Before Lewis and Clark, an Early Michigan Blacksmith Went West
More than 60 years before Lewis and Clark began their famous expedition, Jean-Baptiste Amiot was already moving through the upper Great Lakes fur trade and into the Dakotas with the La Vérendrye expeditions. Why? To expand the fur trade westward, establish alliances with Indigenous nations, claim land for France, and find a water route to the Western Sea (Pacific …
