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Historical Background

Lewis lays publication plans

Meantime Lewis, detained in Washington by various business, had been appointed as Governor of Louisiana Territory. [161] Many matters relating to the governorship needed to be discussed with Jefferson and other officials. Another task, urged by Jefferson, was launching a history of the expedition. Also stimulating Lewis in this endeavor was news that some of the enlisted men who had kept journals were proceeding with publishing plans. [162] Already, in October 1806, Frazer had issued with Lewis' approval a prospectus for a history, to be published by subscription, but the project ultimately came to naught.

Lewis was particularly irritated when he learned of unauthorized plans to issue the Gass journal, which David McKeehan, a Pittsburgh bookseller, had purchased and was preparing for publication. Lewis responded with a scathing attack on the quality of any publications based on enlisted men's journals—particularly their treatment of geographic and scientific topics. [163] Announcing at the same time plans to produce his own official and authoritative three-volume work, he stated he had approved only Frazer's book and denounced all others. McKeehan countered with a scurrilous letter to Lewis dated April 1. Five days before, the former had issued his prospectus in the Pittsburgh Gazette.

Late in March 1807, Lewis, substituting action for rhetoric, proceeded to Philadelphia. He quickly found a publisher, C. and A. Conrad and Company. About April 1 it issued a prospectus outlining a three-volume project plus a large map of North America that would sell for a total of $31. Lewis persuaded some of the foremost natural history authorities in the United States, who resided in the city, to undertake technical descriptions and drawings of botanical and zoological specimens procured by the expedition for use in volume three, which was to be devoted exclusively to scientific topics. [164]

Meantime, McKeehan had been busy at Pittsburgh. His efforts were more fruitful. On July 7, about the time Lewis returned to Washington, McKeehan published his work, the first of those based on the journals of members of the expedition. The book consisted of a rewriting of the Gass journal in polished prose, a capability Gass did not possess, and the addition of annotations.

Despite the many pressing problems awaiting Lewis at St. Louis in his gubernatorial capacity, of which both he and Jefferson were well aware, Lewis for some reason stayed in Washington after his return from Philadelphia through the winter of 1807-8. During this time, he probably was busy handling some matters for Jefferson relating to Aaron Burr's trial for treason at Richmond in August-September 1807 and its aftermath. Not until the next March, after stopping en route in Kentucky to examine some family land claims, did Lewis arrive in St. Louis.

Lewis becomes Governor of Louisiana Territory

The "dangers" of civilization were to prove to be more formidable than any Lewis had faced in the wilderness. Partly because his previous experience had been limited to the command of small military units, he found himself unprepared to cope with the problems of a Territorial official. Such a position required political acumen, administrative ability, and social grace rather than courage and ingenuity—the qualities he had demonstrated as a frontier Army officer and commander of a major exploring expedition. Even his perseverance and conscientiousness were not sufficient to surmount the burdens of the new office.

Louisiana Territory was plagued with problems, which had all mounted during Lewis' long absence: a sudden influx of population; contention between ambitious Government officials and scheming businessmen; administration of the Indian population; keen rivalry for trading licenses with the tribes; difficulties in controlling traders; confused land titles and trading rights, created by obscure Spanish and French antecedents; and the intrusion of white squatters and hunters on Government and Indian lands.

Lewis might have been able to handle the complicated situation better had he enjoyed the cooperation of his second-in-command, Territorial Secretary Frederick Bates, a lawyer and fellow Virginian who had directed the Territory while Lewis was in Washington and still exercised much power. Seeming friendliness on Bates' part quickly turned to hostility and surreptitious efforts to undermine Lewis' position, and ultimately to open enmity. Bates also continually embarrassed Lewis socially. The two men became so estranged that, had Lewis lived, only a duel might have resolved their differences.

The lack of cooperation even extended to Washington. Under Jefferson's patronage, Lewis had enjoyed a virtual Presidential carte blanche to spend as much money as he needed. When Madison assumed the Presidency in 1809, his administration protested through the Secretary of War some of Lewis' drafts on various departments in Washington. [165]

Lewis arranges for Sheheke's return

Ironically, some of the protested drafts were associated with one of Lewis' major achievements as Territorial Governor: the return of Sheheke to his people in the fall of 1809, which Ensign Pryor had been unable to accomplish 2 years earlier. Lewis probably later regretted the means he chose. He entered into a contract on behalf of the U.S. Government with the St. Louis Missouri Fur Company, which Manuel Lisa had organized only a few months before, in March 1809.

Although encouraged by the profitability of his expedition up the Missouri and Yellowstone in 1807-8, Lisa realized that better organization and greater capital were needed for proper exploitation of the trade in the northern Rockies. He had gained a good knowledge of it and its potentialities, as well as experience in conducting it. He convinced other entrepreneurs that only large companies could operate successfully there; the long trips necessary to reach the hunting grounds were costlier than individual traders or small companies could finance, and hostile Indians would likely prevent the passage of small parties.

The Chouteaus and other traders joined forces with Lisa in the trade of the Upper Missouri because they realized it was the most effective way to share in it; any attempt to break his hold would require a long and costly operation. Officers of the new company were: William Clark, Pierre Chouteau, Sr., Auguste Chouteau, Jr., Meriwether Lewis' brother Reuben, Benjamin Wilkinson, and Sylvestre Labbadie, all of St. Louis; Pierre Menard and William Morrison of Kaskaskia; Andrew Henry of Louisiana; and Dennis Fitzhugh of Kentucky.

Lewis' logic in assigning the Sheheke mission to the company was unassailable. By this time the chief had been away from his tribe for 2-1/2 years, and his expeditious return had become a matter of urgent political necessity. The company was planning to send a major trading expedition up the Missouri. There seemed to be no other way to recruit or finance such a large force to accomplish the mission.

Despite this fact, Lewis' detractors and some others questioned the propriety of his action. The company's profits would be shared by his brother, Reuben; his friend Clark, whose participation in the company while Superintendent of Indian Affairs was ethically questionable anyway; and Fitzhugh, who was related to Clark through marriage.

Under the arrangement, the company, which guaranteed Sheheke's safety, was to recruit a number of men to guard the party, led by Pierre Chouteau and including Reuben Lewis. If the company succeeded in returning the chief to his people, it would receive $7,000. After 101 days in transit and a major display of force while passing by the Arikaras and Sioux, on September 24, 1809, he was delivered to his village.

Lewis clashes with the War Department

New Secretary of War William Eustis, far less cooperative than Dearborn, refused to honor a draft of $500 that Lewis had signed on May 13, 1809, in favor of Chouteau for goods intended for distribution among the Indians through whom the expedition needed to pass. Another rejected draft, in the amount of $440 and dated May 15, was also associated with the project.

The Government's refusal to honor these drafts, as well as some others, created a crisis in Lewis' personal, as well as public, life. Under the circumstances, he became personally accountable for payment of the drafts. This in itself would not have been too serious, but his credit was already strained to the limit. He had borrowed heavily for some unwise speculation in land and for investment in at least one mining venture, along the Arkansas River. Lewis stood on the brink of insolvency, though he still held the land warrant for 1,600 acres he had received as a reward for his part in the Lewis and Clark Expedition. His creditors, suspecting his imminent financial ruin, reacted quickly and demanded immediate satisfaction.

Realizing that other protests would undoubtedly follow and anxious to justify his choice of the St. Louis Missouri Fur Company for the Sheheke assignment, Lewis decided to return to Washington, plead his case in person, and defend his honor and reputation. He also apparently decided to take advantage of the opportunity to further his history of the expedition, for which neither he nor Clark had been able to write a line, though the work had been announced to the public. This was another source of embarrassment.