WI: Corps of Discovery Fails?

Please tell me if there has already been anything covering this, as it seems like it would a a fairly-often-encountered PoD:

Historically, the Lewis and Clark expedition encountered a good amount of friction with the Lakota. What would be the effects of a full-blown conflict early in the expedition in which half of the corps are slain and the other half flee back to Saint Louis? What would be the effects of the expedition perishing entirely, whether from conflict with natives or from disaster in the Rockies?

Furthermore, what would the effects be if the expedition, facing starvation, turned around halfway through the Rockies and returned to tell the tale of there being no Northwest Passage?

In my uninformed opinion, the former might result in a secondary, somewhat delayed expedition in addition to somewhat more genocidal American politics for the early nineteenth century. Total annihilation, especially if the corps died somewhere very remote, might do the same without genocide, in addition to making the secondary expedition somewhat more extravagant. The latter might force the US to cede its claim to Oregon territory, as the Oregon Trail would either be delayed or nonexistent.

So, has this been covered before? If not, who gets Oregon?
 
Butterflies excluded, I don't think Louis & Clark's expedition mattered at all: they didn't really discover or prove anything. Settlement would continue apace as OTL.

Really, the more significant impact would probably be Louis not being (a disastrously bad) Upper Louisiana governor post-expedition.
 
Depends on the reaction to it failing. A lot of Federalists are going to have a lot of "I told you so"s to tell Jefferson, which can't be good for him and his.

On the other hand, the amount the Expedition discovered OTL took a while to be realized in any way that would impact anything.

This might have interesting effects on the War of 1812, with a more aggressive Sou...Lakota playing a role that isn't good for the US.

Settlement will happen regardless, though (as stewacide said). Its what Americans did.
 
I was under the impression that settlement of the Oregon territory was spurred on by the expedition, as beforehand it was doubted that an overland route was viable. The Oregon Trail was only in major use by the end of the 1830s, and the earliest settlement, Astor's fur company, did not arrive until 1811.
 
I think American settlers would still find some way to Oregon, and by virtue of geographic proximity, they'd still outnumber the British by mid century even without the pretext of the 1803 claims.

Another thing to remember is that American claims on Oregon weren't based solely on Lewis and Clark's passage through the region. I think about a decade earlier, a US merchant ship called the Columbia stopped at the Oregon coast on the way to China, and that's where much of the basis of the claim lies (the ship's crew discovered the Columbia River, naming it after their vessel).
 
Interesting. Even if Lewis and Clark openly professed that crossing the continental divide was impossible and that there was no Northwest Passage, would settlement not at least be forestalled by a decade or two?
 
I was under the impression that settlement of the Oregon territory was spurred on by the expedition, as beforehand it was doubted that an overland route was viable. The Oregon Trail was only in major use by the end of the 1830s, and the earliest settlement, Astor's fur company, did not arrive until 1811.

Mackenzie had already gone to the coast overland, proving that the passes were easily manageable (I've hiked the divide many times myself). And he'd already learned that the rivers flowing out of the Rockies into the Pacific were too swift and steep to be navigable (you could have figured that out on the East Coast on the back of a napkin: too much elevation to lose too quickly)
 
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I'd think that the fur traders would make their way up to the Pacific Northwest in search of better hunting grounds, and once they find how fertile the climate is, word would still trickle back. Maybe it won't captivate the national imagination, but it shouldn't be delayed too much, right?
 
But without captivating the national imagination, would Oregon be as appealing as elsewhere to settlers simply wishing for land? If it's not so romanticized, the territory might lose a lot of settlers looking for the "best" land as opposed to the most bountiful.
 
But without captivating the national imagination, would Oregon be as appealing as elsewhere to settlers simply wishing for land? If it's not so romanticized, the territory might lose a lot of settlers looking for the "best" land as opposed to the most bountiful.

The 49th boundary already extended to the Rockies*, only seems logical to run it all the way to the Pacific. And I doubt any outcome for the Corps would effect the course of settlement in any appreciable way anyway.

*Actually Jackson was pretty insistent that Louisiana (hence the US) included the entire Mississippi-Missouri watershed, and was anxious for Louis to prove that it extended North of 49. In fact it does, but Louis reported that it didn't because he didn't explore the Milk R.
 
http://www.nps.gov/oreg/historyculture/index.htm

American Indians had traversed this country for many years, but for whites it was unknown territory. Lewis and Clark's secretly funded expedition in 1803 was part of a U.S. Government plan to open Oregon Country to settlement. However, the hazardous route blazed by this party was not feasible for families traveling by wagon. An easier trail was needed.


Robert Stewart of the Astorians (a group of fur traders who established Fort Astoria in western Oregon's Columbia River) became the first white to use what later became known as the Oregon Trail. Stewart's 2,000-mile journey from Fort Astoria to St. Louis in 1810 took 10 months to complete; still, it was a much less rugged trail than Lewis and Clark's route.

It wasn't until 1836 that the first wagons were used on the trek from Missouri to Oregon. A missionary party headed by Marcus Whitman and his wife Narcissa bravely set out to reach the Willamette Valley. Though the Whitmans were forced to abandon their wagons 200 miles short of Oregon, they proved that families could go west by wheeled travel.


In the spring of 1843, a wagon train of nearly 1,000 people organized at Independence, Missouri with plans to reach Oregon Country. Amidst an overwhelming chorus of naysayers who doubted their success, the so-called "Great Migration" made it safely to Oregon. Crucial to their success was the use of South Pass, a 12-mile wide valley that was virtually the sole place between the plains and Oregon where wagons could cross the formidable Rocky Mountains.




No Lewis and Clark = no Stewart or Whitman? I doubt it.
 
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