www.CostaRicaTicas.com

Almost everyone learns in grade school about the famous Louis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery mission to find a route to the Pacific Ocean and to explore the recent Louisiana Purchase of Thomas Jefferson and the United States from France.

What most people didn't know, was that Thomas Jefferson was a bit of a monger himself. He certainly enjoyed his slave girls and encouraged Louis and Clark to examine the natives found along the way and report on them.

Well, sadly, other than a few passing notes about the women encountered along the route, most journal enteries are complaints about how much venereal disease there is among the squaws, and how the men keep getting ill as a result. Clark noted that both syphillis and gonnorea were widespread and he concluded that these diseases had probably originated in the Americas.

Sergeant Patrick Gass, one of the 34 members of the expedition, had this note to say in his journal dated April 5, 1805 about the mongering along the way "we ought ...to give some account of the fair sex of the Missouir and entertain [readers] with narratives of feats of love as well as of arms. Pleasant anecdotes, we do not think it prudent to swell our journal with them as our views are directed to more useful information...It may be observed generally that chastity is not very highly esteemed by these people, and that the severe and loathsome effects of certain French principles are not uncommon among them. The fact is, that the women are generally considered an article of traffic and indulgencies are sold at a very moderate price. As a proof of this I will just mention, that for an old tobacco box, one of our men was granted the honour of passing a night with the daughter of the headchief of the Mandan nation."

What a story those guys could have told...

-PA1984
-PA1984

_________________
-PA*