While vacationing in Itasca State Park, one is exposed to the rafts of English speaking explorers who sought the "true source" of the Mississippi. As any modern geographer will tell you, the "true head" of the Mississippi is actually what is now called the Missouri River. The drainage basin of the two rivers is now regularly combined, because north of St. Louis, the Mississippi is really just a large tributary of the larger Missouri River.
So, I have always wondered, "why the heck was it so important to everybody to find the source of the Mississippi?"
There had to be some man-made reason, right? Turns out, there is.
At the close of the American Revolution, the Treaty of Versailles established the boundaries of the new country, as well as the limits of the competing claims of the French and English in the area. The French got Louisiana, the English got Canada, and America was given the area bounded by the "water routes;" west through the Great Lakes, up to Lake of the Woods, and due west to the Mississippi River.
It was not long afterward that it was determined that the Mississippi River did NOT go that far north, ending somewhere several hundred miles to the south. But since this river was an important geo-political border, it was important to find where it did go, in order to close the gap in the treaty.
By the time Henry Schoolcraft mapped the source as Lake Itasca in 1832, America had already purchased the Louisiana Territory from the French, and the question had become essentially moot. But at least that explained why the river north of St. Louis was the Mississippi and not the larger waterway that turns northwest from there.
No comments:
Post a Comment