What’s the story?
In 1820, an expedition of scientists and soldiers travelled to an area east of the Rocky Mountains (often referred to as the High Plains) that was acquired by the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 and largely unknown to colonial settlers. The expedition party included zoologists and members of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, Thomas Say and Titian Ramsay Peale, and landscape painter Samuel Seymour. One purpose of the expedition was to locate the source of the Platte and Red Rivers and collect scientific information about the region. Along the way, expedition members, led by US Army officer, Stephen H. Long collected plants, animals and information about the landscape and environs, and met with the Indigenous communities who populated the area, including the Jíwere–Ñút’achi Máyaⁿ (Otoe-Missouria), Umoⁿhoⁿ (Omaha), and Pâri (Pawnee).After their return from the expedition, a report was published in 1822-1823 detailing their collective experience, including maps of the area branded as “The Great American Desert.” To them, the High Plains appeared to be a desert characterized by a lack of trees for shelter and as a source for building material that might threaten settlement of the area. The geographer on the expedition, Edwin James states in the published report: “Although tracts of fertile land considerably extensive are occasionally to be met with, yet the scarcity of wood and water, almost uniformly prevalent, will prove an insuperable obstacle in the way of settling the country.”
Their idea of what “desirable” land looked like was based on their homes in the eastern part of the United States and characterized by dense woodlands. This led Long and others to call the High Plains east of the Rocky Mountains “inhospitable” and “unfit for cultivation” despite evidence that Indigenous communities had thrived there for thousands of years and the area possessed diverse ecosystems and plant and animal species.
More details
theme: Power of Placesubjects: Correspondence, Maps, Stephen H. Long Expedition to the Rocky Mountains (1819-1820), Watercolors (paintings)
contributing repository: Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, Library and Archives
submitted by: Jessica Lydon
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