Lewis & Clark: Vanguard of an American Imperialist Mission

Robert J. Miller, associate professor of Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon, writing in the Seattle Times (Jan. 28, 2004):

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark sit high in the pantheon of American folk heroes. Even today, Lewis and Clark are viewed as brave adventurers who went where no one had gone before, exploring and conquering the wilderness for the betterment of America.

There is another way to view Lewis and Clark, however, which is nearer to the truth. Lewis and Clark were military officers serving American empire and manifest destiny and they were the vanguard of American policies that ultimately robbed the indigenous peoples of nearly everything they possessed.

Historian Bernard DeVoto stated, "The dispatch of the Lewis and Clark expedition was an act of imperial policy." This imperialism was directed at the Indians who inhabited the Pacific Northwest and the Louisiana Territory.

The expedition was primarily concerned with Indian affairs. ....

The expedition operated under a European legal principle called the doctrine of discovery. This legal principle rationalized the domination and outright conquest of indigenous, non-Christian, non-white populations because it provided that the first European country that "discovered" new territory gained an interest in the natives' property and became the sole government eligible to buy their lands and the sole government that could deal diplomatically with the natives. Thus, indigenous peoples lost property and sovereign rights without their knowledge or their consent to the "discovering" nation.

Jefferson demonstrated his agreement with the doctrine when he wrote that after buying the Louisiana Territory, the United States had become its "sovereign" but that the purchase had not diminished Indian "occupancy rights" until the United States bought the land itself from the "native proprietors." Jefferson also showed his understanding of the doctrine when he sent Lewis and Clark beyond the Louisiana Territory into the Pacific Northwest to strengthen the American discovery claim to the Oregon Territory. Jefferson obviously had American empire in mind for the Pacific Northwest and for the Louisiana Territory....

The ultimate goal, then, of the Lewis and Clark Expedition was the subjugation of Indian property and commercial rights. The expedition helped the United States claim its discovery sovereignty over the Louisiana Territory, institute concrete plans to begin exercising that authority and extended America's claim to the Northwest. The expedition was a major part of Jefferson's plan to assimilate Indians and their assets into American society, to remove the tribes from the path of American continental expansion and, if necessary, to exterminate the tribes to advance the American empire.