"The two most famous travelers" before Lewis and Clark:
Mackay and Evans planned to reach the Pacific

History books and the 200th anniversary of the Corps of Discovery expedition have made celebrities of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. Sometimes, though, fame obscures history. Recently, a prominent scholar commented that the Louisiana Territory was "unexplored" before Lewis and Clark’s famous journey. Raymond Wood, emeritus professor of Anthropology at the University of Missouri-Columbia, flinched when he heard the scholar’s words.

"No major human accomplishment is done without building on the accomplishments of predecessors," Wood says. "When Lewis and Clark started their expedition in 1803, Missouri was not the far side of the moon for St. Louisans. They knew about the territory. The French had known the river for 100 years before Lewis and Clark went out there."

Residents of 18th-century St. Louis, a city on territory owned at different times by Spain, France and eventually the United States, knew something about the Missouri River basin because there had been several expeditions to lands west of St. Louis. In Prologue to Lewis and Clark: The Mackay and Evans Expedition, a volume that culminates more than 30 years of Wood’s research, the author documents the most important expedition prior to the Corps of Discovery. From 1795 to 1797, James Mackay and John Evans explored territories along the Missouri River from St. Louis to North Dakota. The two adventurers were commissioned by Spanish officials and merchants in St. Louis, which at the time was under Spanish control.

With one exception, the mission of the Mackay and Evans expedition was the same as that of Lewis and Clark: establish relations with Indian tribes and find a continental route to the Pacific Ocean. Spanish officials instructed Mackey and Evans to build forts along the route, a task that Thomas Jefferson did not ask of Lewis and Clark.

Mackay and Evans built Fort Charles approximately 20 miles south of Sioux City, Iowa, on the Nebraska side of the river. Mackay stayed at Fort Charles and explored northeast Nebraska while Evans continued upriver to the Mandan Indian villages north of Bismarck, North Dakota. During a winter at the Mandan villages, Evans, as a representative of the Spanish government, expelled British fur traders from the region. Wood says Evans obtained a map of territory, probably all of what today is Montana, from Indians. The map showed range after range of mountains in western Montana. Knowing that he had scant resources and was less than half way to the Pacific, Evans returned to St. Louis in the spring of 1797.

Although the Mackay and Evans expedition failed, the explorers brought back maps and other important information that was invaluable to Lewis and Clark in the early stages of their expedition.

"The information told Lewis and Clark what they could expect for the first full year of their expedition," Wood says.

Upon completion of the Mackay and Evans expedition, the Spanish governor in the Americas described them as "the two most famous travelers of the northern countries of this continent." But the success of the Corps of Discovery expedition less than 10 years later meant anonymity for Mackay and Evans. Wood says Lewis and Clark are his heroes also, but he wants to ensure that Mackay and Evans are given credit for their accomplishments.

2003

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Raymond Wood
Department of Anthropology

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