WI: Lewis and Clark Expedition is instead a Conquistador or Cossack-esque campaign of conquest

I admit that I only have rough information on Lewis and Clark, but they have a disgusting unmerited heroism in US history that should disappear. The two should be seen in the same way as the Hebrew spies of Canaan who infiltrated Canaanite territory and learned everything they could about it in order to effectively conquer it. Lewis and Clark are no different than Joshua and the rest of Moses' spies who reported on their findings for expansionistic and genocidal purposes.

In other words, Lewis and Clark's expedition and report was the prelude to the US conquest and despoliation of Native American land in the same way Columbus and Vespucci's expeditions and reports on Caribbean islands and continental American ports was for Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro.

I think your problem is that you are seeing the expedition as preparing the way for a massive white settlement and displacement of the trans-Mississippi Native Americans which in fact hardly anyone contemplated in 1803. Jefferson specifically wanted to close off most of the acquired territory from white settlement for a long time to come:

"With respect to the disposal of the country, we must take the island of New Orleans and west side of the river as high up as Point coupee, containing nearly the whole inhabitants, say about 50,000, and erect it into a state, or annex it to the Missisipi territory: and shut up all the rest from settlement for a long time to come, endeavoring to exchange some of the country there unoccupied by Indians for the lands held by the Indians on this side the Missisipi who will be glad to cede us their country here for an equivalent there..." http://jeffersonswest.unl.edu/archive/view_doc.php?id=jef.00004

Of course in terms of the *eastern* Indians, Jefferson's policy seems an anticipation of Jackson's (though Jefferson seems sincerely to have believed that the eastern tribes would voluntarily give up their lands in favor of land in the west). But in terms of the western tribes, basically all the US government wanted was to trade with them and see to it that they did not support any European powers that might get into a war with the US.
 

Maoistic

Banned
I think your problem is that you are seeing the expedition as preparing the way for a massive white settlement and displacement of the trans-Mississippi Native Americans which in fact hardly anyone contemplated in 1803. Jefferson specifically wanted to close off most of the acquired territory from white settlement for a long time to come:

"With respect to the disposal of the country, we must take the island of New Orleans and west side of the river as high up as Point coupee, containing nearly the whole inhabitants, say about 50,000, and erect it into a state, or annex it to the Missisipi territory: and shut up all the rest from settlement for a long time to come, endeavoring to exchange some of the country there unoccupied by Indians for the lands held by the Indians on this side the Missisipi who will be glad to cede us their country here for an equivalent there..." http://jeffersonswest.unl.edu/archive/view_doc.php?id=jef.00004

Of course in terms of the *eastern* Indians, Jefferson's policy seems an anticipation of Jackson's (though Jefferson seems sincerely to have believed that the eastern tribes would voluntarily give up their lands in favor of land in the west). But in terms of the western tribes, basically all the US government wanted was to trade with them and see to it that they did not support any European powers that might get into a war with the US.

Which is why they considered their territory legally US territory with the Louisiana purchase, am I right? The point was always expansionism, even if US expansionism was largely a response to or continuation of European expansionism.
 
Which is why they considered their territory legally US territory with the Louisiana purchase, am I right? The point was always expansionism, even if US expansionism was largely a response to or continuation of European expansionism.

Making it legally US territory meant that the British or French or Spanish couldn't have it (unless they wanted war with the US). It did not imply any particular policy with regard to the Native Americans, what areas would be open to white settlement in the next few years or even decades, etc.
 
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