The Spanish sent soldiers to arrest the expedition.
Jefferson often described Lewis and Clark’s expedition as a scientific mission to study the lands acquired in the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, but the explorers’ central goal was to find a water route to the Pacific, which would increase trade opportunities and help solidify an American claim on the far Northwest. That was distressing news for the Spanish, who feared the expedition might lead to the seizure of their gold-rich territories in the Southwest. On the suggestions of U.S. Army General James Wilkinson—a Spanish spy—the governor of New Mexico dispatched four different groups of Spanish soldiers and Comanche Indians to intercept the explorers and bring them back in chains. Luckily for Lewis and Clark, the hostile search parties failed to locate them in the vastness of the frontier.
