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The Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–1806) was the first United States expedition to the Pacific Coast. Commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson and led by two Virginia-born veterans of Indian wars in the Ohio Valley, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, the expedition had several goals. Their objects were both scientific and commercial – to study the area’s plants, animal life, and geography, and to discover how the region could be exploited economically. According to Jefferson himself, one goal was to find a “direct & practicable water communication across this continent, for the purposes of commerce with Asia” (the Northwest Passage).

The famous map of Lewis and Clark’s expedition. It changed mapping of northwest America by providing the first accurate depiction of the relationship of the sources of the Columbia and Missouri rivers, and the Rocky Mountains.