LEWIS AND CLARK PARADIGM
I just finished a wonderful book, Undaunted Courage, by Stephen Ambrose, subtitled "Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West." It's a long read and daunting to look at, but when I started, I couldn't put it down and have stayed up late finishing it.
I've never gotten into Scy-Fi, but I love history. History is our cultural DNA; it helps us understand why we do and think what we do as a civilization. It's our collective understanding of ourselves and explains why things are the way they are. Re-examining this historic expedition helps frame things.
First, imagine being a Native American living beyond the Mississippi and Missouri River suddenly being told you have a "new Father?" Spain, Great Britain, France, and the U.S. were trading, selling, and carving up ownership of this land without ANY consultation with the natives. These natives were incidental to the machinations and designs of the European-based powers.
Elitism is imbedded deep, deep within our DNA. That makes us not consult peasant wisdom; it makes us disregard peasant remedies; it makes us criminalize peasant practice. Further, as negotiations with the natives became necessary, they were at least talked to as humans; black slaves were not even accorded that respect. That's deep.
Second, Jefferson's desire to build a continental trading power to send furs and leather to Europe dominated his intentions. In the beginning, he saw the Louisiana Purchase as a commercial interest and empire building strategy. Almost alone in that vision, he drove policy toward that goal when most others thought it too difficult or grandiose. It really does come down to money and power. Nothing has changed.
Third, most of us think of these early Americans as somewhat Puritanical, or at least possessing high moral standards. Lewis and Clark's 30-member discovery force had sexual relations with virtually every tribe they encountered. From the Mandans to the Shoshones to the Nez Perce to the Chinooks at the mouth of the Columbia on today's Oregon coast, the men partook of sexual favors routinely. Of course, it didn't help that Native American culture encouraged it.
The natives believed that if a buff man had sexual intercourse with a woman, the next man who had relations with her would benefit from the other guy's prowess. So Lewis and Clark's men were constantly being offered women--by their own husbands, who would stand guard outside the teepee until the deed was done. As Paul Harvey used to say, "it's not one world." Of course, the natives practiced this among themselves.
Since the natives were constantly fighting each other, they were always short of men, who did the fighting and kept killing each other. Most had more than one wife. The point of all this is that the biggest ailment during the entire expedition was venereal disease: gonorrhea and syphilis. You didn't read that in third grade.
Fourth, Lewis, who was only 30 years old when he set out on this grand expedition, committed suicide at 34. In the annals of exploration, he is unsurpassed; he was a fantastic commander, cared for his men, kept the right balance between intimacy and distance. But the fame and money that came from his success made him careless with his money and his time and his drinking. He was an explorer, not an administrator or politician.
With creditors pursuing him, addicted to drugs and alcohol, unable to find a wife, and pressured in the Louisiana Governorship that did not suit his personality, he picked up one of his two pistols and tried to shoot himself in the head but just grazed it instead. He picked up the other one and shot himself in the chest. He still didn't go down, so he picked up a razor and started cutting himself to pieces. Finally he died. It's a very sad ending to such a talented historic man. But he had demons.
Did you know Meriwether Lewis committed suicide only two years after completing the expedition?