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On August 1, 1770, I was born in Carolina County, Virginia. I attended a one room school house until I moved with my family to Kentucky. I couldn't attend school because I had to work with my family on the frontier. I was not very good with spelling or punctuation, but was smart about living and working in the wilderness. In 1789, when I was nineteen, I joined the Army and served in a rifle company under General Anthony Wayne. There I met my friend, Meriwether Lewis. I left the Army in 1796 as a Captain and returned home to help on the farm. In June of 1803, I was invited by Lewis to be a co-leader on an expedition to explore the land west of the Mississippi River. The purpose of the trip was to find a water route to the Pacific Ocean, to develop friendships and trade with the Native Americans, and to map the new land the United States had bought from Napoleon of France. My purpose in this expedition was to take notes about wildlife, geography, and to make maps of the land.
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Our trip started in May of 1804 near St. Louis and followed the Missouri River west. I met many native Americans on the trip. I was called the "Red-haired Chief" by the Native Americans I met. Lewis and I befriended a Native American woman named Sacajewea. She and her husband helped us cross the Rocky Mountains. We reached the Pacific Ocean in 1805 and stayed in a fort until we returned to St. Louis in 1806. I was given one thousand two hundred twenty eight dollars and one thousand six hundred acres of land as payment for my services. I was made Superintendent of Indian Affairs in St. Louis in 1807. Six years later I became Governor of Missouri Territory. I died on September 1, 1838 at the age of sixty-eight. I am buried with many relatives at Bellefountaine Cemetery. |
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