Thomas Jefferson told Meriwether Lewis to explore the Missouri and gather intelligence on Indigenous nations and foreign claims, reporting in ciphered letters. Lewis lived in the White House while serving as Jefferson's secretary and spent about two years preparing the expedition 📜🗺️
Jefferson sent Meriwether Lewis to find threats to US sovereignty

Site mentioned
📍 Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site🗺️ More sites in United States🌍 Show on the globe
Key facts
- Thomas Jefferson sent Meriwether Lewis with specific instructions for the Corps of Discovery.
- Jefferson directed Lewis to gather intelligence on Indigenous nations and possible foreign claims alongside exploring the Missouri and finding a route to the Pacific.
- Jefferson required Lewis's letters about the mission to be written in cipher.
- Lewis lived in the White House while serving as Jefferson's secretary and spent about two years preparing the expedition.
- Lewis described some Mandan women as light-skinned, blue-eyed and light-haired.
- Lewis wrote that he had conceived the Missouri exploration project in 1794, ten years before the expedition departed.
- William Henry Harrison served under Anthony Wayne at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794.
Sources
independent.academia.edu
Linked in video description
institutefornaturalphilosophy.org
Linked in video description
Presidential Secretssites.wcsu.edu
In one of these, a letter from Jefferson to Meriwether Lewis (Thomas Jefferson to Meriwether Lewis, April 20, 1803), Jefferson suggests that they use Vigenère's ...
To Code or Not to Code - Teachers (U.S. ...nps.gov
This education lesson focuses on a military cipher Meriwether Lewis and Thomas Jefferson trained and practiced with.
President Jefferson's Cipher: Cracking the Codeeducationworld.com
In this lesson, students decipher "Jefferson's Cipher" and use it to create messages of their own. Begin the lesson by sharing news of Jefferson's Cipher.
Jefferson-Lewis Cryptologylewis-clark.org
Sometime in 1803 Jefferson presented Meriwether Lewis with a cipher based on a square table or tableau used to create a substitution cipher.
Cipher for Meriwether Lewis [Editorial Note] - Founders Onlinefounders.archives.gov
On reaching the 27th letter of the message, the user would begin again with column 1. Jefferson experimentally encrypted a passage that was 27 letters long ...
Transcript: Jefferson's Instructions for Meriwether Lewisloc.gov
The commerce which may be carried on with the people inhabiting the line your will pursue, renders a knolege of those people important. You will therefore ...
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