Profitable Possibilities

Profitable Possibilities. . For many years before Lewis and Clark undertook their famous journey, Indians and Europeans already had been involved in brisk trade with one another. The Europeans brought firearms, hunting knives and cooking utensils. They exchanged these for buffalo hides and pelts of smaller animals that Indians had hunted and trapped. Indians used the goods in their daily lives, and no gentleman considered his wardrobe complete without a hat made from the pelt of a beaver trapped in North America. President Thomas Jefferson wanted Indians to trade with Americans instead of their European competitors. He sent Lewis and Clark west to learn all they could about trade with the Missouri River tribes, and try to convince them to trade with Americans. "Make them aquatinted with the position, extent, character, peaceable and commercial dispositions of the U.S.," President Jefferson wrote in a letter to Lewis. "We wish most particularly to make a favorable impression." In the course of meeting with representatives of 13 Indian tribes, Lewis and Clark learned that gaining control of Missouri River trade wouldn't be a simple mater. Lewis wrote that military forts along the Missouri probably would be necessary to "convince" European and Indians that Americans meant business.