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Lecture number three was titled "The Great American Desert". This lecture was mainly focused on the expeditions that many peoples made to the plains. Dr. Isern started this lecture by talking about certain antiquities that were found in the plains region from the Colorado expedition. We then moved into the conquistadors, who for the most part came to plains to plunder, however, most of them (if not all) were unsuccessful. They did however, like the plains because it reminded them of their homeland. The lecture continued talking about how the French progressed through the plains and the first European expedition of Coronado. Dr. Isern then discussed the Corps of Discovery; thier mission was for commerce of the Pacific. They soon relized that the plains was a place of public facination but not a place for development. Then we came to Stephen Long who gave the name this lecture is based on "The great American desert".
Parts of the lecture that I found interesting were the, what Dr. Isern called, X files of the Corps of Discovery. I could just amagine living in this time knowing salt is as valuable as gold and finding a "salt mountain". Or stombling across Welsh Indians in the deep forest; Meriwether Lewis's son in some tribe. One question I would like to ask would be, if Meriwether Lewis did have a son with a Native American would that (in your eyes) have changed the relations between the Native Americans and the settlers?