Provides facts about the Lewis and Clark Expedition and its importance in American history.

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""

A frank portrayal of Toussaint Charbonneau, a French-Canadian fur trader, who, with his Shoshone Indian wife Sacagawea, joined the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1803. While Sacagawea assumed legendary status as a "token of peace", Toussaint has been maligned in fiction and nonfiction alike.

When President Thomas Jefferson purchased the Louisiana Territory in 1803, the size of the United States almost doubled. Suddenly, the country stretched from the Atlantic Ocean all the way to the Rocky Mountains. But no one knew much about the new territory. Jefferson sent Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore it and report on what they found. What would they need for their journey? How would they cross high waterfalls, snowy mountains, and raging rivers? Who would help them speak and trade with Native Americans along the way? Discover how Lewis and Clark overcame these and other challenges while collecting important scientific information and carefully mapping unknown lands. Find out how their courageous expedition opened the West for expansion, trade, and development.

Kessler supplies both the biography of a legend and an explanation of why that legend has endured. Sacagawea is one of the most renowned figures of the American West. A member of the Shoshone tribe, she was captured by the Hidatsas as a child and eventually became one of the wives of a French fur trader, Toussaint Charbonneau. In 1805 Charbonneau joined Lewis and Clark as the expedition's interpreter. Sacagawea was the only woman to participate in this important mission, and some claim that she served as a guide when the expedition reached the upper Missouri River and the mountainous region. Although much has been written about the historical importance of Sacagawea in connection with the expedition, no one has explored why her story has endured so successfully in Euro-American culture. In an examination of representative texts (including histories, works of fiction, plays, films, and the visual arts) from 1805 to the present, Kessler charts the evolution and transformation of the legend over two centuries and demonstrates that Sacagawea has persisted as a Euro-American legend because her story exemplified critical elements of America's foundation myths-especially the concept of manifest destiny. Kessler also shows how the Sacagawea legend was flexible within its mythic framework and was used to address cultural issues specific to different time periods, including suffrage for women, taboos against miscegenation, and modern feminism.

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.

The author and his family make a present-day journey that retraces Sacagawea's trail, from Fort Mandan in North Dakota to Fort Clatsop in Oregon.