Part two of a two part series on Lewis and Clark
After several
tense minutes, Black Buffalo ordered his warriors to pull back and gathered
them together in order to hold a private council. Clark took it as an
opportunity to reconcile and hopefully rebuild their suddenly precarious
relationship; he approached Black Buffalo and offered his hand. Even though an
alliance seemed to be flushed down the drain, he still wanted a peaceable result
and at least a diplomatic, cordial relationship with the Lakota. Black Buffalo
refused Clark’s hand, so he walked back to the pirogue. Once Clark reached the
boat, “both the chiefs and two warriors waded in after him” and they were
allowed on. Clark thought that it appeared to be an attempt to be friendly
again, and the group of men spent the night on the pirogue. It looked like the
Corps of Discovery dodged a bullet with that encounter, literally. Lewis and
Clark were almost certainly beginning to gain a little more hope that a
diplomatic agreement could be reach, especially with their interactions the
following day.
On September 26
th,
the Native Americans offered hospitality if the expedition would go to their
village, Clark believed it was because the confrontation the previous day
“seemed to have inspired the Indians with fear of us.”
[i] An
alliance my still yet be possible! By the afternoon they reached the village
and were met by a flock of men, women and children who were decidedly friendly
and Clark was finally at ease with the Lakota. The rest of the expedition was
still on guard, but agreed to spend the night as the Lakota wanted to, “Show
their good disposition towards us.”
[ii] A
night of feasting and dancing was prepared; Lewis and Clark went with a small
group of men into the council house of Black Buffalo. Within the room almost
seventy men stood in a massive circle around the chief, and in front of them
was a old Spanish flag laying next to the United States flag that Lewis and
Clark gave Black Buffalo the previous day.
[iii]
The fact that the chief placed both flags next to each other showed signs that
they believed the Spanish and Americans to be equal, almost refusing to
recognize that the United States now claimed full ownership over the territory.
Lewis and Clark both probably recognized the meaning behind this, but said
nothing.
While several
plump dogs roasted on a large fire, an old man beseeched Clark and asked him
“to take pity on their unfortunate situation” and applauded him for how the expedition
handled the previous day.
[iv] Clark
was correct in his earlier assumption; the Lakota recognized the show of power
by the expedition the previous day. They almost certainly wanted to convince
Lewis and Clark to only trade with them, not with the other tribes upriver. This
was the difference though; the Lakota were interested in forming a diplomatic
alliance, but did not want other tribes and nations to be included. The Lakota had
a powerful influence over trade in the region and didn’t want anyone to
encroach on their trading territory. They feared that the expedition, the
United States, was going to usurp their domination of the Native American trade
economy.
Black Buffalo offered
a sacrifice to the US flag as a sign of peace, and then the peace pipe was
removed from its perch and presented to Lewis and Clark. They smoked and ate
away the following hour until voluptuous women came out and danced to music.
They held various weapons and poles with scalps on them and men using animal
skins and hooves as instruments provided the music. During the interludes of
dancing the men would tell stories that were “voluptuous and indecent.” Not
much has changed since then.
The flow of entertainment
was shattered by an angry musician who, in a fit of rage, smashed his drum and
threw it into the fire because he claimed that he did not received “a due share
of the tobacco” that Lewis and Clark distributed previously that evening.
[v] The
event was quickly hushed over by the other Native Americans and the festivities
continued. By midnight Lewis and Clark retired to their boat and the chiefs
“offered us women, which we did not accept.”
[vi]
On the way to the boat, Lewis and Clark saw a group of about fifty Maha prisoners
shackled; they asked the Lakota to release them and make peace with the Maha
nation, which they agreed to do. During Lewis and Clark’s exchange with the
chiefs, a Maha prisoner covertly warned one of the interpreters that the Lakota
were plotting and said that, “we were to be stopped.”
[vii]
The next morning
was slow and the expedition prepared to continue their journey tomorrow, they
handed out gifts and spent most of the day relaxing. The Lakota’s gregarious nature
was apparent, but something else was going on at the same time. Their sneaky
nature is reinforced in the journal of Private Whitehouse when he warned, “they
will Steal and plunder if they git an opportunity” and also exclaimed, “they
are very dirty.”
[viii]
No one seemed fully comfortable during the stay with the Lakota Sioux; this was
the opposite of when the expedition spends the winter with the Mandan’s, a
Native American nation they became close with. During the day, Clark recorded
that “they again offered me a young woman and wished me to take her & not
despise them, I wavered the Subject.”
[ix]
Clark’s rejection
of the women not only bewildered the Lakota, it was an affront to them. Sex was
a custom that “combined hospitality and diplomacy;” his rejection was
inadvertently telling the Lakota that the expedition was not willing to fully accept
their hospitality or foster a diplomatic alliance.
[x] While
the Corps of Discovery did want to create a trading network with the Lakota,
Clark’s actions said he wanted nothing to do with them! This seemed like a very
trivial thing to the expedition, as the only person who mentioned it was
William Clark himself. He also did not mention it in his journals, but in his
field notes from the journey. The only time this is acknowledged by the expedition
is essentially as an afterthought, a footnote! Possibly their biggest mistake
with trying to form a relationship with the Lakota, and they had no idea.
Doing a little
research on the time period turned up a few interesting findings. The late 17
th
and early 18
th century featured quite a bit more sexual mischief
then is commonly believed. To be blunt, it was as common back then as it is
today. In America, one in three women were pregnant by the time they married.
[xi]
There are also a plethora of lawsuit records and private documents that showed
the promiscuity of the century. Even the Corps of Discovery featured plenty of lechery!
William Clark, John Ordway and others recorded several sexual encounters with
other Native American women. Several of them even father children, including
Clark! He supposedly had a son with the daughter of the Nez Pierce chief; just
like the Lakota, they viewed sex as an exchange of power. The men in the Corps
of Discovery valued it as recreational, while the Native Americans viewed it
with reverence and great importance. The reason why Clark turned down the Lakota
is unclear, he does not record why. We know that he was not yet married, and
would become sexually involved with later tribes. It seems there is not a real
reason why he would reject this offer of sex, all we do know is his rejection
upset the Lakota and contributed to their conflicted meeting.
When evening fell,
several men in the expedition were invited to join the dancing and festivities,
identical to the previous night.
[xii]
The entertainment went even later the second night, well past midnight. As the
men returned to their boat, they accidently swung it around and broke the it’s anchoring
cable.
[xiii] The sudden commotion from the cable breaking
surprised the chiefs who were with them and they instantly gave alarm and
beckoned almost sixty men over; they claimed it sounded like the Mahas had
attacked and were only concerned for everyone’s safety. It seemed more likely
that the Lakota believed the expedition was secretly leaving and wanted to stop
them; yesterdays warning from the prisoner stuck in Lewis and Clark’s minds—“we
were to be stopped.”
[xiv]
the rest of the night the expedition “kept up a strong guard.”
[xv]
Clark began to believe that the previous day of entertainment was nothing more
than a stall tactic. He was right. Historians have found records saying that the
Lakota were waiting for another Sioux band to come to the village. They
believed that “if the party could be delayed long enough, reinforcement might
arrive.”
[xvi]
The next morning,
September 28
th, only solidified this as the expedition prepared to
set sail.
As they prepared their pirogue
to sail down river they recorded that it was with “great difficulty that we
could make the chiefs leave the boat” and after they left, “several of the
chief’s soldiers sat on the rope which held the boat to shore.” Clark demanded
the Native Americans stand down or the expedition would be forced to fire upon
them, Clark had little patience for their stall tactics. Black Buffalo told him
that his warriors only wanted a bit more tobacco. Clark threw him one extra
carrot of tobacco and told the chief, “You have told us that you were a great
man, and have influence; now show your influence, by taking the rope from those
men…”
[xvii]
Clark’s appeal to pride succeeded; Black Buffalo ordered the warriors to take
the tobacco and release the cable.
A feeling of
relief went over the men, they dodged another bullet with the Lakota. The
expedition sailed a few miles down river and suddenly spotted Buffalo Medicine
hailing them, the lowest ranked of the three Lakota chiefs. As they were
pulling up to him they quickly hoisted a white and red flag on the boat, it was
a warning that meant the expedition was ready for “peace or war” and were
“determined to fight our way.”
[xviii]
Initially Clark rowed out in a pirogue to meet the chief, but then brought him
onboard. The expedition listened as Buffalo Medicine told everyone that
Partisan, the chief second to Black Buffalo, was the one who actually ordered
them to be stopped. There was a power struggle going on between him and Black
Buffalo and in an attempt to show power and authority, Partisan had some of his
warriors attempt to stop the expedition from continuing. It was probably him
that also requested help from the second Lakota band. Clark responded by
telling Buffalo Medicine that the Lakota, as a whole, must stop attempting to
delay the expedition and that “if they persisted in their attempts to stop us,
we were willing and able to defend ourselves.”
[xix]
The Corps of Discovery did not want any more contact with, as they described
them, such a “banditti of Villains.”
[xx]
Buffalo Medicine
carried the message back to the village, and it seemed to be the end of Lakota
problems to Lewis and Clark, but it was not. The following morning they saw
Partisan along with two women and three men standing on the shore. Partisan
offered the women to Lewis and Clark for the third and final time. As expected,
they turned down the offer. The chief then requested to be taken aboard and allowed
to travel with the expedition; Clark also rejected that request. Clark’s
warnings from the previous day seemed to fall on deaf ears, but he was firm in
his refusal to be deterred and allow anyone onboard. He was well informed about
Partisan’s wily attitude and desire to exhibit his power and abilities.
Even with Clark’s
rebuff of Partisan, the small group of Lakota followed them down river, and after
a few miles the chief directed his attention to the boat again. Partisan made
one last request, asking for more tobacco. Clark agreed to Partisans final
request on his own terms; he threw some tobacco on a sandbar and refused to go
on shore. Partisan used his request for tobacco as his final attempt to get the
expedition to stop and come on shore; unfortunately for him, Clark was wary of
his tricks and did not even go to shore to hand the tobacco to Partisan. The
expedition then promised to not leave their pirogues until they “came to the
nation of the Aricaris, commonly called Rickarees.”
[xxi]
Clark had enough of the Lakota and only wanted them to go away. He gave them even
more tobacco than he should of, telling them it was “a present for that part of
the nation which we did not see.” With that, Partisan and his group left. This
was the last time Lewis and Clark saw Partisan, but it was not the last they
saw of the Lakota.
The final day of
September featured wind and rain. After trudging a few miles in the weather a
Native American ran up to the expeditions boat and begged to be brought on
board. Still frustrated from the previous day, his request was refused. It was
not until they sailed over a hill that they saw the four hundred Native
American warriors waiting. At this point the expedition shored their boat and
greeted the large group; it was a Lakota hunting party and part of the village
they just left. Almost certainly it was the group that Partisan was waiting on
and the reason he was trying to stall the expedition. Lewis and Clark offered
the chiefs in the group tobacco; they seemed to be very friendly, a relief to
be sure. They also proceeded to complain to the chiefs about Partisan and the
rest of Black Buffalo’s people, exclaiming, “We had been badly treated by some
of their band.”
[xxii]
Not knowing anything except the Corps of Discoveries side of the story, the
chiefs were extremely apologetic and Clark readily accepted their apology.
After their
conversation they agreed to take the chief with them for a while. After a few
miles they encountered rough waters, and it scared the chief. He demanded to
leave the boat and promised that the expedition would be able to “proceed
unmolested” and that, “all things were clear for us to go on, we would not see
any more Tetons.”
[xxiii]
Teton is another word for Lakota, in particular it is the word that Lewis and
Clark use in their journals. Clark gave him some more presents and spent some
time smoking with him before continuing on, making sure the chief left more
happy then scared. Thus, the Corps of Discovery’s first experience with the
Lakota finally ended.
It was nearly two
years later when they met the Lakota again on August 30, 1806, and this
experience was when William Clark recorded Black Buffalo’s “great oath.” The
bellicose result of their meeting two years prior gave the expedition no desire
to converse with them, instead Clark just threatened them.
[xxiv]
The failed Lakota diplomacy was not just a threat to the Corps of Discovery,
but seemed to be a threat against the United States as a whole. With Lewis and
Clark acting as US ambassadors, any threat against them was a threat to the
nation; likewise the Lakota were almost certainly not happy and did not agree
with their treatment by the expedition.
Lewis believed that
the Lakota were dangerous, manipulative and oppressive to non-Sioux tribes.
They dominated their neighbors, and went as far as conquering and controlling
entire tribes. He wrote specifically about the Ricârâs Arikara tribes,
mentioning that they were essentially slaves to “that lawless, savage, and
rapacious race, the Sioux Teton.”
[xxv]
Whenever Lewis was given an opportunity to disparage the Lakota he would
eagerly jump at the chance. He wanted to be sure to malign them; to show that
his floundered interactions with them were because of the Lakota’s fault and
diplomacy was destined to fail.
In his 1806 letter
to congress, Meriwether Lewis aggressively described the Lakota as “the vilest
miscreants of the savage race…” He would go on to exclaim that, “Unless these
people are reduced to order, by coercive measures, I am ready to pronounce,
that the citizens of the United States can never enjoy, but partially, the
advantages which the Missouri represents.”
[xxvi]
His anger towards the Lakota showed how dramatically their efforts to establish
a diplomatic relationship with them failed, the hope of including them in the
United States trade network seemed impossible. Lewis believed the Lakota to be
nothing more than a thorn in the side of the United States’ trade hopes.
On July 20
th
of the same year, William Clark also wrote about the Lakota in an unsavory
light, suggesting that strong-armed tactics might be the only way to leave
“peaceably” with the Sioux.
He explains
that, “until some effectual measures be taken to render them pacific, [they]
will always prove a serious source of inconvenience…” Clark wrote to Hugh Henry
about the Native Americans, suggesting that coercion might be the only way to
get all of them to cooperate. While the US wanted to show their strength and
power through the most peaceful means possible, the possibility of ostracizing
the Lakota Sioux was certainly a probability according to Clark.
[xxvii]
Lewis and Clark
succeeded in creating diplomatic ties with most of the Native Americans they
met on their expedition; all of their problems came from the Sioux tribes. Their
ambition of propagating positive relationships with the Native Americans fell short
because of their gaffe with the Lakota.
Bernard
DeVoto declared that Lewis and Clark essentially defeated the Lakota; they
forced them to back down, and turned them into “women” in their neighbors’
eyes. The Lakota were just “bully boys” and became “just beggars” once they
left.
[xxviii]
That was hardly the result Jefferson wanted when he commissioned Lewis and Clark.
Thomas Jefferson’s
staunch belief that the United States was destined to settle the entire
continent left little opportunity for cohabitation with the Native Americans.
The United States seemed intent to build an imperialistic empire through
colonialism. The process of expanding into new territory and creating new
colonies led to colonialism, which is, as Jeffery Ostler put it, “[making]
explicit the fact that expansion almost always involves conquest, displacement,
and rule over foreign groups.”
[xxix]
The beginning of the United State’s exploration of the American West was a
rousing success in almost every way—except with Native American diplomacy. In a
letter to the secretary of the Navy, Robert Smith, Jefferson admitted the
Unites States was “miserably weak,” in its newly acquired western lands.
[xxx] Lewis
and Clark entered a unique realm of Native American politics and failed to make
a proper connection, which was what Jefferson feared.
Navigating the
tangled web of Lakota politics and their imperial interests was a daunting task
for Lewis and Clark, easily their most difficult task in regards to Native
American diplomacy. The Lakota were a nation familiar with conquering and
controlling others; believing themselves to be superior and stronger than any
other, and Lewis and Clark did little to change that. The Lakota’s perspective
of themselves was much like the United States; they were powerful nations that
clashed with each other. It was almost certain that these two titans could not
co-exist. The failed diplomacy by the Corps of Discovery gave the United States
an early glimpse at the future conflict between these two nations.
[i] Biddle, The
Journals of the Expedition, 1:52.
[ii] Thwaites, Original
Journals, 1:166-67.
[iii] Biddle, The
Journals of the Expedition, 1:53.
[iv] Thwaites, Original
Journals, 1:167; Biddle, The Journals
of the Expedition, 1:53.
[v] Biddle, The
Journals of the Expedition, 1:54.
[vi] Osgood, The
Field Notes of Captain William Clark, 150.
[vii] Biddle, The
Journals of the Expedition, 1:56.
[viii] Whitehouse, “The Journals of Joseph Whitehouse,”
87-8.
[ix] Osgood, The
Field Notes of Captain William Clark, 150.
[x] Ronda, Lewis
and Clark Among the Indians, 36.
[xii] Gass, “The Journals of Patrick Gass,” 46.
[xiii] Biddle, The
Journals of the Expedition, 1:56.
[xiv] Biddle, The
Journals of the Expedition, 1:56.
[xv] Whitehouse, “The Journals of Joseph Whitehouse,” 89.
[xvi] Osgood, The
Field Notes of Captain William Clark, 145.
[xvii] Biddle, The
Journals of the Expedition, 1:57.
[xviii] Whitehouse, “The Journals of Joseph Whitehouse,” 90.
[xix] Biddle, The
Journals of the Expedition, 1:57.
[xx] Whitehouse, “The Journals of Joseph Whitehouse,” 90.
[xxi] Gass, “The Journals of Patrick Gass,” 48.
[xxii] Biddle, The
Journals of the Expedition, 1:57-58.
[xxiii] Biddle, The
Journals of the Expedition, 1:58; Thwaites, Original Journals, 1:174.
[xxiv] Gass, “The Journals of Patrick Gass,” 274; Biddle, The Journals of the Expedition, 2:538.
[xxv] Thomas C. Cochran, The New American State Papers 1789-1860 Vol 1. (Delaware: Scholarly
Resources, 1972), 28.
[xxvii] Jackson, Letters
of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 1:310-312.
[xxviii] Bernard DeVoto, The
Course of Empire. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co, 1952), 445,48.
[xxix] Ostler, The
Plains Sioux, 2.
[xxx] Ronda, Lewis
and Clark Among the Indians, 30.
