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Bitterroot : The Life and Death of Meriwether Lewis / Patricia Tyson Stroud.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2018]Copyright date: ©2018Description: 1 online resource (392 p.) : 12 color, 24 b/w illusContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780812294712
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 917.8042092 B 23
LOC classification:
  • F592.7.L42 S77 2018
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Author’s Note -- Introduction -- 1. An Unexpected Proposal -- 2. Early Life -- 3. The Threat of War -- 4. Jefferson’s Choice -- 5. Cocaptain -- 6. Doctrine of Discovery -- 7. Under Way -- 8. The Teton Sioux -- 9. Fort Mandan -- 10. A “Darling” Project -- 11. Across the Rockies to the Pacific -- 12. The Return -- 13. Unspeakable Joy -- 14. Philadelphia Interlude -- 15. A Classic Cast of Characters -- 16. Land of Opportunity -- 17. Honor Questioned -- 18. Defamed -- 19. Jefferson’s Letter -- A Selection of Plants Collected by Meriwether Lewis -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- Acknowledgments
Summary: In America's early national period, Meriwether Lewis was a towering figure. Selected by Thomas Jefferson to lead the expedition to explore the Louisiana Purchase, he was later rewarded by Jefferson with the governorship of the entire Louisiana Territory. Yet within three years, plagued by controversy over administrative expenses, Lewis found his reputation and career in tatters. En route to Washington to clear his name, he died mysteriously in a crude cabin on the Natchez Trace in Tennessee. Was he a suicide, felled by his own alcoholism and mental instability? Most historians have agreed. Patricia Tyson Stroud reads the evidence to posit another, even darker, ending for Lewis.Stroud uses Lewis's find, the bitterroot flower, with its nauseously pungent root, as a symbol for his reputation as a purported suicide. It was this reputation that Thomas Jefferson promulgated in the memoir he wrote prefacing the short account of Lewis's historic expedition published five years after his death. Without investigation of any kind, Jefferson, Lewis's mentor from boyhood, reiterated undocumented assertions of Lewis's serious depression and alcoholism.That Lewis was the courageous leader of the first expedition to explore the continent from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean has been overshadowed by presuppositions about the nature of his death. Stroud peels away the layers of misinformation and gossip that have obscured Lewis's rightful reputation. Through a retelling of his life, from his resourceful youth to the brilliance of his leadership and accomplishments as a man, Bitterroot shows that Jefferson's mystifying assertion about the death of his protégé is the long-held bitter root of the Meriwether Lewis story.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780812294712

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Author’s Note -- Introduction -- 1. An Unexpected Proposal -- 2. Early Life -- 3. The Threat of War -- 4. Jefferson’s Choice -- 5. Cocaptain -- 6. Doctrine of Discovery -- 7. Under Way -- 8. The Teton Sioux -- 9. Fort Mandan -- 10. A “Darling” Project -- 11. Across the Rockies to the Pacific -- 12. The Return -- 13. Unspeakable Joy -- 14. Philadelphia Interlude -- 15. A Classic Cast of Characters -- 16. Land of Opportunity -- 17. Honor Questioned -- 18. Defamed -- 19. Jefferson’s Letter -- A Selection of Plants Collected by Meriwether Lewis -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- Acknowledgments

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http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

In America's early national period, Meriwether Lewis was a towering figure. Selected by Thomas Jefferson to lead the expedition to explore the Louisiana Purchase, he was later rewarded by Jefferson with the governorship of the entire Louisiana Territory. Yet within three years, plagued by controversy over administrative expenses, Lewis found his reputation and career in tatters. En route to Washington to clear his name, he died mysteriously in a crude cabin on the Natchez Trace in Tennessee. Was he a suicide, felled by his own alcoholism and mental instability? Most historians have agreed. Patricia Tyson Stroud reads the evidence to posit another, even darker, ending for Lewis.Stroud uses Lewis's find, the bitterroot flower, with its nauseously pungent root, as a symbol for his reputation as a purported suicide. It was this reputation that Thomas Jefferson promulgated in the memoir he wrote prefacing the short account of Lewis's historic expedition published five years after his death. Without investigation of any kind, Jefferson, Lewis's mentor from boyhood, reiterated undocumented assertions of Lewis's serious depression and alcoholism.That Lewis was the courageous leader of the first expedition to explore the continent from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean has been overshadowed by presuppositions about the nature of his death. Stroud peels away the layers of misinformation and gossip that have obscured Lewis's rightful reputation. Through a retelling of his life, from his resourceful youth to the brilliance of his leadership and accomplishments as a man, Bitterroot shows that Jefferson's mystifying assertion about the death of his protégé is the long-held bitter root of the Meriwether Lewis story.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Aug 2021)