Lewis and Clark exhibition opens

A traveling exhibition to America’s Libraries on Lewis & Clark and the Indian Country started its journey on campus.

The Lewis & Clark and the Indian Country exhibition is planned to be on display from Oct. 15 to Dec. 11, hosted by the SCSU Library.

The exhibition is supported by the National Endowment for Humanities, the Sara Lee Foundation, the Newberry Library, the American Library Association, the American Indian Center, Learning Resources and Technology Services and the University of Illinois.

“The exhibits look at native people before Lewis and Clark, during the Lewis and Clark time. So it’s a long spectrum of showing how native peoples’ lives changed,”  Robert Galler, associate professor of history, said.

In 1803, Meriwether Lewis, William Clark and the Corps of Discovery started exploring the Missouri River and sought a route over the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, charged by President Thomas Jefferson.

Before their expedition, the authoritative knowledge about the “Indian country” was scarce. Therefore, after their return to St. Louis, the members of the Corps of Discovery were viewed as experts on the “Indian country.”

However, their reports and impressions about the region and its inhabitants left out American Indian voices and perspectives and presented a distorted view of Native culture.

“Every ‘fact’ in this clip, other than the names of the people, is wrong. We are trying to understand the history,” Professor Frederick Hoxie, Swanlund Professor of History at the University of Illinois and curator of the “Lewis & Clark and the Indian Country” exhibit, said, “I enjoyed it (the lecture). I thought it was influential and I learned a lot from it. I took the American Indian course because I’m interested in American Indians and their history,” Stavy Eull, SCSU Accounting student, said.

“In the course, we’ve learned how white people affected them and different things we’ve done to them. [After hearing the lecture] I would probably go to the intercultural relations panel.”

Darryl Johnson, an SCSU community member, also said that the story could show one aspect of history, but people need to hear from an historian, especially from American Indian historians that know more about American Indian culture.

The whole traveling exhibit includes five sections in addition to the main exhibition and lecture “Getting Lewis and Clark Right: Who cares? Why Worry?”

Other parts of the exhibit include a panel on “Intercultural Relations in Central Minnesota,” a workshop for educators, a lecture on “Hate Speech, Horses, and Hostages: The Untold Story of Lewis & Clark in Teton Territory” following a reception, “Sacagawea: Reading and Presentation for Youth” which is an opportunity for students that are majoring in elementary education, and “The Educational Experiences of American Indian Students.”

SCSU students, faculty and community members can go to the Miller Center‘s second floor reading court to see the exhibition.