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UNL professor Dr. Gary Moulton...regarded by many as the foremost scholar on Lewis and Clark...says prejudice was evident on both sides when the explorers met American Indians on their journey to the West Coast.
Moulton...who's studied Lewis and Clark for 2 decades and edited the first complete publishing of their journals...spoke Tuesday night at CSC as part of the Dorset Graves Lecture Series.
Moulton says while President Tom Jefferson wanted to create peace with the tribes of the west, he and the nation's other leaders believed the Indians were inferior to those of European descent.
The journals show Lewis and Clark shared those feelings...reflecting a cultural gap and insensitivity toward the indians as they made a conscious effort to develop a sense of superiority over the tribes.
Moulton says the Native Americans had their own prejudices toward the white explorers and their men. He says one tribesman felt only one member of the Corps of Discovery was commendable - the one who made tools from metals.
While most people see only exploration and adventure when thinking of Lewis and Clark, Moulton says Thomas Jefferson saw it as a business trip...a way to build trade relations with the indians and woo them away from their traditional trading partners: the British.
He thinks the mission of creating commerce had only limited results, in part because the explorers could bring along relatively few of the trade goods normally used to cement relationships.
He says the guns they brought but refused to trade astonished the Native Americans, as did their idea of "one big peace" for all the peoples of the Plains. Moulton says the idea was greeted warmly by small oppressed tribes, but feared and opposed by the region's dominant tribes.
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