by
KRISTEN LOKEMOEN
It had
been a relentless five months for Lewis & Clark and the
Corps of Discovery. Day after day, mile after mile, they
had fought the current of the Missouri River, progressing
ever so slowly toward their destination. They had worried
about the natives and had an unsettling encounter with the
Teton Sioux. They had been driven to distraction by the
ever-present mosquitoes. They had toiled through the hot,
humid summer to keep the boats moving. They had taken each
other's measure and learned which men they could trust-and
which ones they couldn't. And they had buried one of their
best on a hill overlooking the river.
They had left St. Charles on May 21. It was now
late-October and the boats had reached the villages of the
Mandan and Hidatsa, west of what is now Washburn, North
Dakota. These tribes were friendly, and their villages were
the center of commerce for the Indians of the northern
plains. Here Lewis & Clark and their men would build a
fort and dig in for the winter.
The captains named the encampment Fort Mandan in honor of
their neighbors. As befit a military fort, there was a
sentry post and the swivel gun was mounted. It would not be
needed.
Clark computed their distance from the mouth of the
Missouri at 1,600 miles, which would mean an average
distance traveled of under eleven miles per day. Upon
reaching the Mandans, Meriwether Lewis paid off the French
voyageurs who had accompanied them from St. Louis. Some of
them immediately headed back downstream, while others
remained for the winter. They would return with Corporal
Warfington in the spring.
The white men's fort was filled with visitors. There were,
of course, the Mandans, led by the chiefs, Big White and
Black Cat. Canadian explorers and traders, such as
Francois-Antoine Larocque and Charles MacKenzie, spent time
with the Corps. Then there was Toussaint Charbonneau, a
middle-aged French Canadian, who had won two young Indian
girls on a bet and made them his squaws. The girls had been
captured by the Hidatsa at the three forks of the Missouri,
far to the west.
One of
the girls was called Sakakawea (this is the spelling used
in North Dakota, and means "Bird Woman" in the Hidatsa
language). She was Shoshone and probably around 15 or 16 at
the time that she met Lewis & Clark. She was also
pregnant with her first child.
Charbonneau was eager to be hired on as an interpreter for
the rest of the trip and the captains agreed, as much for
the native language of his wives as for any skill that he
possessed. The interpretation process, however, was
laborious. Sakakawea would speak with her husband in
Hidatsa, which Charbonneau would translate into French for
Drouillard. He then turned that into English for the
captains.
While no hostilities broke out during their winter at Fort
Mandan, Lewis did have to work hard at times to keep the
peace among the tribes. The Mandan, wanting the benefits of
trading with the white man all to themselves, had stirred
up the Hidatsas with lies about the party's intentions.
Lewis tried to smooth things over, but the Hidatsas showed
little interest. They had been given no presents and felt
that the white men were arrogant.
Also, the Arikara had aligned themselves with the Sioux and
attacked a small Mandan hunting party, killing one brave
and stealing several horses. Lewis & Clark offered to
assist the Mandan in tracking down the offenders, but they
were rebuffed. Throughout the entire journey, the two
captains would never truly understand the complexity of the
Native American tribes' relationships with each other or
with the white man.
For the
most part, however, the winter passed peacefully. Lewis and
others of the men rode with the Mandans to hunt buffalo.
Despite the need for large amounts of meat to feed the
party over the long winter, the white hunters took only the
tongues of the buffalo. The captains kept the men busy,
repairing equipment, making new moccasins for the upcoming
trip and hunting.
On New Year's Day, 1805, a large group of the men went to
the nearest Mandan village, where Cruzatte played his
fiddle and York danced, much to the amusement of the
natives. A few days later, the Mandans introduced the
newcomers to the buffalo dance. During the dance, young
braves would offer their wives to elders of the village or
to the men of the expedition in hopes that the "transfer of
power" would lead to successful buffalo hunts.
During the winter Lewis also put his doctoring skills, such
as they were, to use. He treated an abscess on an Indian
child's back and cut off the frostbitten toes of another
young boy. If his own men became ill, they were treated in
the methods common at that time-bleeding and purging with
Dr. Rush's "thunderclapper pills," that Rush claimed would
cure anything. The "cure" was often worse than the illness.
The most
important event of the winter was the birth of Sakakawea's
son on February 11. On the advice of Rene Jessaume, a
trader who had long lived with the Mandans, a brew
containing the rattle of the rattlesnake was administered
to Sakakawea and she gave birth soon after. The baby was
named Jean Baptiste, but would be nicknamed "Pompey" or
"Pompi" by William Clark.
Although the snow was still deep and the ice still thick,
the men managed to break the keelboat and pirogues loose in
late February and put them into dry-dock for repairs. As
spring neared, the pace of the work picked up. Canoes were
built to provide additional boats for those headed west.
Jerky was made from the meat. The keelboat was caulked and
made ready for the return trip to St. Louis. And Lewis
continued his work of the winter, writing volumes to
Jefferson about what they had seen, how things had gone
with the native tribes, and cataloging the various
specimens he had collected.
The specimens, Lewis' writings, Clark's map and other
material were carefully loaded into the keelboat. On the
afternoon of April 7, 1805, Warfington and his men headed
the large boat back down the river. It would be the
corporal's responsibility to get the boat's contents safely
to Jefferson.
At the same time, the permanent party headed west in the
two pirogues and six new canoes. The Hidatsas had been to
the three forks of the Missouri and told Lewis that it
would only take half a day to cross the continental divide.
He felt safe in assuring Jefferson that the expedition
would achieve its main goal of finding an all-water route
to the Pacific. Lewis wrote the president that he hoped to
reach the ocean that summer and return to the Mandan
villages for the winter, allowing him to arrive at
Monticello by September 1806.
Even though the Corps of Discovery was headed into
virtually unknown territory, Meriwether Lewis concluded his
letter to Jefferson on an extremely optimistic note: "I can
foresee no material or probable obstruction to our
progress, and entertain therefore the most sanguine hopes
of complete success. At this moment, every individual of
the party are in good health, and excellent sperits;
zealously attached to the enterprise, and anxious to
proceed; not a whisper of discontent or murmur to be heard
among them; but all act in unison, and with the most
perfict harmony. With such men I have everything to hope,
and but little to fear." It is perhaps a good thing that
Lewis could not at that moment comprehend the challenges
that awaited them.
Kristen
Lokemen is a staff writer and travel specialist for Show-Me
Missouri. She assisted in conducting several tours of the
Lewis and Clark Trail from Missouri to the Oregon
coast.