With $2,500 appropriated by Congress, expedition leader Meriwether Lewis purchased supplies for the journey. His list of items requisitioned from the War Department included food, clothing, munitions, tools, and medicine. Lewis reserved a large portion of the budget for gifts to be given to American Indians to establish peaceful relations and stimulate trade.
Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, National Archives and Records Administration
List of supplies for the Lewis and Clark Expedition, ca. June 1803
Trade with American Indians
In 1803, while the United States was negotiating the purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France, President Thomas Jefferson sent a confidential message to Congress proposing exploration of the region. Mindful of Congress’s authority to regulate commerce, Jefferson emphasized the need for better knowledge about American Indians of the Northwest in order to develop trade. Congress authorized and funded an expedition led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. An 1806 report to Congress with data gathered by Lewis and Clark confirmed the territory’s commercial potential.
In all your intercourse with the natives, . . . make them acquainted with the position, extent character, peaceable & commercial dispositions of the US . . . & of our dispositions to a commercial intercourse with them
Thomas Jefferson, Instructions to Meriwether Lewis, June 20, 1803
With $2,500 appropriated by Congress, expedition leader Meriwether Lewis purchased supplies for the journey. His list of items requisitioned from the War Department included food, clothing, munitions, tools, and medicine. Lewis reserved a large portion of the budget for gifts to be given to American Indians to establish peaceful relations and stimulate trade.
Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, National Archives and Records Administration
