Articles+for+Radio+Jeffa09


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Across the River (27 seconds) __** **Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set out to cross the Mississippi River** to explore the West. President Jefferson had Lewis as a presidential assistant and is the person that sent Lewis and Clark with a group of frontiersmen to see what is on the other side of the Mississippi. Their main objectives include learning about the people of the West and its land as well as figuring **out if there was a river route to the Pacific Ocean. Jefferson had been trying** **to get someone across the Mississippi River to explore**, and now his dream is made possible by the Lewis and Clark expedition. **__ Crossing the Plains (26 seconds) __** **Lewis and Clark encounter many things on their trip across the Great Plains.** Indians were both helpful and harmful. These Indians knew their way around the Great Plains and Lewis and Clark receive some of there most important information from them. Lewis and Clark also deceived them by telling both the Mandan and the Sioux tribes that the Americans now own the land they live on. **Nature also had an effect on how Lewis and Clark could travel** because there are raging rivers as well as steep mountains and terrible storms that became constant danger. **__ There and Back Again (27 seconds) __** **With the Great Plains behind them Lewis and Clark now tried to follow the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean**. Indians both powerful and friendly provide Lewis and Clark with food and horses as they travel onward. Lewis and Clark traded many things with the Clatsop and Chinook Indians before heading back home. For six hard months they traveled back across the West and were welcomed gladly and happily by hundreds upon their arrival home. **No river route to the Pacific was discovered** but useful information on western lands and paths across the Rockies were. __**Pike’s Exploration (30 seconds)**__


 * Zebulon Pike set out on an exploration similar to the Lewis and Clark expedition**. One thing he wanted to do was to reach the Rocky Mountains and climb it. Pike then heads south for a few expieditions in present-day New Mexico. Many treacherous mountain stood in their path yet they eventually reach Rio Grande. Pike continued to follow the river throughout Spanish lands and so the Spanish thought him a spy. He was captured and imprisoned but eventually was released and returned home to the U.S. **He reported back with the information he had learned** and was grateful for the opportunities he had doing business with the Spanish in the Southwest.