to walk. so jefferson like fingers crossed that all these rivers link up and weanwaterway the par alert they n get train that far we get a train all the way california. that so the pacific railroad act which i'll talk about 1862ives us the kind of first they'll start surveying for those railroads in the 1850s. but at this point even steamships are rare. actually under your own power. so lewis and clark, as i'll say they're they're doing a lot of paddling. they may have burned up day by . which is crazy. so they did noedgym after long t

a pathway to the pacific and potential trading routes with eastern sort nations like russia to some extent but also possibly looking at china and japan. right. down underneath south america. and that's a long way to go. i think approxilyay journey if you leave the east coast of the united states, go all the way down to end up in cafo it takes half a year, right. so if you can a quicker way, you're going to take it. thenefferson says, obviously, we all know that there are people living in the louisiana territory. you're going to probably run into them. please collect all the information you can about them about the languages they speak about their allegiances, about their affiliation about the way that they live how they sustain

s much as you can not to make them hate thessible. right. we talked we ended last time on this idea that one of the most omnipresent threats to the new american republic were these west and are acting in part as trying to meet with indigenory p or a sense of where allegiances lie. groups do not like each other. which groups do and how spread out■÷■, and these indigenous pes are so■÷■u they're going to tryd figure out they have some knowledgeps there are going to be others that they don't know well at says, yeah,'h trade goods? they did. yeah they they came with like metals and blankets and nice clothing and even gave out

weapons and guns and ammunition. em lots of stuff, famously had a piece they would hand to indigenous tribal leaders to say,■ the unid states, wheththat we won'tnow. but you know, because the reading that they just did. yeah talked about t natives were like disappointed with theirke they brought all ts stuff. but actually bring any like right. in the case of the mandan so so indians. they had been trading with the french for decades. and so they'd encountered sort of angle europeans before or you french europeans and they'd given them nice stuff. so in lewis and clark show up with their little boats and they're like, we have one or two things to offer you, but there could be lm't give you everythi. they're like, oh, the french gave us a lot particularly interesting case. they were already well

and a sort of a long standing relationship french traders. but lewis and clark yeah, e're not as impressive what they're a little piece metals and blankets, and then they're like, we just stay with you for the whole winter. we have nowhere to. and it turnsota is pretty cold, so we don't want to keep going. missouri will actually freeze in north dakota's massive river. so yeah, bt'baquestion. they do try to be diplomats, they they only can carry what they carry and there's only so many of them, you know, about 45expedition. they're really small kind of group. maybe only one casualty. the entire time, other worthy of your notice. jefferson says, the soil, the growth and vegetable, the animals of the country especially those not known to us. rare or extinct. the mineral of every kind,

metals, limestone, coal, salt. peter sailings mineral waters, sa■(■b petersburg be important n making gunpowder,in such circumstances indicate their character volcanic character ase thermometer the proportion of rainy, cloudy and clear days, lightning, hail, ice, access and risk of frost winds. the data which plants put forth or lose their flowers or leaves times of appearance of birds reptiles or insects. he's like, tell me down. zero clue what could be out there. just like, because he's just like yeah. so it's just like, just write down literally every well and th get wn th it's not the losing expedition, but once they get to yellowstone like oh my ■■e earth is exploding. yeah, they no clue. now they couldsd but weren't going to. yeah. so they when they did see these different ditches and then offef

supplement it because? i mean, you ve tgrof people in for a going around and need food water and they do they try and get all this source it yeah yeah i'm in the lewis and clark expediti without the indigenous people that they in a minute about saca where or chicago. ■[ avatar in our sort of national consciousness for the american help that lewis and clark received. but she is certainly not the s person that plays an integral in getting them across the real, didn't thy just sit down and ask■; somebody about what was over here? like, actually, why have you met an a american? so is it just racisms a large t of it. yeah, jefferson is really. virginia.n he writes about these massive

sort of earth mounds that that are discovered near st louis. he has■a this of long again. he dudes long kind of about where could these have come from? where could these mountains have been produced? certainly could not have been. these are impressive structures. they show advanced civilization and he's like ty could not been. it was probably ancient. romans who came to the united states at some point,■'housands of years ago, built them and then left and had to have been a th ancient rome. it have been indigenousecause le right. this is like■3answers probably. the answer it was it was ously indigenous aliens. they. right, right. it's aliens. yeah. -er a pyramid is simply the most reasonable which just you. right. so so no. the answer the quons ah

they just didn't for whatever reason place any value on and is one of those tropes we talked about at the beginning lw our story of kind of native people in the united states. native people can never be modern, they can never be civilized as they are. they do not possess. the kind of traits that set european sort of americans apart, which is their knowledge and intelligence. so they don't ■]libut do take t. they do. yeah, they're happy to to have r help. yeah. you ever and. that's interesting. the british are the same so when the british start■ exploring in the antarctic their ships will often get stuck. and then all the explorers die or the ships will sink, and then they don't come back to britain and the british will sent expedition to recover the ships and the explorers. and there's faship only discovef years ago where the british sent lief expedition around the turn of the century. re like overl inuit people were

there. we saw them like a few weeks ago the ice.boat was like and the british were great. they went and looked, you know, way over there they found the boat exactly. r.e inwards had said it was right. it's it's the kind of my assumption that indigenous knowledge does not have the same value. in f iwas exactly what you needed to. so yeah, you kd but they're not going to write. but there's thomas jeffers is ts commissioned by west point in g of the university i tn's got a sort eir a document rolled up in his hand■/■, suggestive kind of his vision for the place. he was a tall dude, not as tall as george washington. and don't that didn't bother him but he seethed about the explorers. all quotes for, you know, the exact reason the idea that

silly to the americans. it appoints meriwether lewis to find a routecilewis as sort of f alongside jefferson for many years, is also from the same part of virginia, right? jefferson is from albemarle county and its surrounding area. he says, hey, you got some time, you got a couple years because i'd love to see if you can find a water ute tohe pacific. and lewis says, why to have a second in command. clark to to fulfill that role. clark is part of a noted soldiers and explorers his brother, george rodgers. clark was a famous participant in that northwest indian war that we talked last class. and pedigree of this. i clark slightly more

cae he two.also, poor meriwethet kind of fumbles and bumbles into. one or two disasters. the most famous off in that part of idaho there he drops down there, he's out hunting one day with another of the expedition, who sighted, which is not great when he has a gun. they were hunting after sort of two deer. th o of e deer and it fell. but the second deer kind of scampered. and so they both went off in different directions to try and get the is about to shoot the deer, a bullet hits him right below his bum and he's like, did you just shoot me? and the guy's like, no, thought was shooting the deer. and lewis was like, i am not the deer. i'm the commander of this expedition.

is the only member of the expedition get shot in the --. butstuff that they have to deal with and they don't have really chance of running for help. they got the bulletso you know,, thes■lin repeat in american. so not the first time a government official has accidentally shot someone on a hunting expedition. c the second in command and they have about 45 menon, including clark's enslaved servant, york, who is the only unpaid member of the expedition and to the joy of of of kids when you go to any lewis and clark site a largeewfoundland dog named seaman who came them seaman has a mandan which is we'll talk about th on. i remember as a kid being sort of deepllighted of, seaman the d

clark is a fascinating period in the nation's history because it has kind of all these phenomenal kind of characters and it's it is really a massive undertaking. so the red line there is is how they go■v out to the pacific as they come back and realize er route and that will take them where they want to go. they split up to, explore more territory, and then expeditions kind of reconvene where they had split off from one another. so they do try to cover a lot of ground and they name ofcafter members of the expedit, as we've already talked about a little bit including rivers and prominent landeso on so they start to fill in the map withme ideas about all of thesemissouri pretty easy job ot

andheget into montana things get a little tricky so the corps ofrys e expedition becomes known thellin a varietyd toussaint charbonneau and his young. she was probably about 16 when they married maybe 14 wife chicago heir who was a shoshone woman who had been kidnaped or sold to the hidatsa, who are part of the mandan indian nation. as a traded to them, charbonneau was a national who married several indian, many sort of and had several at the same time sort of over the course of his life. but skagway will accompany the expedition. it l which kind of up there in north dako, e le■7 with to the

cific coast, the first winter in february 1805,z expedition is wintering at the small installation they build on the missouri river called fort. so kagawa gives birth to a son, jean-baptiste charbonneau, who goes to the pacific with the expedition as a baby who is nicknamed pomp or pompey by lewis and clark. so kagawa at several points not only helps the expedition, stay on track, but she also saves a bunch of journals and other scientific material. the keel boats that the expedition is using turns over in some rapids. she actually manages to all of the materials i was reading about the expedition and york the enslaved manservant who goes member of the expedition who knew how to swim, which you

would think would have been a equisite for for going on a little canoe trip. but still in every year there's a differentcoins ak reflects a different sort of prominent moment in the country's native american history o person and pompey or jean-baptiste appear on american currency aftercommemorative james coin yeah, theyfferent ba. i used to get all of those when i lose mym around 30. so they can they still make them. yeah, absolutely. get them in shape. vending machines here. i mean they come on as change. yeah. that's very funny. that's all we get. i feel bad. now, you got to you got to drop the secret of■ífew machines tha. i will i will tell you afterwards. yeah. this is a secret.

it's not for the not for the 't need to know. that's right. but yeah. they still make sacagawea it kif stands in for, in our retelling of the lewis and clark legend, like sort of brushed by show hands. how many of you knew about sacagawea before? like, how many like how■

discussed when you get to school it's like she was also there living on. so it's kind of like she had this huge impact, but it's t really taught in american public schools. yeah yeah, i learning about your york and i think i remember the dog bite of i kind of more about other people not just her but i like the bige right she she's on money. almost i think she has more statues. alny wom in american history at various places across the country um.yeah. um, so i never, i never he it was the first time i've heard. yeah, yeah. no, that, that, that was a total that' moderately obsessed with seeing them as, as a kid. newfoundland dog. it was funny. they didn't know about him for many yearsreading the journals y kept seeing repeated references, 've had a dog with them. like, so it's,so she's a remarke

figure, but sortf of many indigenous people that the lewis and clark expedition and probably gets more co most other kind of indigenous participants in american history but just keep in mind, um we don't know how much of a choice she had in taking part in this young age. she had been married off to a white man. she had had children with him and he her she was going expedin hired by the expedition. whether or not sacagawea felt any sort of sense of participatio p going along with the lewis and clark expedition, we can never really know but her son does make a career and aand guide for the 's eventually adopted by william clard ed saint and sent to europe for many years.

he like half a dozen languages. he's a quite remarkable figure in his own right, this kind of famous

so, so yeah. but we can't that right. but but there sheorps of discovi said, a huge part it and one reason having a baby and woman along with you for most of your expedition is probably a pretty good idea is that it you a pretty reasonable way to hold up urds and shoot. you know, when you run into a new indigenous nation, you say we come in peace, we have a woman and baby with us. we're not here to do you any harm. and soacage

also become very helpful in terms of the diplomatic mission of the corps of discovery as they go out into the west. and so they again, have you met an that they could simply gogenous nations and say, we're here now, we're in charge? the the president of united states is now your great father in washington. you are his children. and you must all get along because you are part of this country. now we sort of are conquering the indigenous people that going to pull that off. but that's what they did. and they truly believe that that was totally reasonable thing to do do. but they realized that indigenous people had deep seeded allegiances and also rivalries with one another, and that tdifferent groups were jus.

the louisiana territory now belonged to. the united and. they had to become much shrewder and wiser withhese native groups to secure their safe passage across the continent, to trade■fhe horses, food, the protection that they needed to to cross these mountains and and rivers of the american west. job.hey have to learn on e but it's a very interesting kind of assumption. it's going to be no problem at all. always case in history, right. much more complicated than that. this a later painting, the 1880s, 1890s of the lewis and clark expeditionhas. lots of work hanging in the air and carter museum in fort worth. if you ever want to go see its wonderful museum, if you ever want to see art that is produced

by these army exploring expeditions, thearr ways. so what are the lewis and clark expedition achieved? well, they made a lot of maps, about 140 of them to the best of their ability. so they had all these scientific, you know, compasses ways to draw, find longitude and so on. they tribes during the course of their expedition and their reports and journals describe more than 200 new plant and&qls species they caught or trapped as many as theyartifo thomas jefferson who displayed them in the entryway to his home at you ever been among which all you got to go phenomenal but you walk in through those those from the portico outside the building and youed states. the jefferson head commission and because.

many of the native nations who had artifacts sent back asked them to be returned, which is their right under federal. but jefferson had this displayed in and in the 19th century, you decide in the morning i want to go see thomas y to monticello and you could sit in the room and ito er president al of these objects brought from amyou never before seen in your life as rg was a remarkable way of bringing the frontier■gda th, distant space that americans really didn't know about. back to the east and supplying a vast quantity of knowledge. and that's what army explorers are going to do from that point forward. there's other parts of the lewis of the louisiana territory that have to be explored, including that southern portion. and so jefferson, another army

guy with phenomenal name to be a famous historical re you to locate the headwaters ofhe ns river and the rio grand. so go out the south, go across and, colorado and figure out what's going on out the problem was there was a lot more trouble with diplomacy that zebulon pike had to run into because that territory impeded on the louisiana purc iitory and the spanish di't really want a bunch of americans showing up in this southwestern the americans don't have any maps to tell them. quite precise, where the american territory the louisiana purchase ends, spanish territory begins. so zebulon accidentally gets himself kidnaped by the spanish

because he southern into near santa fe and albuquerque and they take him prisoner all the way down into mexico where they try and figure out what he's doing they take all his documents and journals and go through them and have them translated and they think he's a spy or maybe trying to overthrow the mexican government and so on and then they're finally like, oh, you're literally just a dude drawing plants. you■y can go, so they walk him back to rio grand and say, san antonio's way, get walking and ke back to the united states across texas. they sort of they end up in nacogdoches, right? so and so it's a really interesting kind of moment in an expedi y hea about lot less in part because it didn't ádiate purpose, which was find the headwaters of the arkansas and the grande because of that minor

kidnaping incident and. pike though he's a smart guy. he says, just in case, i'm going to take a lot of notes about what's going on hererritory knou know, just in later, which of course, it and pike course lends his name pikes peak, which is most prominent of the 14,000 foot peaks i colorado, beloved by texans who flee there every summer. to the great annoyance of coloradans. and i say that as a colorado. so pike a critical figure here. but they said go that direction to give him any maps documentation like okay this is kind of ouríñ area stay away frm this area. there were roads. i mean, they basically had a sense of like the missions were, right. this had been spanish territory for decades or■pturies this point. so yeah,o, n not quite, but

nearly. yeah. so this was when like we that e the border. they? the border was right. so,e dallas, questionably a part of the rchase. so. so most of texas, not the what the, texas panhandle, but that's about it. and then that corner one this right where santa fe and albuquerque kind of are. hey were right skirting the edge of ofha was. so, yeah, they got when they went them, they cut over to albuquerque. that's where they got themselves into trouble. yeah. and look, it happens, it was z06 they also for whatever reason i ■don't know pike seemed less prepared than louis clark. they end up inan luis valley of southern colorado,

which is a massive mountain park where the in the winter year, and pike will litrite enough socks. i don't like. i don't knowthey just seemed mol equipped than lewis clark. but they have a really exploring louisianahe kind of purchase is the long which fewer people know about. and it comes a little later in h long travels along the great and his job is to map the front range of the rocky mountains trying to figure out now what are the best passes to get over these mountains where are the places that we can cross these rocky mountains which are massive, rightportion of colorah 14,000 foot mota the front range, which is there in the corner. that photograph of no is named

stephen long. so again, names on the landscape if you're driving across the west andou after? probably an army dude, and so one thing that long does that's reallyit's going to havet impact on our understanding of especially the great which we're going to talk about in more detail later is he calls this region that he passes through nebraska and colorado and kansas, the great american and he's saying basically nothing is ever going to grow here. not of much value. this middle part of the country, this mas belt of great plains that runs from the canadian border all the wawn north texas is virtually and a remarkable kind of statement. so remember when fre about the subsequent stages of american expansion and how it basically skipped tht great plains chunk, desert and no one

bothered to follow up on that. hodi he all the stuff that was ther year he went through so we turn to winter so it's drier the grasses are dying doesn't look very fertile then just whatever you saw he didn't see a lot of water and that is true the great■f water u get beyond 100th meridian which bally not too far west austin. so there's this line is the ■ohundredth 100th meridian rainfall off so precipitously on the western side of the meridian, agriculture becomes almost impossible without irrigation. so he's right. he's seeing really dry the plains. he doesn't know that irrigation technology is going to■ind of al of those problems. but the reason turner that massive gap in american expansion, the reason the great plains, actually the last part of the frontier to be settled is

partlyalls it a desert. it's a good question. yeah. uh, i like his little, little i do like an army explorer, you know, the best post i'm going to be explorer. i'm a point. army kind of doubles down on exploring corps in the 1830s by creating what becomes the col engineers. and these are guys that are is go out and make maps topography to go out and explore. i'm trying figure out what's up, what's going on all across the west and william gottesman, who was a famous historian, pulitzer prize winning historian, taught at the university of texas at austin for many years, wrote as army officers, they the direct concern of the national government in e settling of the west. there's a type there, and that's t. so what they doing is being thal

government on the frontier, they areri it and they are reporting directly back to washgt for letters to get there, but they, the federal governrepresentative ind they make lots of wonderful ari. these are obviously a turtle and anlligator a there produced in the 1830s at a pl lled fort pulaski, which is in the carolinas, on the carolina lowcountry, the coast of savannah. and they are charge of building a fort pulas local tre. so armyers, regardless of what they're doing, have this incredible impulse to be ng, recording and making notes about the places they're going. andheinvaluable amount of testiy for understanding, aiding the early american west, and especially how white this as spd

time. it's really funny. how different was this education like at west point? the education they were ce was very well rounded. how different is that from like other sources? like in other military powers like england, france, that kind of. sure, yeah. so so there would have been officers schools in those countries, but they would have been very focused. remember, these■q■a military service from their that. so this is a self-selectg wanting to learn to be engineers rather than soldiers they have to rve five years when they get out, a lot of them leave. so they would've been offi trng and west point does train officers. you are commissioned as an officer coming out of west point but wbe lot focused on tactics andry uniquey american kind of thing. what was the reaction if you know some of the of like other countries to this new amen sy of mi=nlitary. they didn't think that they were as as capable.

right. down on because they weren't spending all this te and training and americans also. it's really funny. a there's a longstanding conversation in the history of the american civil war,he the prussians had more influence on the american military. they're obsessed wi the french. it's it's not even close. they basically pattern hat they do down to their uniforms on design. french tactics. thanks a lot. thomaseffe awesome loves the french loves to write a long hate be sh than washington. so so yeah, so good question. but they were not seen as the equals of the great european military powers, send its officd countries are fighting to observe what's going on. ev go observe the crimean war

in the 1850s and try and make sense of what's going on there. buty want to sort of right ands what they're really really good at and them the cover to do that even a little more so right. we had zebulon pike there accidentally getting a place he shouldn't have been in newwell'a couple decades and here's where we're going to kind of jump talk about some other explorers z access to that territory and they're going to do under the cover war, mexico in the 1840, to win that territory for. the united states after, the session of texas to the us. so the us war offers officers an unprecedented opportunity to america and maps of the amerin and they do so

sort of very and there's a couple of■m guys i'll highlight here i won't too much about kea. he's a really important army. he captures santa fe enroute to california during the us-mexico war and establishes a military code of governance that's really in military history. but perhaps the more important guy to know army exploration in this period is thisude john c, fremont, who is a member of the army corps of topographical who is sent explore california and the pacific coast in 1840s. fremont makes several expeditions toifornia. but in 1846, his the one that helps conquer california for theear flag, revt and proclaiming united states

sovereignty. california out of the hands. mexico, with the help of the navy. i always want to be very clear. the navy is involved. but what we really care about are th guys. but in 1846, without firing a shot, the captures california free to establish a headquarters and start to map and explore california and. i think we all know what that exploring is going to turn up we'll talk about it in a minute, but it's going to produce great value for. the us, fremont is going to become so famous as this that's his nickname, the pathfinder and conqueror of california that he'bls gog pres. he's going to be the first republican candidate for president in6. does not win, fair, the dude lost james buchanan. and that'sbuchanan.

but he tried it is a major figue americanil war, though for the wrong reasons. he's going to spend basically the entire womppreciates him en. they should be giving him more to do and eventually lincoln's going to be like, john, please just go but he is famous because of his ■] famous alongside a critical figure who helps himn endeavors and by the name of kit carson. but i want to say often went out west alone or with other at other times they d with them. and if you weren't, officer, you had the right to do this and so fremont there takes his wife jesse, benton fremont, who's the daughter of a famous senator who

iny in u.s. history, george custer, wh will explore in the west and the yellowstone in black hills after th:re war takes, his wife, libbie custer, with him expeditions out into the west and like like they're sort of husbands these women write down they see and what they perceive but they do itght a very different perspective. they're not writing as soldiers, writing as wives and potential as mothers. an■&d ey about the west as a place of possibility into american families. can that are not simply a masculine space, not simply a space by fur traders and soldiers and what have yout thel americans. and they write and these books get published and they're incredibly popular accounts ofe. so the american public, as much in the stories of john fremont, george

custer, they'ref interested in the stories of jesse benton and libbie bacon as well so it's a really interesting phenomenon. there's a tendency, right? in a lecturehe american west toe not mentionstudents would, raising their hands in the backnd sinvog, where are the women at? and that's a it's a valid question. but just to say they were ua producing knowledge but in a very different way and so their source their documents are really critical as well. th absent from this space, which is important to we think of it as very masculine space at this time there's kit carson, who is a huge aide to john c fremont as goes to california. carsons one of the kind of greats a american his biographys with as as any figure of

19th century. he was at times a great friend to indigenous peoples at other times involved in relocate, removing and engaging and being peoples.t in the massacre at times he worked for the us, at times he was annd agent and independent guide. what you but he is one of these igures that does whatever he can to earn a living to make a carson was just as the point was with someone, sacajawea, where the army can't do this alone and it needs people who have been out there, who have done the work, who've gone to the west and and can help the army get where they need, go like literally ike, don't go ten miles that way. it's a swamp kind, a thing, which if you don't have a map, a sense of where things are, you' to know. so you need that knowledge that sits in place. andarson is one of these figures. so at times army officer but really a traitor, a and a trailblazer in the american, a

figure like daniel boone or crockett, who we'll talk about in a couple of weeks. can't avon this class. what e talked about their reports. we've talked about they also sol these places. and after the civil war, most army topographical expeditions will be accompanied by a photographer. now, this is a pain in the -- because photography in the 19th century involves massive gglassy s but they don't really do much to cushion the your plates might not getacwh is art. and so one thing that the west pointers is take classes in watercolor and drawing because they're being asked to represent the west to an american public in the east that has never seen

these places. and again, here's army explorers are doing here's how the frontier corps is being for the average american who might go west. it's closing thetance in time and space between, the far west and the settled east. so this is an example of an army report comes out during the us-mexican war. a young engineer james abbott gets sick near modern day. ben's fort, colorado carnies like we cannot for you to get better we were needed in california but once you better, why don't you take some instruments and go down into new mexico and the texas panhandle and make the first american map of what is today? texas, new mexico. and abbott is like great. abbotts also a napa baby. his dad was in charge of the corps of topographical engineers and that's fine. he's a wonderful and are these are official kind of military

documents right that he's but he's putting such time care into them tt are of on their own individual works art and these army reports will get published with full litho buy. they're literally going and buying official government reports kind of full of these documents because they want to see and, read and know about so you can find abbott's lithograph still today. you can get copies of them. they're remarkable i want to give you it's not i couldn't get a high resutgive you a couple guesses as to who you think painted this. i don't know i don't know what clues i could give you he's as'n the civil war he's from ohio a gera a general. there he goes.

gray ulysses grant. that's grant was a noted water colorist. and#8 again, this is his west point training, right? i mean, you all know the story. i'm sure when grant shows up at west point and they have his name downe paperwork, you lose the sense grant's name is hiram. his name is hiram ulysses■z■ó g, and he gets to west point and they're like, oh, ulysses s grant because mother's maiden name was simpson. and he was like five feetahe we. he's this scrawny little. he was like, yep, that's right. that's myions. and thank goodness he did because otherwise his initials would have been hug and don't think a guy with the initialscit unconditional rrr ane you to victory. but he's noates point as a water colorist, which surprises people and also as a horseman, eld jumping records, horsemanship records, west point that stood fo after y

academy. he topped out at five foot eight, about 180. so he had a bit of a growth, but he was an average size century american. but he, like army explorers, he 's he is in mexico with winfield andhabut after the us-e goes to theacic northwest, to oregon and washing tin and makes notes and like all army officers do. and the the primary source that you all are going class is an as journal, right lawrence camps journal, the pacific northwest in the 1850s. warfare on the one hand, but it's also right óabout. but the army wasn't a did give e advantage if you hold of it ande soldiers who are able to do this, who out west as army officers and they're employed by the but on the day to day maybe they're not so busy and they

sument income in other one of them, william tecumseh y. the other richard stoddard ewell, he's on the confedera gettysburg. look, not important, but they split, managed their incomes by investing in western enterprises. and they're really smart to so because they have the first crack at the whole thing there's not a flood of other erican ome in to compete with them. and john c also profits this john c fremont estab home in california and gold just to be found there and he rich off of that so sherman inadvertently starts the california gold rush when he reports official military documents that gold had been discovered at sutter's mill, california. but also earned money by ]applying those engineering skills that he learned west point and helping to survey and

towns and cities, the modern day city of sacramento,ornia, capital of california, completely laid out by william tecumseh sherman, who similarly, new mexico frequently wrote to his family that he was going to invest in mining operations because. it figured it would be a way to make money because army officers didn't getó paid about $70 a week. it's pay for the 19th century, but not a massive salary. so one advantage you had as a soldier was this kind of thing. so what dor army officers ultimately give us when it comes to the american west in their exploration? they take these borderlands, these frontiers, and they start to put borders on them right. and so one of the things we're really talking about in this class, class in the american frontier is how do you wrestle a vast spa thaungoverned into a sh lines on the map? un army produces the first time,

a map of the american west. its collated, put together by a guy named, gouverneur warren, who will have a really good day at gettysburg and help to prevent the collapse of round respectepo command all engineers in the points. but he draws this map. he tes the of lewis and clark and zebulon and stephen long and john fremont and he starts putting them together to make map of the american west and then he also went out and talked to fur traders and mountain men and said draw all together. and here' map that he makes but it's a map that for the first time tries to very clear lines. where's territory of the united forth. and those lines will provide ush

the help of the army, the kind of one enterprise that will bind the nation together, that will really time and space, that will connect pacific and the atlantic and is the railroad and i talked a little bit about how politics enters into this, and that's how i'll finish up. jeffersovi secretary of war in the 1850s, right? he'll go confederacy, one of the largest slave holders in the united states as secretary of war commissioned five separate surveys to go out and find a line for a railroad. the pacific coast one goes along the ending in the puget. ce■ntral line goes to san francisco from saintahoma to los and the southernmost survey went across texas here to san diego and followed an old stagecoach trail. and a fifth survey went up and down the coast. california jefferson davis is

going to send these expedition out. he's going to pay them very collect all this knowledge which route will be the best. this is the 1850s. slavery is a livess should comeo us that for the pacific road is the one that goes through■ tas the most direct benefit to slaveholders. it's go back. it's that route in right there. so when davis makes his report, congress, he's like, they're all great. but i would suggest we build this railroad because it's the most expedient if we ever need to get troops to california because being invaded and congressín is like, hmm, seems unlikely cannot agree on which railroad ■mnefit, because is such a di?■sive iss in the 1850s. the railroad doesn't get until after the civil war, which

finally decides the issue of slavery in the united stateffere known better because was no wate the westacott of west texas, and when he sent out an army officer, john pope, to look for water, he didn't find any, but he spent three years drilling holes into the ground and trying to find it. talk about fruitless but this the point here right not all army■y army names go down in the historyks. great triumphs. john is not a triumph for a number of reasons, this is one of them. so here's politics at play. we want a southern railroad. it will make slaveholders richer. so the point is at the end of the day, what starts as a knowledge collecting enterprise on the help us understand the frontie becomes by the midpoint of the 1 exercise

fraught withe that will in manyp to trigger the american civil war. the question what's going on in the frontier iin the army spends most of its time on the matter significantly in helping to cause c war, because jefferson davis has a lot of. the army in texas and new mexico, he's developing the west for slavery and is using the army to do and so they become a political concern as well. andat's what i have for y'all today. thanks, as always. anyé concerns, please come see me. but thanks, everybody, for a great class and

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