Lewis & Clark; Arctic Ice Cap
One of the first Post-Discovery actions that illustrates the continuing use of Colonization Practices is the Lewis and Clark Expedition in the early 1800s. The expedition had several missions and goals on its way to the western coast of the continent. The route up the Missouri River was within the boundaries of the recent Louisiana Purchase, but beyond that point and westward to the Pacific Ocean was unclaimed land. So in addition to charting the landscape and documenting the flora and fauna, Lewis and Clark were leaving evidence of their journey on trees and rocks in accordance with the Doctrine of Discovery Rule #3 – First Discovery.
These First Discovery claims by Lewis and Clark for the United States was important for a couple of reasons. One, the British had explored and claimed land north of the same area a few years before, so it was important for the United States to have official claims of the land in order to establish possession and create a boundary (Doctrine of Discovery Rule #5 – Contiguity). And two, the river, that would become known as the Columbia, and all its tributaries had not yet been claimed, though Thomas Jefferson, the United States President, knew it was there.
He knew because an American fur trader named Robert Gray entered the river on May 11, 1792 and named it after his ship, the ‘Columbia Rediviva’. It is not clear how Jefferson learned of Gray’s discovery. In whatever manner he became aware, Jefferson must have been concerned that Gray, being a businessman and not an explorer, had not used the standard protocol for establishing a claim with the appropriate ‘Doctrine’ proclamation.
Gray was not the first American or European to see the mouth of the Columbia, but he was the first to recognize it as a river and to risk the dangerous route over and around the sandbanks at the river’s mouth. In 1775 the Spanish explorer Bruno Heceta was at the river but mistook it for a bay or cove. And because of bad weather and a short-handed crew he decided not to enter it. Then in 1788, the British fur trader John Meares went to the area to confirm the earlier Spanish report and to make sure what Heceta reported was not indeed a river. He too found the entrance too risky and from his observation felt the Spaniard was correct and there was no river. Four years later, in early Spring of 1792, George Vancouver, a British Royal Navy commander sailed past the mouth of the river, noting that the water changed color, but accepted Meares report and did not investigate it any further.
It is interesting to note, with the possible exception of Gray, all these explorers were still searching for that elusive sea passage to the Far East. In fact, one of the assignments that Jefferson gave to Lewis and Clark was to determine if there was a water passage across the continent to the Pacific Ocean. Their struggles to get over the mountain ranges after they left the Missouri River headwaters resolved the question. That realization was probably a disappointment, but securing a legal colonization claim to the river that Gray had sailed up for several miles had always been their primary goal.
Lewis and Clark entered the river about 50 miles East and upstream from the Pacific. It was necessary for them to navigate three dangerous areas of falls and rapids by either portage or ‘shooting the rapids’ before they could complete their journey. When they reached the mouth of the river in early November of 1805, they made the required pronouncements to claim the river and its watershed for the United States. They had no idea that the river’s headwaters were located well inside what is now Canada. They constructed a ‘makeshift’ building to get through the winter and named it Fort Clatsop after one of the local Indigenous Nations who visited and traded with them almost every day. The fort partially satisfied Doctrine of Discover Rule #4 – Occupancy, but because they abandoned it in the Spring of 1806 for their return trip, a more permanent settlement would have been required within the next few years. Today’s Oregon coastal town of Astoria was established as a fur trading post in 1810 by John Astor and that solidified the United States claim. Though England, and to some extent Russia and Spain, made attempts to diminish and even nullify the claim, it held up through the next 20 years or so and influenced the negotiations that established the boundary between the United States and Canada.
While the Lewis and Clark expedition was one of the initial Post-Discovery uses of the Doctrine of Discovery rules, a more recent event occurred in 2007. On August 2nd of that year, Russia deployed two small manned submersible research vessels about 2 miles beneath the Arctic Ice Cap to plant a small Russian flag on the sea floor to claim possession of a specific land mass they believe is an extension of their continental shelf. The act of claiming this land under an ice cap is fully aligned with the Doctrine of Discovery’s Rule #3 – First Discovery. Russia submitted its claim to the commission on continental shelf borders, which is elected by members of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Some countries, including the United States, called it a publicity stunt. But Russia and other countries noted the rich mineral resources of that area and that it could become an essential, though perhaps contested, claim. At a minimum, it would seem that this event should make it necessary to convene a serious discussion about this ancient Colonizing international agreement we call the Doctrine of Discovery.
Primary Sources:
Native America, Discovered and Conquered – Thomas Jefferson, Lewis and Clark, and Manifest Destiny, Robert J. Miller, University of Nebraska Press, 2008;
Essay 5051, Kit Oldham, HistoryLink.org, 1/13/2003;
Essay 5355, Cassandra Tate, HistoryLink.org, 3/3/2003;
Russia Plants Underwater Flag at North Pole, C. J. Chivers, The New York Times, 8/2/2007