USA > South Dakota > A brief history of South Dakota > Part 2
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While Lewis was in Philadelphia, it occurred to him that it would be wise to organize the expedition in two parts, and keep two records, so that in case one record was lost there would be hope of preserving the other. He told Jefferson about it, and the President thought the plan a wise one; so Captain William Clark - a brother of General George Rogers Clark, the man who in the Revo- lutionary War had saved Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the United States - was selected to accompany Captain Lewis, and to enjoy with him equal rank in the command of the enterprise.
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LEWIS AND CLARK
All of the remainder of that year was spent in preparation. In the summer the two captains set out for St. Louis, and not until they reached the Ohio
River did they learn of the pur- chase of Louisiana by the American government. They secured the serv- ices of forty-one persons, all told - soldiers, guides, boatmen, and hunters - and en- camped for the winter on the east bank of the Mis- sissippi, opposite the mouth of the Missouri.
The 9th of May, 1804, was set for the formal transfer of Louisiana from Spain to France CAPTAIN MERIWETHER LEWIS Statue at the Lewis and Clark Exposition, 1903 and from France to the United States, and Jefferson desired Lewis and Clark to remain at St. Louis for that ceremony, which they did. Therefore, it was not until three o'clock in the
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afternoon of Monday, May 14, that the little band set off up the Missouri. They had several boats, which they pro- pelled with oars or sails, or towed with ropes, according to the condition of the river and the direction of the wind. They proceeded very slowly, examining the river and the country, and visiting the Indians, but without any event affecting the history of South Dakota until they arrived at the mouth of the Big Sioux River at eight o'clock in Saturday the morning of August 21, 1804. That night they camped on the Nebraska shore. 1
Sergeant Charles Floyd having died the evening of August 20, when at the site of Sioux City, the men were allowed to select a successor to him, and the choice, which was made by ballot, fell to Patrick Gass. This occurred on the 22d when the party was encamped at Elkpoint, and it may reasonably be assumed to be the first popular election in South Dakota. The next morning Captain Lewis killed a very large buffalo upon the bottom near Burbank, from which they salted two barrels of meat.
On the 24th they arrived at the mouth of the Ver- milion River, and the captains took two men and went up nine miles to examine Spirit Mound, about which they had heard strange stories from the Indians, who be- lieved that it was inhabited by a race of dwarfs, little people not larger than gophers, who instantly put to death any one who came near their home. It is need- less to say that the explorers found nothing mysterious or alarming about the very ordinary mound upon the prairie. They did, however, find much that was pleasing to them. They say in their journal, "We saw none of
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these wicked little spirits, nor any place for them, except some small holes scattered over the top. We were happy enough to escape their vengeance, though we re- mained some time on the mound to enjoy the delight- ful prospect of the plain, which spreads itself out until the eye rests upon the north- west hills at a great distance, and those of the north- east still farther off, enlivened by large herds of buf- falo feeding at a distance. The soil of these plains is exceedingly fine." -
It is noteworthy that Spirit Mound and other points CAPTAIN WILLIAM CLARK Statue at the Lewis and Clark Exposition, 1903 along the Missouri in South Dakota then bore the names by which we still know them. This is one proof that the region was familiar to the French traders before Lewis and Clark came.
SO. DAK .- 3
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On August 27 Lewis and Clark came to the mouth of the James River and met some Yankton Sioux there, who informed them there was a large camp of the Sioux a few miles up the James. The captains, therefore, sent messengers to the Indians inviting them to a convenient point a few miles up the Missouri. They proceeded up the stream and made their camp on Green Island, on the Nebraska shore, near the site of Yankton. There they remained from Tuesday the 28th until Saturday, Septem- ber I, enjoying a grand council, powwow, and carousal with the Yanktons. They set up a tall flag pole over their camp and raised a beautiful American flag upon it. The days were occupied with feasting and speech-making, and the nights with feasting and dancing. The principal chiefs of the Yankton were Shake Hand, - known to the French as the Liberator, - White Crane, and Struck by the Pawnee.
One day a male child was born in one of the Indian lodges. Learning of this fact, Captain Lewis sent for the child and it was brought to him. He wrapped it in the American flag and made a speech in which he prophesied that the boy would live to become eminent among his people and a great friend of the white men. His prophecy came true, for the boy grew up to be the famous Struck by the Ree, chief of the Yankton tribe, who was probably the means of saving the entire settlement at Yankton from massacre in the War of the Outbreak in 1863. All his life Struck by the Ree took great pride in his Ameri- canism, and in the fact that he was first dressed in an American flag.
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On the Ist of September the party again embarked and proceeded up the stream. The next day they stopped to explore the embankment at Bon Homme Island, which they believed to be a prehistoric fort, but which has since been shown to have been but a bank of sand thrown up by the winds and floods. On the 8th they passed the Pawnee or Trudeau House which was established in 1797, and there was no other event of note for several days. 1521494
While Lewis and Clark were at the Vermilion River, their two horses had strayed away, and George Shannon, the youngest man in the party, had been sent out to hunt them up. Sixteen days had since elapsed, during part of which the captains had enjoyed their council and carousal with the Yanktons, and no word of the boy had come to them. They admit, in their journal, that they were be- coming uneasy about him. Shannon had found the horses and set off up the river. During the first four days he used all his bullets and then he nearly starved, being obliged to subsist for twelve days on a few grapes and a rabbit, which he killed by making use of a hard piece of stick for a bullet. One of the horses gave out and was left behind; the other he kept as a last resource for food. Despairing of overtaking the party, he was returning down the river in hopes of meeting some other boat, and was on the point of killing his horse when he was so fortunate as to meet his friends, on the 11th of September.
The party now made their way up the stream, meeting no Indians, until the night of the 21st, when they were camped on the north side of the Big Bend, having almost
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completed its circuit. Between one and two o'clock in the morning they were alarmed by the sergeant on guard, who cried out that the sand bar upon which the party were camped was sinking. They sprang to the boats and pushed over to the opposite shore, but before they had reached it, the ground upon which their former camp had been had entirely disappeared under the waters. The next day they passed the Loisel post on Cedar Island, which they describe as being sixty or seventy feet square, built of red cedar, and picketed in with the same mate- rial; and on the 24th they arrived at the Teton River, where, as we shall see in the next chapter, they were to remain several days.
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CHAPTER VII
LEWIS AND CLARK WITH THE TETONS
ALL along the way Lewis and Clark took celestial observations to ascertain the latitude and longitude. They also kept a record of the temperature, with a mercury thermometer made for them in St. Louis by a French physician and scientist named Dr. Sauguin. They fell in with the doctor when they arrived at St. Louis; and he gave them much valuable information and assistance and told them how important it was that they should have a thermometer. The good captains had not the slightest idea what a thermometer was, but the little doctor hurried about to find the materials out of which to make the instrument. Not in the Mississippi valley could he find the glass or the quicksilver, till finally he bethought himself of his wife's French plate-glass mirror, and, in spite of her protest, he scraped the quicksilver from the back of it, melted up the mirror, and made from it the stem of the thermometer, into which he poured the quicksilver he had scraped from the looking-glass. This was soon properly graduated, or scaled to degrees of heat and cold, and, judging by what we now know of the temperatures of the Missouri valley, was reasonably accurate. From such circumstances as the foregoing the student will un- derstand how primitive was the outfit of the explorers.
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When Lewis and Clark arrived at the Teton or Bad River, near where the village of Fort Pierre is now located, they found there a delegation of Indians, about fifty or sixty in number, who represented a large camp some two or three miles up the Teton River. These Indians were Minneconjou Tetons, a branch of the Sioux, under the leadership of Black Buffalo, a man quite famous in his time. Pierre Do- rion, the guide to the expedition, had PRESIDENT OF been left at Yank- THE U.S.A.D.1801 ton for the purpose of taking a party of Yankton chiefs down to Washing- ton to council with the President, so the party was without TH.JEFFERSON an interpreter, ex-
JEFFERSON MEDAL GIVEN TO A CHIEF BY LEWIS AND CLARK
From " Wonderland," 1900
cept a French boat- man who could
speak very little Sioux and no Eng-
lish. Communication with the Indians was therefore difficult and unsatisfactory.
It was not the intention of the captains to stop long with the Tetons, for they bore a bad reputation, and it is
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LEWIS AND CLARK WITH THE TETONS
evident that the explorers were more or less afraid of them ; so they held a hasty council, made a speech, smoked a pipe, and prepared to go on. As had been done at Yank- ton, each of the chiefs was given a medal, a United States flag, a laced uniform coat, a cocked hat and feather, and some small presents were distributed among the other men. Each of the Indians was given also a quarter of a glass of whisky, which they seemed to like very much.
But when the party made ready to proceed up the river, the Indians promptly protested. Three of them seized the cable which held the boat, and another put his arms around the mast. Lewis and Clark were told flatly that they could not go on. The Indians stood about, drew their arrows from the quivers, and were bending their bows, when Captain Clark drew his sword and made a signal to the boat to prepare for action. The little cannon, called a swivel gun, which was mounted on the bow of his boat, was swung about so as to cover the Indians, and twelve of the men sprang to the assistance of Captain Clark. This action had the desired effect, for the Indians with- drew for a council. The party got off with the boats, but two of the Indians waded in after them and were taken on board. They went out into the stream and anchored off Marion's Island, which they named Bad Humored Island.
The next morning the chiefs sent a message to them expressing sorrow for the occurrence of the previous day and desiring them to remain over for a feast and council, which the captains determined to do. Captains Lewis and Clark were each met at the shore by ten young men,
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with a robe highly decorated, and were carried in state, on these robes, to a large council house, where they were placed on dressed buffalo skins by the side of the grand chief.
The hall or council room was in the shape of three quarters of a circle, covered at the top and sides with
A MODERN CAMP OF THE SIOUX
* skins well dressed and sewed together. Under this shelter sat about seventy men, forming a circle about the chiefs, before whom were placed a Spanish and a United States flag. There was left a vacant circle about six feet in diameter in which the pipe of peace was raised on two forked sticks about six or eight inches from the ground and under it the down of the swan was scattered. Near by was a large fire on which provisions were cooking.
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LEWIS AND CLARK WITH THE TETONS
There was now a long council of talk, and then a great feast was served; it consisted largely of dog meat, this being a favorite dish among the Sioux and used in all festivals. There was also a preparation of buffalo meat and potatoes of which the captains partook, but they say that as yet they could eat only sparingly of the dog.
Thus the day was passed until twilight, when everything was cleared away for the dance. A large fire had been made in the center of the house, giving at once light and warmth to the ballroom. The orchestra was composed chiefly of ten men who played on a sort of drum or tam- bourine formed of skin stretched across a hoop, and made a jingling noise with a stick to which the hoofs of deer and goats were hung. A third musical instrument was a small skin bag with pebbles in it. Five or six young men also sang.
The women came forward highly decorated, some with poles in their hands on which were hung the scalps of their enemies, others with guns, spears, or other trophies taken in war by their husbands, brothers, or other rela- tions. Having arranged themselves in two columns, one on each side of the fire, as soon as the music began they danced toward each other till they met in the center, when the rattles were shaken, they all shouted, and then returned to their places. In the pauses of the dance some man would come forward and recite in a low gut- tural tone a little story or incident, either martial or ludi- crous. This was taken up by the orchestra, who repeated it in a higher strain, while the women danced to it. The dances of the men were always separate from those of
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the women; they were conducted in very nearly the same way, except that the men jumped up and down instead of shuffling as did the women.
The harmony of the entertainment was disturbed by one of the musicians, who, thinking he had not received his due share of the tobacco presented by the captains, put himself into a passion, broke one of the drums, threw two of them into the fire, and then left the band. But no notice was taken of the man's conduct, and the dance was kept up till midnight; then four chiefs escorted the cap- tains to their boats and re- mained over night with them on board.
SIOUX SQUAW IN NATIVE DRESS (MODERN)
The captains took close notice of many of the habits, customs, laws, and fashions of the Sioux, which they set down in their journal. The following quoted at large from their journal is of great interest as indicating one of the police customs of the Sioux in their primitive life: -
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LEWIS AND CLARK WITH THE TETONS
"While on shore to-day we witnessed a quarrel between two squaws, which appeared to be growing every moment more boisterous, when a man came forward, at whose approach every one seemed terrified and ran. He took the squaws and without any ceremony whipped them severely. On inquiring into the nature of such summary justice we learned that this man was an officer well known to this and many other tribes. His duty is to keep the peace, and the whole interior police of the village is con- fided to two or three of these officers, who are named by the chief and remain in power some days, at least till the chief appoints a successor. They seem to be a sort of constable or sentinel, since they are always on the watch to keep tranquillity during the day and guard the camp in the night. The short duration of the office is com- pensated by its authority. His power is supreme, and in the suppression of any riot or disturbance no resistance to him is suffered; his person is sacred, and if in the execution of his duty he strikes even a chief of the second class, he cannot be punished for this salutary insolence. In general he accompanies the person of the chief, and when ordered to any duty, however dangerous, it is a point of honor rather to die than to refuse obedience. Thus, when they attempted to stop us yesterday, the chief ordered one of these men to take possession of the boat ; he immediately put his arms around the mast, and, as we understood, no force except the command of the chief would have induced him to release his hold. Like the other men his body is blackened, but his distinguish- ing mark is a collection of two or three raven skins
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fixed to the girdle behind the back in such a way that the tails stick out horizontally from the body. On his head, too, is a raven skin split into two parts and tied so as to let the beak project from the forehead."
The next morning when the captains' royal guests arose, they carefully wrapped up the blanket upon which they had slept and carried it away with them. There was nothing irregular about this, and it is the custom of the Teton Sioux to this day. When an Indian is invited to a feast, it is his privilege to carry away all the remnants left upon the table, and if he remains over night, he takes with him, as a matter of course, the blankets upon which he has slept.
So pleased were the captains with the entertainment they had received, that they decided to remain for another day of it, and traditions of that day of dance and feast and carousal are still handed down among the descendants of the Tetons who took part in it. Captain Clark was accompanied by his personal servant, a colored man named York, who was a great curiosity to the Indians. York was intensely black and the Indians were very greatly astonished when they discovered that they could not wash the color off. He was a man of wonderful strength and in this day's entertainment he won the un- bounded admiration of the Indians by his exhibitions of prowess.
However, it was necessary to bring the fête to a close, and on Friday, the 28th of September, the captains de- termined to proceed on their journey. But when the time for starting came, the Indians were as unwilling to have
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LEWIS AND CLARK WITH THE TETONS
them go as they had been in the first place. A long line of the warriors sat down upon the cable which held the boats to the shore, and it was only with threats and coaxing and bribery that they were finally induced to let the party proceed. Black Buffalo accompanied them, intending to go to the Rees with them, but when up in the neigh- borhood of the Cheyenne River, the boat in which he was riding struck a log and came very near overturning. This mishap greatly alarmed the old chief, who demanded that he be placed upon the shore. His demand was granted and he returned to his people.
At the mouth of the Cheyenne the party found a trad- ing post operated by John Valle, a St. Louis trader, who told them that he had passed the last winter three hundred leagues up the Cheyenne River near the Black Hills.
On October 8 the party reached the Ree villages at Grand River. There they found several French traders - Pierre Garreau, who had then resided with the Rees for fourteen years, Mr. Gravelines, and a Mr. Tabeau. Several councils were held, and the usual presents given. Supposing that it would be as agreeable to the Rees as to the other Indians, the white men offered them whisky, but they indignantly refused it, saying that "they were surprised that their Father would present them a liquor which would make them fools." The explorers remained with the Rees two days and seem to have had a most enjoyable time.
On the 13th, having proceeded up the river, they passed the mouth of Spring Creek, in what is now Campbell
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County, and named it Stone Idol Creek, because they were told that a few miles back from the Missouri there were two stones re- sembling human figures and a third which looked like
SACAJAWEA, INTERPRETER FOR LEWIS AND CLARK IN 1805-06 Statue at the Lewis and Clark Exposition, 1903
a dog, and that these stones were worshiped by the
Rees.
The In-
dians told this leg- end of these rocks:
" A young man was
deeply in love with a girl whose par- ents refused their consent to the mar- riage. The youth went out on the prairie to mourn over his hard fate. A sympathy of feel- ing led the lady to the same spot, and the faithful dog would not cease to follow his master.
After wandering together and having nothing to live on but grapes they were at last changed into stone, which beginning at their
--
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LEWIS AND CLARK WITH THE TETONS
feet gradually invaded the nobler parts, leaving nothing unchanged but a bunch of grapes which the woman holds in her hands to this day. Whenever the Rees pass these sacred stones, they stop to make some offering of dress to propitiate the gods."
On that day Lewis and Clark passed out of what is now South Dakota. They went on that autumn as far as the Mandan villages above Bismarck on the Mis- souri, where they built a post and spent the winter. The next year, 1805, with great hardship, they crossed the mountains and reached the Pacific Ocean. Remaining at the mouth of the Columbia until spring, they turned back and reached the north line of South Dakota on the 2Ist day of August, 1806, precisely two years from the date when they entered South Dakota on the upward trip. They stopped with the Rees for a short visit, but hastened by the Teton country without attracting atten- tion. They had no desire to meet Black Buffalo, fearing that he would again attempt to detain them. The Yank- tons were friendly, but they spent little time with them, being in great haste to reach civilization again. At Elk- point they met Mr. James Aird carrying goods to the Yank- tons, and he supplied them with provisions of which they were in great need, and gave them the first information they had had from the outside world for more than two years. They reached St. Louis early in September, and their return was a source of great rejoicing to all the people of the United States.
CHAPTER VIII
THE FIRST BLOODSHED
WHEN Lewis and Clark returned down the Missouri, they induced Big White, a chief of the Mandan tribe, with his wife and children, to accompany them to Washing- ton. René Jesseaume, a French- man long known on the frontier, and his Mandan wife went along as interpreters. These Indians were taken to Washington, where the appearance of Big White created a great sensation. He was an ex- traordinarily large man, nearly seven feet high, and as white as an albino. He was received by Presi- dent Jefferson and made much of by Washington A MANDAN CHIEF society.
In the spring of 1807 Big White was to return to his people, and Lewis and Clark had pledged the faith of the United States government that he should have safe conduct to his home. Captain Clark came back to St.
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THE FIRST BLOODSHED
Louis with him, and there fitted out an expedition under the command of Sergeant Nathaniel Pryor, who had been a prominent member of the exploring party. Pryor had in his command two noncommissioned officers and eleven soldiers. Pierre Chouteau, Sr., with a trading party of thirty-two men, bound for trade on the head waters of the Missouri, also accompanied the expedition. Earlier in the season Manuel Lisa, a well-known Spanish trader of that day, had gone up the river with a party of traders and their supplies.
Pryor and his party left St. Louis in May, 1807. Pro- ceeding prosperously, although slowly, and passing all of the lower Sioux bands in safety, they reached the lower of the two Ree villages at Grand River on the morning of September 9. The Rees fired several guns in the direc- tion of the boats. Pierre Dorion, who accompanied the expedition as interpreter, asked what they wanted. The Indians replied by inviting the party ashore to obtain a supply of provisions. The kind treatment Lewis and Clark had received from the Rees the year before threw the party off their guard, and the boats were ordered to land.
At the Ree village it was learned that the Rees and Mandans were at war with each other and that several of the Teton Sioux bands were joined with the Rees and were present in the village. A Mandan woman who had been captive among the Rees for several years came on board one of the boats and gave the whites some impor- tant information. She said that Lisa had passed up a few days before and when he found that the Rees intended
SO. DAK. - 4
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SOUTH DAKOTA
to stop him, he told them that a large party of whites, with the Mandan chief, would soon arrive; and after giving them a large part of his goods, including some guns, he was allowed to go on. The Rees made up their minds to kill Lisa upon his return, but let him pass for the present for fear rumors of their acts and intentions might reach the parties below and cause them to turn back. She warned the white men that the Rees were bent on mischief.
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