One of the greatest challenges faced by William Clark and Meriwether Lewis on their 1804?6 Corps of Discovery expedition was that of medical emergencies on the trail. Without an attending physician, even routine ailments and injuries could have tragic consequences for the expedition?s success and the safety of its members. Of these dangers, the most insidious and potentially devastating was the slow, painful, and oftentimes fatal ravage of venereal disease. ø Physician Thomas P. Lowry delves into the world of nineteenth-century medicine, uncovering the expedition?s very real fear of venereal disease. Lewis and Clark knew they were unlikely to prevent their men from forming sexual liaisons on the trail, so they prepared for the consequences of encounters with potentially infected people, as well as the consequences of preexisting disease, by stocking themselves with medicine and the latest scientific knowledge from the best minds in America. Lewis and Clark?s expedition encountered Native peoples who experienced venereal disease as a result of liaisons with French, British, Spanish, and Canadian travelers and had their own methods for curing its victims, or at least for easing the pain it inflicted. ø Lowry?s careful study of the explorers? journals sheds new light on this neglected aspect of the expedition, showing in detail how sex and venereal disease affected the men and their mission, and describes how diverse peoples faced a common threat with the best knowledge and tools at their disposal.
David J. Peck?s Or Perish in the Attempt ingeniously combines the remarkable adventures of Lewis and Clark with an examination of the health problems their expedition faced. Formidable problems indeed, but the author patiently, expertly?and humorously?guides us through the medical travails of the famous journey, juxtaposing treatment then against remedy now. The result is a fascinating book that sheds new light not only on Lewis and Clark and the men and one remarkable woman (and her infant) who accompanied them along an eight-thousand-mile wilderness path but also on the practice of medicine in their time and place.
Particularly valuable for Ronda's inclusion of pertinent background information about the various tribes and for his ethnological analysis. An appendix also places the Sacagawea myth in its proper perspective. Gracefully written, the book bridges the gap between academic and general audiences.OCo"Choice""
When President Thomas Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark to explore the West, he told them to look especially for mammoths. Jefferson had seen bones and tusks of the great beasts in Virginia, and he suspected—he hoped!—that they might still roam the Great Plains. In Eleanor Arnason’s imaginative alternate history, they do: shaggy herds thunder over the grasslands, living symbols of the oncoming struggle between the Native peoples and the European invaders. And in an unforgettable saga that soars from the badlands of the Dakotas to the icy wastes of Siberia, from the Russian Revolution to the AIM protests of the 1960s, Arnason tells of a modern woman’s struggle to use the weapons of DNA science to fulfill the ancient promises of her Lakota heritage. PLUS: “Writing SF During World War III,” and an Outspoken Interview that takes you straight into the heart and mind of one of today’s edgiest and most uncompromising speculative authors.
Lewis and Clark's Expedition from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean was the first governmental exploration of the "Great West." The history of this undertaking is the personal narrative and official report of the first white men who crossed the continent between and British and Spanish possessions.
Provides facts and information about the travels of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and their Corps of Discovery and its importance in relation to Native Americans and the westward expansion in the United States.
In 1971, Californian congressman Thomas M. Rees told the US House of Representatives that ‘very little has been written of what the Welsh have contributed in all walks of life in the shaping of American history’. This book is the first systematic attempt to both recount and evaluate the considerable yet undervalued contribution made by Welsh immigrants and their immediate descendants to the development of the United States. Their lives and achievements are set within a narrative outline of American history that emphasises the Welsh influence upon the colonists’ rejection of British rule, and upon the establishment, expansion and industrialisation of the new American nation. This book covers both the famous and the unsung who worked and fought to acquire greater prosperity and freedom for themselves and for their nation.
Although some have attributed the success of the Lewis and Clark expedition primarily to gunpowder and gumption, historian William R. Swagerty demonstrates in this two-volume set that adopting Indian ways of procuring, processing, and transporting food and gear was crucial to the survival of the Corps of Discovery. The Indianization of Lewis and Clark retraces the well-known trail of America’s most famous explorers as a journey into the heart of Native America—a case study of successful material adaptation and cultural borrowing. Beginning with a broad examination of regional demographics and folkways, Swagerty describes the cultural baggage and material preferences the expedition carried west in 1804. Detailing this baseline reveals which Indian influences were already part of Jeffersonian American culture, and which were progressive adaptations the Corpsmen made of Indian ways in the course of their journey. Swagerty’s exhaustive research offers detailed information on both Indian and Euro-American science, medicine, cartography, and cuisine, and on a wide range of technologies and material culture. Readers learn what the Corpsmen wore, what they ate, how they traveled, and where they slept (and with whom) before, during, and after the return. Indianization is as old as contact experiences between Native Americans and Europeans. Lewis and Clark took the process to a new level, accepting the hospitality of dozens of Native groups as they sought a navigable water route to the Pacific. This richly illustrated, interdisciplinary study provides a unique and complex portrait of the material and cultural legacy of Indian America, offering readers perspective on lessons learned but largely forgotten in the aftermath of the epic journey.
As the author of SACAJAWEA: Her True Story, I'm pleased with the reaction to the book but even more thrilled over the interest in Sacajawea, even from overseas. Although my e-mail is on only one website (it's [email protected]), I'm surprised about how many comments and questions I've received, including three from the United Kingdom this week. I try to personally respond to all the e-mails but I've also decided to use this forum to answer the best questions I receive, such as this one from Jeffrey Dawson, Wales: "An American friend told me about your book and I have ordered but not received it yet from Amazon.co.uk/United Kingdom. She also has sent me five of the Year 2000 Sacajawea Golden Dollar Coins, knowing my interest in the 1805-06 Lewis and Clark Expedition that ended merry-ole England's claims to the region stretching from the Mississippi to the Pacific. I surf the internet for Sacajawea stuff and read more about your book and learned that the little Indian girl is vastly widening the gap as easily the most memorialized female in American history. WOW! I have a question. As Sacajawea led the mission from the Missouri to the Pacific and back, were there any deaths among the members of the expedition on the arduous journey?" ANSWER: There were many close calls but only one member of the expedition died during the journey. That was Sergeant Charles Floyd. He died on August 20th, 1804, near present day Sioux City, Iowa. It is believed his death was due to a burst appendix. **************************** Carol Meminger; St. Paul, Minnesota: "I enjoyed your book and notice you spell your icon 'Sacajawea' but from time to time I see it spelled 'Sacagawea' or 'Sacakawea' or even 'Sakakawea' just as often. Can you explain this to me?" ANSWER: I use the "Sacajawea" spelling simply because she was a Shoshone and my Shoshoni friends think of her and spell her name that way. In other words, Sacajawea is family to them and that gives them the perogative, I think. If a white family had a daughter named Kathy, for example, I would think of Kathy with a "K" and not Cathy with a "C." But I understand your confusion. Sacajawea was Shoshoni but she was captured and enslaved by the Hidatsa Indians of Knife River in present day North Dakota when she was a child. Her Hidatsa captors named her "Sacagawea," which to them meant "Bird Woman." The Lewis and Clark Expedition helped reunite her with her Shoshoni people in 1805 and by then her brother Cameahwait had become Chief of the Shoshones. Even within their own tribe, Shoshoni women often had several name changes from time to time but Sacajawea apparently liked her Hidatsa name and it closely resembled the Shoshoni name that meant "one who launches boats." So, even today the Hidatsas and Shoshones pronounce the name basically the same except for the third syllable. Lewis and Clark, on the expedition, spelled her name as they pronounced it -- "Sah-cah-gah-we-ah." The Hidatsa word for bird is "sacaga" and the Hidatsa word for woman is "wea" and combining the two was how Sacajawea originally was named. But the general acceptance of the name by her Shoshoni people affords them the right to start the third syllable with a "j" and not a 'g' and pronounce it "Sack-a-ja-wea," I think. To the Shoshones, her name is "Sacajawea" and it means "boat launcher" but to the Hidatsas her name is "Sacakawea" and it means "Bird Woman." The third spelling -- "Sakakawea" --is promoted by the North Dakota Hidatsa and they pronounce it "sa-ka-ka-we-a." In 1814, eight years after the expedition, a man named Nicholas Biddle edited the Lewis and Clark journals and corrected many of the explorers' spelling and grammar mistakes. Biddle was the very first in the English language
