Day-by-Day / May 17, 1803

May 17, 1803

Red paint and questions

Israel Whelan, Purveyor of Public Supplies in Philadelphia, purchases red paint pigments on behalf of the expedition. Also on this day, Benjamin Rush, one of the expedition supporters, writes his list of questions for Meriwether Lewis to ask the Native Nations they will encounter.

Red Paints

Supplies from Private Vendors
  Philada. May 17. 1803
Israel Whelan Esqr. Bot. of Saml. Wetherill & Son
2 lb. Vermillion @ 12/6 1   5 –
8 lb. Red lead @ /8    6 8
  £1 11 8

[Endorsement:] Recd. June 7. 1803 of Israel Whelen Four Dollars & 22 Cts. in full.[1]“Supplies from Private Vendors,” in Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with Related Documents: 1783-1854, 2nd ed., ed. Donald Jackson (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978), … Continue reading

Rush’s Questions for Indians

II. Morals

1. What are their vices?
2. Is Suicide common among them?—ever from love?
3. Do they employ any substitute for ardent spirits to promote intoxication?
4. Is murder common among them, & do they punish it with death?[2]Donald Jackson, Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with Related Documents, 1783-1854, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978), 1:50. See also Jackson, 1:157-58, for … Continue reading

 

Notes

Notes
1 “Supplies from Private Vendors,” in Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with Related Documents: 1783-1854, 2nd ed., ed. Donald Jackson (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978), 89.
2 Donald Jackson, Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with Related Documents, 1783-1854, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978), 1:50. See also Jackson, 1:157-58, for Clark’s 1804 compilation of Indian questions, with suggestions from Dr. Caspar Wistar and Dr. Benjamin Smith Barton and others.

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