But Jefferson had more in mind than just discovery of a new passage to the Pacific. He envisioned the Louisiana Territory filled with white settlers who would farm the land and keep it secure for the United States. The final solution for the Indian problem was in the future, but for now if the Indians resisted they would be pushed farther west and into the ocean if needed. In a forceful letter in 1803 to William Henry Harrison, the governor of the Indiana Territory, the president wrote that the Indians "will in time either incorporate with us as citizens of the United States or be removed beyond the Mississippi." If they resisted removal, the United States would retaliate by "seizing... the whole country of that tribe, and driving them across the Mississippi, his only condition of peace."

Jefferson and Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809) shared much in common. Lewis was born in the Blue Ridge Mountains to wealthy parents who owned slaves and large plantations. In time, at age thirteen, he inherited Locust Hill, a Virginia plantation of nearly 2,000 acres, 520 pounds in cash, 24 slaves, and 147 gallons of whiskey. Since there were no public schools, Lewis, like Jefferson, obtained a private education by boarding with several preachers who taught him Latin, mathematics, natural science, and English grammar.

At age eighteen, he considered seminary at William and Mary, but the responsibilities of the plantation required him to tend to his land. He added to Locust Hill by acquiring an 1,800-acre tract on the Red River in Montgomery County along with several other parcels. Low-lying lands were planted in corn to provide food for slaves and animals. More fertile land was planted with tobacco. It was very common to try to acquire more land. George Washington owned tens of thousands of acres in the Tidewater and Piedmont areas and over 63,000 acres of trans-Appalachian land. Jefferson owned 5,000 acres in the Piedmont that was given to him by his father, and his land holdings increased by 11,000 acres when he married his wife.

But Meriwether Lewis was restless and desired adventure. In May 1792, American sea captain Robert Gray had sailed his ship Columbia along the Pacific Northwest coast into a river that would take the boat's name. This inspired Jefferson to raise funds to send explorers on an expedition to the Pacific. Lewis contacted Jefferson, who was a family friend, to volunteer. Jefferson recalled that Lewis "warmly solicited me to obtain for him the execution of that object. I told him it was proposed that the person engaged should be attended by a single companion only, to avoid exciting alarm among the Indians. This did not deter him." However, Lewis was just a teenager at the time, and Jefferson chose another man, Frenchman Andre Michaux, whose expedition foundered before reaching the Mississippi River.

At the time of Jefferson's first inauguration on March 4, 1801, there were a little over 5.3 million people in the United States. Twenty percent were slaves. The boundaries of the country stretched from the Atlantic to the Mississippi River and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. The land was sparsely inhabited, with only four roads that spanned the country. The majority of people lived within fifty miles of tidewater. Only ten percent of Americans, about a half million people, lived west of the Appalachian Mountains.

Virginians like Jefferson, Lewis, and Clark viewed the Indian as being a virtuous heathen who was pure and ready to be civilized. In contrast, slaves were seen as sub-humans on the level of an animal....

-from Chapter Sixteen: Father of the American West: Thomas Jefferson and the Corps of Discovery