LEWIS AND CLARK
I
Most famous of all the pathfinders of the United States are Lewis
and Clark, explorers of the Missouri River to its headwaters, and of
the Columbia from the heads of some of its chief tributaries to the
Pacific; and thus the spanners of the continent. They were not, it
is true, the first to traverse the wilderness which lay between the
Atlantic and the Pacific, but of those who bore the name American they
were the first.
In 1803 Louisiana was ceded by France to the United States for the sum
of about fifteen millions of dollars; but its boundaries were entirely
uncertain, and neither the nation which sold nor that which bought knew
what this territory included, how far it extended north or south or
west, nor who nor what were its inhabitants. It was certain that there
were a few French, Spaniards, and Creoles, besides some Americans,
English, and Germans, and the slaves which they possessed. Little was
known of the country, save for a short distance beyond the Mississippi
River; and it was obviously important to the new owners of the land to
find out at once what the purchase meant to the United States.
One thing seemed certain: the population of the United States, which
had already spread far beyond the Allegheny Mountains, was constantly
increasing and constantly pushing westward. The encroachments of the
whites on the territory occupied by various tribes of the Indians were
continual, and the Indians, naturally enough, resented, and sometimes
resisted, these encroachments. Here, west of the Mississippi River, was
a vast territory, unoccupied save by Indian tribes, many of which were
wanderers. The population of this unoccupied territory was so sparse
that no doubt it seemed to President Jefferson that here was room for
all the Indians east of the Mississippi, and one of his first acts
after the cession was concluded, was to attempt to learn what he could
with regard to the occupancy of this territory, presumably in the hope
that all the Indians east of the Mississippi might be persuaded to move
westward beyond the river.
Besides this, Jefferson had already--more than ten years
before--endeavored to send out men to cross the continent to the
Pacifice coast, but the effort had failed. But in January, 1803, before
the completion of the purchase of Louisiana, he attempted this once
more, recommending to Congress the despatching of a party to trace the
Missouri River to its source, and to go thence to the Pacific Ocean.
It is impossible for any man now living to conceive what such an
expedition must have meant to the men who were to command it. Here was
a vast and unknown territory of indefinite width, peopled by unknown
inhabitants, uncertain as to its food supply, containing unknown
dangers and obstacles, which must be crossed on foot--though the
journey should be begun by boat. It is true that the rumors long before
brought back from the upper Mississippi Valley by Carver suggested
waterways across the continent, but these were no more than rumors,
and were mingled with an amount of fable which cast doubt on the whole
story.
Carver’s reflections on the Shining Mountains, already quoted, were the
most definite statements that Jefferson or his explorers could have
had of that far Western country. It is true that a few Hudson’s Bay
men had already penetrated as far west as the Rocky Mountains, which
Mackenzie had crossed ten years before, yet it may be doubted whether
any definite knowledge of this great achievement had as yet reached
Washington.
The journey which Lewis and Clark were to make was into a wilderness
less known than any that we in our day can conceive of.
The two men prepared to carry out their orders and there is no reason
to suppose that they felt any doubt of their own success. Both came of
good, old-fashioned fighting and exploring stock and they and all their
men were made of the stuff which constituted the old-time Americans.
Theirs was the sturdy independence, the unshrinking courage and dogged
perseverance in the face of difficulty which gave to America its
Daniel Boone, its David Crockett, and its Zebulon M. Pike; and they set
out with eagerness on their journey.
The expedition started late in the year 1803, and proceeded up the
river by boat. There were about forty-five men at the start, of
whom twenty-five were soldiers, the whole company being enlisted as
soldiers a little later. The baggage of the outfit consisted chiefly of
ammunition, together with goods to be used as presents for the Indians.
The transportation consisted of boats; one a keel boat, fifty-five feet
long, drawing three feet of water, fitted for twenty-two oars and a
sail; the other two were pirogues, open boats, dug-outs no doubt, one
of six, the other of seven oars. There were two horses, which were to
be taken along the bank for the purpose of hunting in time of scarcity,
or for bringing in game that was killed.
Having wintered at Wood River, in Illinois, the start was made on the
14th of May, 1804. At first their progress was not rapid. Nevertheless,
before long they came to the country of the Osages. The story given of
the origin of the tribe is worth repeating: “According to universal
belief, the founder of the nation was a snail, passing a quiet
existence along the banks of the Osage, till a high flood swept him
down to the Missouri and left him exposed on the shore. The heat of the
sun at length ripened him into a man; but with the change of his nature
he had not forgotten his native seats on the Osage, toward which he
immediately bent his way. He was, however, soon overtaken by hunger
and fatigue, when, happily, the Great Spirit appeared and, giving him a
bow and arrow, showed him how to kill and cook deer, and cover himself
with the skin. He then proceeded to his original residence; but as he
approached the river he was met by a beaver, who inquired, haughtily,
who he was and by what authority he came to disturb his possession.
The Osage answered that the river was his own, for he had once lived
on its borders. As they stood disputing, the daughter of the beaver
came, and having by her entreaties reconciled her father to this young
stranger, it was proposed that the Osage should marry the young beaver
and share with her family the enjoyment of the river. The Osage readily
consented, and from this happy union there soon came the village and
the nation of the Wasbasha, or Osages, who have ever since preserved a
pious reverence for their ancestors, abstaining from the chase of the
beaver, because in killing that animal they killed a brother of the
Osage.”
Struggling on northward, Lewis and Clark passed the Otoes and
Missourias, and on June 25 reached the mouth of the Kansas--named from
the Indians living on its banks--three hundred and forty miles from the
Mississippi. Game was abundant, and there are allusions to deer, elk,
and buffalo. At the mouth of the Platte River they sent out messengers
to bring in Indians, since a portion of their duty was to endeavor to
make peace among the different tribes they met with. Otoes and Pawnees
lived not far off, one of the Pawnee villages being then on the Platte,
while another was on the Republican, and a third on the Wolf--now
known as the Loup River. Incidental reference is here made to several
tribes which wandered and hunted on the heads of the Platte River, and
thence to the Rocky Mountains.
One of these, called the Staitan or Kite Indians, is said to have
acquired the name of Kite from their flying; that is, from “their
being always on horseback.” These Indians were, of course, the
Suhtai--_Suhtai_, tribal name, and _hētăn_, man. In other words, when
some Indian was asked his name or the name of his tribe, he replied: “I
am a man of the Suhtai,” and this the explorers supposed was a tribal
name. At that time the tribe was still living as an independent tribe,
though about a generation later they joined the Cheyennes and finally
became absorbed by them. So complete is this absorption that the Suhtai
language, formerly a well-marked dialect of the Cheyenne, differing
from it apparently almost as much as the Arikara dialect differs from
the Pawnee, has been almost wholly lost. At the present day only a few
of the older Cheyennes can recall any of its words. These Indians were
said to be extremely ferocious, and the most warlike of all the Western
Indians; they never yielded in battle, nor spared their enemies,
and the retaliation for this barbarity had almost extinguished the
nation. After these, according to our authors, come the Wetapahato and
Kiawa tribes, associated together, and amounting to two hundred men.
Wetapahato is the Sioux name for the Kiowas, which the Cheyennes have
abbreviated to Witapat. Other tribes are mentioned, hardly now to be
identified.
On July 31 a party of Otoe and Missouria Indians came to their camp,
and on the following day a council was held, at which presents, medals,
and other ornaments were given to the Indians. The point where this
council was held was given the name Council Bluffs, and it stands
to-day across the river from Omaha, Nebraska. A little farther up the
river they reached an old Omaha village, once consisting of three
hundred cabins, but it had been burned about 1799, soon after the
small-pox had destroyed four hundred men and a proportion of the women
and children. This dread disease gave the Omahas the worst blow that
they had ever received, and, perhaps even as much as their wars with
the Pawnees, reduced them to a tributary people. On August 16, two
parties were sent out to catch fish on a little stream. “They made
a drag with small willows and bark, and swept the creek; the first
company brought three hundred and eighteen, and the second upward of
eight hundred, consisting of pike, bass, fish resembling salmon, trout,
redhorse, buffalo, one rock-fish, one flatback, perch, catfish, a small
species of perch, called on the Ohio silverfish, and a shrimp of the
same size, shape, and flavor of those about New Orleans and the lower
part of the Mississippi.”
A few days before, one of their Frenchmen had deserted, and the
commanding officers had sent out men to capture him. This they
succeeded in doing, but the man subsequently escaped again. On the 18th
they received another party of Indians--Otoes and Missourias. The next
day the first death occurred in the expedition, that of Charles Floyd,
who was buried on the top of the hill, and his grave marked by a cedar
post.
The post which marked Floyd’s grave had been thrown down by the winds
before 1839, but was set up again by Joseph Nicollet in that year.
All the time, however, the Missouri River was eating into the bank
toward the grave, and in the spring of 1857 the high water undermined
a part of the bluff and left Floyd’s coffin exposed. When this became
known at Sioux City, a party visited the grave and rescued the bones,
reinterring them six hundred feet back from the first grave. This
spot was lost again in the course of the years, but was rediscovered
in 1895, and finally in 1901 a permanent monument of white stone was
erected to the first citizen soldier of the United States to die and
be buried within the Louisiana Purchase, and the only man lost on the
Lewis and Clark expedition.
Farther up the stream, beyond the mouth of the Big Sioux River, they
killed their first buffalo. Near the mouth of the Whitestone they found
a curious mound, described as a regular parallelogram, the longest side
being three hundred yards, and the shorter sixty or seventy. It rises
sixty-five or seventy feet above the plain, and shows at the summit a
level plain about twelve feet in breadth and ninety in length. This,
according to the Sioux, was called the Hill of the Little People,
and “they believe that it is the abode of little devils, in the human
form, of about eighteen inches high, and with remarkably large heads;
they are armed with sharp arrows, with which they are very skilful, and
are always on the watch to kill those who should have the hardihood
to approach their residence.” Many Indians have been killed by these
spirits, and, among “others, three Omaha Indians, only a few years
before. The Sioux, Omahas, and Otoes are so afraid of the place that
they never visit it.”
The wind blows so strongly over the plain in which this mound stands
that insects are obliged to seek shelter on its leeward side, or be
driven against it. The little birds which feed on these insects resort
there in great numbers to pick them up. There the brown martin was so
employed, and the birds were so tame that they would not fly until
closely approached.
At Calumet Bluff the party was visited by a number of Yankton Sioux,
brought in by Sergeant Pryor and his party, who had gone to the village
to induce them to come to the river. A council was held with these
Indians and presents given them; and in the evening the Indians danced
for the entertainment of the white men. To the Durions--Frenchmen who
were trading with these Indians--presents were given; and they were
requested to try to make peace between the Yanktons and their enemies.
Reference is made to the soldier bands of the Sioux and Cheyennes,
though without much comprehension of what this organization is. It is
spoken of in these terms: “It is an association of the most active and
brave young men, who are bound to each other by attachment, secured
by a vow never to retreat before any danger or give way to their
enemies. In war they go forward without sheltering themselves behind
trees or aiding their natural valor by any artifice. This punctilious
determination not to be turned from their course became heroic or
ridiculous a short time since, when the Yanktons were crossing the
Missouri on the ice. A hole lay immediately in their course, which
might easily have been avoided by going round. This the foremost of
the band disdained to do, but went straight forward, and was lost. The
others would have followed his example, but were forcibly prevented
by the rest of the tribe. The young men sit, and encamp, and dance
together, distinct from the rest of the nation; they are generally
about thirty or thirty-five years old, and such is the deference paid
to courage that their seats in council are superior to those of the
chiefs, and their persons more respected. But, as may be supposed, such
indiscreet bravery will soon diminish the numbers of those who practice
it, so that the band is now reduced to four warriors, who were among
our visitors. These were the remains of twenty-two, who composed the
society not long ago; but, in a battle with the Kite Indians of the
Black Mountains, eighteen of them were killed, and these four were
dragged from the field by their companions.”
Warrior societies, or, as they are more often termed, soldier bands,
existed among all the plains tribes. In some tribes there might be
only four, in others a dozen or fifteen, such societies. They were
police officers, and among their important duties was the seeing that
orders of the chiefs were obeyed.
The list of the Sioux tribes here given includes the
Yanktons, the Tetons of the Burned Woods--now called Brulés;
the Tetons Okandandas--now known as Ogallalas; the Teton
Minnakenozzo--Minneconjous; the Teton Saone--Santees; Yanktons of
the Plains--Yanktonnaies; the Mindawarcarton--Minnewakaton; the
Wahpatoota--Wahpatones; the Sistasoone--Sissetons.
Not far beyond Calumet Bluffs were found extraordinary earthworks, said
by the explorers and French interpreters to be common on the Platte,
the Kansas, and the James rivers. The Poncas were next passed, above La
Rivière qui Court--the Niobrara. These are said to have been largely
reduced in numbers by the attacks of their enemies, and to be now
associating with the Omahas, and residing on the head of the Loup and
the Running Water. Above here the first prairie dogs were seen; and
not long after they were rejoined by one of their men who, twelve days
before, had been sent off after lost horses, and, having found them,
had been wandering along the river for twelve days, seeking his party.
Mention is made on September 17 of a great prairie dog town, and it is
told that their presence here enticed to this place “wolves of a small
kind, hawks, and polecats, all of which animals we saw, and presume
that they fed on the squirrels.” The whole country here had recently
been burned, and was now covered with young grass, on which herds of
antelope and buffalo were feeding.
On the 20th the party had a narrow escape from being buried under a
falling bank, undermined by the river. On this day a fort and a large
trading house built by Mr. Loizel for the purpose of trading with the
Sioux was passed on Cedar Island, and the following day Indians stole
one of their horses. They had now come to the country of the Teton
Indians, and, holding a council with them, had more or less trouble,
which would undoubtedly have resulted in fighting had it not been
for the prudence of Captain Clark. The Indians were insolent, and
were disposed to go just as far as permitted in annoying the white
people. However, they were not allowed to impose on the party, and a
short distance above this the main Teton village was passed, and here
Captains Lewis and Clark were met at the river bank by ten young men,
who carried them on buffalo robes to the large house where the council
was to be held--an evidence of the highest respect.
The custom of carrying a person who was to be highly honored on a robe
or blanket by young men is very old. It was practised to show honor to
aged or brave people, and also if two young people of good family were
about to be married, the young girl, as she drew near the home of the
bridegroom’s parents, riding on a horse led by some old kinswoman, was
often met by young men related to the bridegroom, who spread down a
robe or blanket, assisted her from her horse, asked her to sit down on
the robe, and then carried her to the lodge of her future husband.
In the shelter where they met were about seventy men, sitting about
the chief, before whom were placed a Spanish flag and an American flag
which Lewis and Clark had given him. Within the circle was the pipe,
supported on two forked sticks, about six or eight inches from the
ground, and beneath the pipe was scattered the down of a swan. Food was
cooking over the fire, and near the kettle a large amount of buffalo
meat, intended as a present. The feast consisted of a dog, pemmican,
and pomme blanche, and was ladled into wooden dishes with a horn spoon.
After eating and smoking, a number of dances were performed. Concerning
these, the very incorrect opinion is expressed: “Nor does the music
appear to be anything more than a confusion of noises, distinguished
only by hard or gentle blows upon a buffalo skin; the song is perfectly
extemporaneous.” It is, of course, now well known that these songs and
dances are always the same, and never, by any chance, change.
It is noted that these Indians, who appear to have been Ogallalas, had
then a fashion of dressing the hair different from anything recently
known. The journal says: “The men shaved the hair off their heads,
except a small tuft on the top, which they suffered to grow, and wore
in plaits over the shoulders. To this they seemed much attached, as
the loss of it is the usual sacrifice at the death of near relations.”
The dress of men and women is described, and it is noted that the
fire-bags of these Sioux were made of the dressed skins of skunks. The
women’s dresses were not very unlike that of recent times.
The Sioux met along the river by Lewis and Clark were new-comers in
that country. It is true that twenty-five years before a few Sioux
had crossed the Missouri River and had gone as far west as the Black
Hills--which are constantly spoken of by Lewis and Clark as the Black
Mountains. But it is also true that up to about the beginning of the
nineteenth century few or no Sioux had crossed the Missouri River who
remained permanently on the west bank. The accounts of many modern
writers on Indian matters seem to imply that from time immemorial the
Dakotas had roamed the Western plains, but it is well known by those
who have given attention to the subject that this is not at all true;
that the Sioux are a people of the East, and the tribal traditions
constantly speak of their migration from the country of the rising sun.
After four days spent with these Indians, preparations were made to
proceed up the river; but the Indians did not seem willing to let them
go. They did not show any particular hostility, but were extremely
irritating, and put the white men to so much trouble that they were
obliged to threaten them with fighting. Even after they had at last
succeeded in starting on their journey, these Sioux followed them along
the river, and continued to annoy them.
Not very far above the point where they were troubled by the Sioux they
came on a village of Arikaras, with whom some Frenchmen were living,
and among them a Monsieur Gravelines. This man brought together the
Arikara chiefs for a conference, in which speeches were made to them
similar to those already uttered to the Indians down the river. Some
presents were given, but the offer of liquor was declined, the Indians
saying that they were surprised that their father should present to
them a liquor which would make them fools. From the Indians were
received presents of corn, beans, and squashes. The following day other
councils were had at other villages of the Rees; and the explorers
finally left them to go on their way. The history of this tribe is
given with substantial accuracy, and much is said about their habits
and their good disposition.
Farther up the river a camp of Sioux was passed, and beyond them a
stream called Stone-Idol Creek. This name was given from the discovery
that “a few miles back from the Missouri there are two stones
resembling human figures, and a third like a dog; all of which are
objects of great veneration among the Arikaras.”
While nothing is said about the size of these figures, one wonders
whether the reference may not be to that stone figure known as the
Standing Rock, concerning which the Yankton Sioux have a tradition. We
have not heard of the figure of a man in connection with the Standing
Rock, but there was certainly the figure of a woman and of a dog,
and the woman, who owned the dog, is said to have been a Ree woman.
The Yankton tradition, however, is quite different from that given
by Lewis and Clark. Their two stone figures are a lover and a girl
whose parents declined to permit the marriage; and these two young
persons, the man accompanied by his dog, met on the prairie, and, after
wandering about, were at last turned to stone. The Standing Rock, which
is now at Standing Rock Agency, in North Dakota, is said to have been
a Ree woman, who, after having long been the only wife of her husband,
became jealous when he took another wife, and, lagging behind the
travelling body of the Rees, was finally turned to stone, and remains
to this day a warning to all jealous women.
A little later during the day’s journey they saw great numbers of
“goats” (antelope) coming to the banks of the river. No doubt these
animals were then migrating toward the mountains, or perhaps to the
broken hills of the Little Missouri. On October 18 they passed the
Cannon-ball River, referred to as Le Boulet; and here they met two
Frenchmen who had been robbed by the Mandans, but who turned about and
proceeded north again with the white men, in the hope of recovering
their possessions. Game was extremely abundant--buffalo, elk, and
deer. An Indian who was with them pointed out to them a number of
round hills, in which he declared the calumet birds--probably the
thunder-bird--had their homes.