Lewis and Clark discover gold.

What are the consquences if Lewis and Clark discover gold on their expedition? Say either in Montana, or they hear a rumor and go cross country to the Black Hills. Another possibility Zeb Pike discovers gold in Colorado.
 

Dirk_Pitt

Banned
What are the consquences if Lewis and Clark discover gold on their expedition? Say either in Montana, or they hear a rumor and go cross country to the Black Hills. Another possibility Zeb Pike discovers gold in Colorado.

That could be fun, but did they go through the Black Hills?
 
What are the consquences if Lewis and Clark discover gold on their expedition? Say either in Montana, or they hear a rumor and go cross country to the Black Hills. Another possibility Zeb Pike discovers gold in Colorado.

Well.....I pity the natives.
 
They're probably better prepared to fight off American invaders than they would be later.

Not that this is very reassuring.
 
if gold is discovered then it would have lead to more conflicts with the natives spain might want invade
 
Lewis@ Clark never went to the Black Hills in real life. But Pike was in Colorado. I wonder if there was gold discovered how much faster would northern states come about. Would this cause a faster Civil War? Would England want to be involved in that if it was right after the War of 1812? Or would England fight longer or harder to acquire the gold fields during the War of 1812?
 
There were disputes about the actual size of the Louisiana purchase and since the US government could not have possibly deploy a military to police the gold mine and the the population could not have justified mass movements Spain could send conquistadors for gold while England on the other hand was way more preoccupied with Europe right now to worry about gold
 
when i say conquistadors i do not mean an army most likely they would send one or two people and they would try to rally the natives while they would protest loudly about the borders and if the gold was discovered by zeb pike which seems to be the consensus and since he was arrested by Spanish authorities the Spanish ambassadors could make the argument that the gold is theirs
 
when i say conquistadors i do not mean an army most likely they would send one or two people and they would try to rally the natives while they would protest loudly about the borders and if the gold was discovered by zeb pike which seems to be the consensus and since he was arrested by Spanish authorities the Spanish ambassadors could make the argument that the gold is theirs

So when you say conquistadors, you don't mean anything resembling conquistadors.

And I don't think there was much of a consensus.

Plus, arguing that the gold is there is all well and good until it's discovered that there are more Americans on the ground than Spaniards.
 
What are the consquences if Lewis and Clark discover gold on their expedition? Say either in Montana, or they hear a rumor and go cross country to the Black Hills. Another possibility Zeb Pike discovers gold in Colorado.
There was gold in Helena Montana, which is why the city was founded. At one time it had more millionaires per capita than anywhere else in the world.

Lewis and Clark could easily have run across gold there.
 
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