"To Acquire What Knologe You Can": Thomas Jefferson as Exploration Patron and Planner

PERHAPS no American president wrote more letters to more correspondents about a wider range of subjects than Thomas Jefferson. It was as if he composed his life and world with pen and paper. Of all those letters, one stands out as central document for American exploration of West. Dated in Washington 20 June 1803 but undoubtedly drafted earlier, Jefferson's letter of exploration instructions for Meriwether Lewis became defining document, fundamental charter for government exploration beyond wide Missouri. Our friend and colleague Ted Carter knew that letter well because, as I will explain in a moment, an earlier version of it is here at American Philosophical Society. In one letter Jefferson defined nature and methodology of scientific exploration, made it a national priority, and then handed that mission to United States Army. No single piece of writing had greater influence on day-to-day business of exploration for rest of nineteenth century-and perhaps even into our own time-than president's letter to Lewis. Some sixteen years after Jefferson wrote to Lewis, secretary of War John C. Calhoun busied himself preparing directions for first government reconnaissance of central Great Plains. At end of those detailed guidelines, secretary simply told Major Stephen H. Long to consult what Jefferson had written for Lewis. In not much more than a decade and a half, Jefferson's letter had become acknowledged master plan for exploring West. We think of exploration as a journey through a physical landscape, a journey that has a beginning at some particular place along route. But most important beginnings are ones made before leaving home. They are explorations into country of mind. Exploration beginnings are most often found in questions because at heart exploration is about inquiry. Lewis and Clark-and all those who followed after them-questioned their way West. For most explorers in Euro-American tradition those questions came as formal, written instructions. Think of those instruction documents as program: exploration software to run expedition hardware. Such written instructions were nothing new for Jefferson and his contemporaries. England's Royal Society had been giving travelers and merchants lists of questions for nearly fifty years. But by middle of eighteenth century-thanks in large part to Enlightenment's passion for orderly, rational inquiryexploration instructions took on a new shape and substance. Those instructions shifted attention from exotic to useful, from personal adventure to cooperative enterprise and careful observation, from individual glory to national power and imperial expansion. That redefinition of exploration instructions was largely work of Sir Joseph Banks and an intellectual-imperial circle that involved mariners, scholars, and bureaucrats in Royal Society and Admiralty. More than any other single figure, Banks embodied and defined Enlightenment exploration and its global reach. Patron, planner, and sometime participant in Cook and Vancouver enterprises, Banks was what one contemporary called the common Center of we Discoverers. For voyage after voyage, Banks wrote instructions; others did sailing. Banks and Jefferson neither met nor corresponded but they had remarkably parallel lives and careers. Both were presidents of their nations' most distinguished scholarly societies-Banks at Royal Society, and Jefferson at this venerable institution. Both were avid botanists, placing great emphasis on discovery of new plants for foodstuffs and medicines. Both cultivated large and far-flung circles of correspondents. Both placed useful knowledge at center of scientific pursuit. Both insisted that such knowledge was always to be in service of imperial expansion. Both were patrons of art and science of exploration. And both knew that exploration was a complex business demanding many minds and many hands. …

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