Julie Fenster's Jefferson's America: The President, the Purchase, and the Explorers who Transformed a Nation tells the story -- the wonderful and twisted story -- of how Napoleon's France
acquired the territory from Spain and then sold it a year later to America, while
Spain did their best to block exploration by Jefferson's men -- far more than just Lewis and Clark. The threat of war with Spain was a
constant, with explorers on alert of the potential dangers.Thomas Jefferson sought men who would make a geographic record, interact and seek peace with Native Americans, and survey sites for forts. Most importantly, they were to conduct experiments to establish longitude and latitude, describe the land, and collect mineral, vegetable, and animal specimens.
"Jefferson had in mind a very special combination of characteristics when he chose his explorers," writes Fenster. Andrew Ellicott and Thomas Freeman were appointed to survey the 31st parallel boundary between the Floridas and the Mississippi territory, working in cooperation with William Dunbar, a brilliant but difficult polymath. The self-serving Gen James Wilkinson, a subject worth a book on his own, often got in the way and collected salary from Spain and America.
In spite of Wilkinson, however, the 31st parallel project was completed. Lewis and Clark's Missouri River expedition may have been the longest, but equally important were Dunbar and chemist George Hunter's work on the Ouachita River as well as Zebulon Pike's discovery of the source of the Mississippi and his attempts to link up with Freeman's Red River expedition.
American history books have a 2016 must read in Jefferson's America.
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I received a free copy of this book as part of the Blogging for Books program in exchange for my honest review here.