Part 6 (1/2)
On January 18, 1803, Jefferson, then President, recoresstrade with Indians, and with the view of extending its provisions to the Indians on the Missouri, recommended the exploration of the Missouri River to its source, the crossing of the Rocky Mountains, and descent to the Pacific Ocean by the best water coress approved the plan and voted money for its accomplishment Captain Meriwether Lewis, of the United States Army, who had been for nearly two years private secretary to the President, renewed his solicitations for coiven him
Jefferson showed his versatility in the instructions to Captain Lehich are a model of fulness and clearness The route to be followed, natural products and possibilities--anietable, and mineral--climatic conditions, commercial routes, the soil and face of the country, were all dwelt on The character, customs, disposition, territory occupied, tribal relations, , disease, ion, intellectuality, extent and means of trade, war methods, with respect to the Indian tribes visited, were to be studied and reported The topography of the country was to be accurately determined, astronomically and otherwise, and the ood-will of the chiefs was to be sought, peaceful methods pursued, and the inflexible opposition of any extensive force pro bloodshed was to beoutside the limits of the United States, passports from the ministers of Great Britain, Spain, and France were furnished
Meriwether Leas born August 17, 1774, near Charlottesville, Va, being the son of John Lewis and Miss Meriwether, and grand-nephew of Fielding Leho , at the age of twenty, in the ton to put down the Shay rising, he was ion May 1, 1795, and appointed in First Infantry November, 1796, where he rose to be paymaster and captain in 1800 He was a considerate and efficient officer, an expert hunter, versed in natural history, fa his deficiencies in certain branches of science iht instruction from competent professors
Jefferson describes Lewis as follows: ”Of courage undaunted, possessing a fir but impossibilities could divert from its direction,honest, disinterested, liberal, of sound understanding and a fidelity to truth so scrupulous that whatever he should report would be as certain as seen ourselves” The ement and success of the expedition, it may here be said, fully justified the selection by and encoiven his choice of associate, selected William Clark, as appointed by Jefferson second lieutenant of artillery Clark was a brother of George Rogers Clark, by whose valor and sagacity the Illinois or Northwest Territory was secured to the United States, and this connection made his selection for further extension of the country see Clark had qualifications and experiences which strongly coust 1, 1770, Williae of the privations and conditions of frontier life Skilful as a hunter, a keen observer, familiar with military life from four years of service as a lieutenant of infantry, and developed from his ill health, which caused hinificent specimen of manhood, he proved so efficient a coadjutor that his name will ever be inseparably associated with that of Lewis
Lewis left Washi+ngton July 5, 1803, hisenhanced in its importance by the formal cession of Louisiana to the United States by the treaty of Paris, April 30, 1803, which news reached him July 1st
The rendezvous was at St Louis, which was reached via Pittsburgh and the Ohio, recruits being selected at various posts, while Lieutenant Clark joined at Louisville, though he was not co March
When the party reached St Louis, in December, 1803, formal notice of the transfer of Louisiana had not reached the Spanish coe ard They passed the winter in cae with sail-power and two smaller boats, hich they started up the Missouri River on May 14, 1804
The expedition, commanded by Captain Leith Lieutenant Clark as second, coro servant, and a hunter, as also an interpreter
The valley of the lower Missouri ell known to the French Canadians, who, pushed ard by the irruption of English settlers in the Illinois region, sought isolation and freedon restraint in the country west of the Mississippi St Louis was their headquarters, but the Missouri was their field of fortune The village of St Charles, with its single street, had about five hundred souls, who lived by hunting and trade with the Indians, agriculture being quite neglected; and an outpost of seven poverty-stricken fauard of civilization But the typical French trader and trapper disdained the shelter of a roof and the restraint of communities His adventurous spirit pushed his frail bark into the quiet waters of the upper Kansas, through the shallows of the Platte, under the overshading trees of the beautiful Ja Sioux, and, in search of the beaver, even penetrated the winding narrows of the Cheyenne and Little Missouri They did not even stop at transient visits, but, fascinated by the roving, aie, took up abode with his, adopted his custoe and uncontrollable drew theion of their youth One of these ventureso the Sioux, was picked up on the river and accompanied Lewis to the mouth of the James, as a much-needed interpreter
The mouth of the Platte was passed on July 21st, and on the next day Lewis camped on the site of the present city of Council Bluffs, thus named by Lewis on account of his council with the Ottoes and Missouri Indians at this point Here the first of a continuing series of presents was given to the grand chief: an Ae medal, which was placed around his neck as a arters, cloth ornaments, a canister of powder, and the indispensable bottle of whiskey The subordinate chiefs received inferiorto their importance These presents were made with much form and cere forth the transfer of the territory to the United States, the benefits of peace, and the advantages of trade at the new post to be occupied by Americans
Both Lewis and Clark had been accustomed to Indian life on the Eastern frontiers, but they found reat interior plains Beyond the breech-cloth a loose buffalo robe usually kept the savage frorizzly bear-claws, the ornaments of porcupine and feathers, the scalp-poles, the conical teepes covered with gayly-figured skins, the blue s from the open tent-top, the hoop-taoats and deer, the bladder-rattle full of pebbles, the shaven heads of therows of porcupine quills and uncouth painted figures, ele-plume head-dress worked with porcupine quills, the polecat skin trailing fro brave's moccasins, the deer-paunch tobacco-pouch, and a score of other novelties onal earth-covered lodges, the picketed villages, the cultivated patches of corn, beans, and potatoes, the basket-like boats of interwoven boughs covered with a single buffalo skin, in which squaws paddled unconcernedly over high waves, were unknown phases of savage life
Even the earth gave up its treasure, and they found the first of the faion in the back-bone of a fish forty-five feet long, in a perfect state
[Illustration: A Blackfoot Tepee]
Garew plentiful as they ascended the river Buffalo was not seen till the Big Sioux was reached, but later fifteen herds and three bands of elk were visible at one ti frorounds to find west of the Missouri winter shelter in the hilly regions As they passed the Indians drove large flocks of oats into the river, where even boys killed the helpless animals by scores with sticks
Indeed, the Missouri then appears to have been a hunter's paradise, for there are aoats, and porcupine Three thousand antelope were seen at one time, and of this animal Lewis accurately remarks: ”The antelope possesses uishes the er, the delicate sensibility of their smell defeats the precautions of concealment, and when alarht of birds than the ”
The river furnished abundant supply of cat and buffalo fish, and feathered gaeese, turkeys, ducks, and pelican, also abounded; arapes, currants and pluooseberries, ards the voyage thus far, it was true that the sail could rarely be used, that the labor of propelling the boats by oar or pole was reat trouble; but the Indians, save a single threatening occasion, were eant Floyd, was from acute disease Indeed, the journey had been most attractive and free froed theo into per hunting excursion than a dangerous voyage of discovery
Their winter quarters, called Fort Mandan, were on the eastern side of the Missouri, sixteen hundred miles from St Louis, and in latitude 47 22' N, a short distance above the present city of Biss ooden huts, which joined and forle, while the third side was of pickets As the huts opened inward, they had a stockaded place easy of defence
On his arrival at Fort Mandan, Lewis found a Mr McCracken, of the Hudson Bay Co for horses and buffalo robes
During the winter ten or twelve different traders of this coh one bore a letter fro any service in his power, yet it was evident to Lewis that these traders were cultivating senti the Indians, and Chaboneau, the interpreter was tampered with; but the proies and promises to refrain from such conduct in future Laroche, one of the Hudson Bay traders, desired to go ith the expedition, but it was thought best to decline the offer At this ti-post was at the forks of the assiniboin, about one hundred and fifty miles distant by the way of Mouse River
The stay at Fort Mandan was marked by two sad experiences for the Indians encamped near the post: an autumnal prairie fire which burned two Indians to death, and an attack of the Sioux, wherein one Mandan was killed and tounded A French with the Indians, served as interpreter, and they learned much of the Mandans, Rickarees, and Minnetarees The Rickarees appeared in a very sensible light by refusing spirits, with the remark that they did not use it, and were surprised that their father should present to them a liquor which would make them fools The sensibilities of these Indians in their peculiar way appeared in a chief who cried bitterly at seeing a court- carried out on a soldier The chief acknowledged the necessity of exemplary punishment, and said that for the same offence he had killed his braves, but that he never whipped any one, not even children
The Mandans, through intervention, made peace with the Rickarees, and restored traps and furs which they had taken fro the entire winter these Indian tribes were most friendly, and their stores of corn, obtained by the expeditionary force by trade or purchase, were of ro was a constant source of wonder to the crowds of Indians who visited thereat chief of the Minnetarees said that so men had told hiro, appeared, the one-eyed savage,on a finger rubbed the skin in order to wash off the paint, and it was not until the negro showed his curly hair that the Indian could be persuaded he was not a painted white h at soe aniard to the Indians Lewis says: ”A caoats a short distance below us Theirpen or fold, fro on each side; the aniently driven toward this pen, in which they imperceptibly find themselves enclosed, and are then at the e in killing buffalo, the hunters mount on horseback and, arradually drive it into a plain or open place fit for theout a buffalo, a feo as close as possible and wound her with arrows till they think they have given the mortal stroke; when they pursue another till the quiver is exhausted If, which rarely happens, the wounded buffalo attacks the hunter, he evades the blow by the agility of his horse, which is trained for the coreat dexterity”
The winter proved to be of unusual severity, and several tirees below zero, and proof spirits froze into hard ice The fortitude hich the hardy savages withstood such extreme cold, half naked as they often were, i opened early, and on April 7, 1805, Fort Mandan was abandoned, one party of ten with the barge going down the river with despatches and specimens Lewis and Clark with their party of thirty started up the Missouri in six canoes and two large open boats, which had been constructed by them They had three interpreters--Drewyer, Chaboneau, and his wife Dreas a Canadian half-breed who had always lived in the woods, and while he had inherited fro the faintest trail, he had also acquired to a wonderful degree that knowledge of the shi+fts and expedients of camp life which is the resource and pride of the frontier hunts the Blackfeet, by whom his wife, a Snake Indian, had been taken in war and enslaved when a young girl
At the mouth of the Little Missouri the three French hunters, who had ventured to follow the party, stopped for trapping, as they found beaver very plentiful Chaboneau Creek, the farthest point on the Missouri yet visited by white men, was passed, and on April 26th they arrived at the mouth of the Yellowstone Leas here particularly pleased with the wide plains, interspersed with forests of various trees, and expressed his opinion that the situation washad now fairly opened, the trees were in leaf, a floas seen, and despite the scanty verdure of the new grass, game was very abundant