Prologue to Lewis and Clark: The Mackay and Evans Expedition Review

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(More customer reviews)A fascinating read of pre-Lewis and Clark explorations into the upper Missouri River Basin from its earliest beginnings, with the main focus on the 1795-1797 Mackay-Evans expedition.
Most people have never heard of Scotsman James Mackay and Welshman John Evans, but if it wasn't for their efforts in cartography and ethnology, the celebrated Lewis and Clark expedition would have been quite hampered in its early stages.
When the Louisana Territory was still under Spanish rule, Mackay became a naturalized citizen and Evans swore allegiance to Spain. Their responsibilities to Spain included exploring, mapping and locating a route to the Pacific for trade possibilities, evicting British traders in its territory and promoting Indian intertribal peace to further enhance trade with Spain. Evans' primary objective in accepting this offer was to locate the mythological Welsh Indians whose original Welsh ancestors were suppose to have settled in mid-America during the year 1170 AD.
Although not a completely successful mission, the Mackay-Evans expedition did produce maps of the upper Missouri which Lewis and Clark referred to on numerous occasions and opened understandings of Missouri River Indian cultures and customs.
Dr. Wood effectively sifts through the available journals and maps of Mackay and Evans, along with other pertinent papers and charts of the day, to make this an exciting work.

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"To follow the journeys made by Mackay and Evans up the Missouri and across the plains in 1795–97 is to begin to appreciate the kind of world Lewis and Clark found when they voyaged up the river in 1804. . . . Of all those waterways, none has captured the American imagination more than the Missouri. . . . It is a river of promise, of dreams, and of dreams denied." –James P. Ronda, from the Foreword

When Mackay and Evans returned to Spanish St. Louis in 1797, they were hailed as "the two most illustrious travelers in the northern parts of this continent." Ironically, though the findings of Mackay and Evans were responsible for much of the early success of Lewis and Clark in their expedition, the adulation that followed Lewis and Clark's successful return completely eclipsed Mackay and Evans's reputations. In Prologue to Lewis and Clark, W. Raymond Wood narrates the history of this long-forgotten but important expedition up the Missouri River.

The Mackay and Evans expedition was more than an exploratory mission. It was the last effort by Spain to gain control over the Missouri River basin in the decade before the United States purchased the Louisiana territory. In that respect, it failed. But the expedition was successful as a journey of exploration. The maps and documents they created later provided the Lewis and Clark expedition with invaluable information for its first full year.

Consolidating a collection of eighteen contemporary documents relating to the Mackay and Evans expedition as well as his own research and analysis, Wood provides an in-depth examination of the expedition's background, execution, and final results.

Volume 79 in the American Exploration and Travel Series

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