Part one of a two part series on Lewis and Clark
It takes less than
a second for a first impression to be made. That one second can begin a
friendship or a lifetime of conflict. An introduction might end on a bad note,
but things change and the relationship could still be salvaged and future mishaps
can be avoided. Now, imagine you are working for a popular local company that
was just acquired by a global chain. Imagine that chain sends representatives
to your office to decide if they want to integrate your team into their system,
or just fire everyone and shut down the business. You would probably want to be
on your best behavior to make a fantastic first impression. If you made any
blunders just apologize and try to repair the damage.
Imagine that
the global chain was based in Germany and the representatives only spoke German.
Knowing no German yourself, your entire introduction and the future of your
career would hinge upon interpreters. The only problem is the company inadvertently
hired Scottish interpreters, men with a confusing accent and who only speak
German as a second language—I said this was a global company, not necessarily a
competent one. As everyone gathers together, the meeting is beginning to look bleak;
the language barrier is nothing short of impossible to cross.
Now reverse the
roles. You are now one of the German businessmen, you are part of a massive
company and were told to integrate this local company into your system. Not
only are you having interpretation issues, you view yourself as superior to the
people you are trying to communicate with. In your mind, Germany is more
advanced and your company is clearly superior—you just bought them out after
all. So the major businessmen have a superiority complex and the local
employees are struggling to even understand what is going on; the whole meeting
is a catastrophe. This is similar to the first interaction between the Lakota Nation
and the United States. The only difference is the stakes were much higher than
a job interview; it was survival.
The first meeting
between the Lakota and the United States goes all the way back to the September
of 1804. This was the year the Corps of Discovery began to explore the
Louisiana Purchase and would eventually travel all the way to the Pacific
Ocean. But, in order to fully understand the first meeting between the Lakota
and the United States you have to go back a year, to the date when President
Thomas Jefferson acquired the Louisiana Purchase from France. April 30, 1803.
Now France had just recently acquired the territory from Spain three years
prior, but because of war and domestic problems Napoleon Bonaparte sold the
land for some quick cash. One man’s problems became another man’s profit as the
size of the United States more then doubled in one day. It was not until the fourth
of July that news reached Washington and the new acquisition was publically
announced. In May of 1804, the following year, Meriwether Lewis and William
Clark set out to explore the new addition to the United States.
This
expedition, officially called the Corps of Discovery, did not begin with the
acquisition of the Louisiana territory; it was something Thomas Jefferson had
been planning for decades. An expedition to the Pacific Northwest was first
proposed in the 1780’s, but plans fell though. Jefferson tried a second time to
organize an expedition a few years later, but again he failed. Finally, he
became president in 1801 and was determined to launch a successful expedition
to the Pacific Ocean. Alexander Mackenzie completed a crossing of Canada to the
Pacific and Jefferson believed that the United States must follow suit or be in
danger of falling behind. One hope that Jefferson had was that the United
States could reach Oregon first and establish a claim before someone else
could—expansionism seemed to always be on his mind. Meriwether Lewis was
already hand picked by Thomas Jefferson, but he needed a sure fire way to get
the expedition off the ground.
The Louisiana
Purchase was just that. It gave Congress a reason to fully support an
expedition though the territory and they did just that. The green light was
given and Jefferson tapped Lewis on the shoulder to lead the Corps of
Discovery. In turn, Lewis asked Clark to co-lead with him and in May of 1804 Meriwether
Lewis and William Clark set out to explore the new addition to the United
States. They had several different objectives; one of them was to establish trade and diplomatic
relationships with local Native American tribes. During their escapades they
would interact with nearly fifty different Native American tribes. Of all these
tribes, the Lakota poised the biggest challenge; Lewis and Clark knew
trouble would surface once they reached the aggressive Lakota Nation. Still, they
remained undeterred and after a few months of travel they made first contact
with the Lakota.
Now, the first
Sioux tribe Lewis and Clark met was the Yankton’s. These Native Americans
proved to be friendly enough, the entire experience went exceedingly well. The
second were the Lakota, a stronger and more tenacious tribe that were part of the
Great Sioux Nation. The Sioux are a bit complicated and need to be explained
before this goes much further. The Sioux title is language based, dozens of
Native Americans spoke some form of the Siouan Language and were grouped
together as the Sioux. In particular, it was three tribes that formed the Great
Sioux Nation with who the word was first applied. Anthropologist and Professor Guy
Gibbon sums up its origin extremely well, saying:
They
speak three mutually intelligible dialects of the Siouan language family:
Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota. They became known as the Sioux, or a word like it,
in the seventeenth century, when their enemies, the Ojibwas, told the French
that that was what they were called. The word derives from the Ojibwa term Na
dou esse, which means “Snakelike Ones” or “Enemies.” The French spelled the
word Nadousioux, and the English and Americans shortened it to Sioux.[i]
Their enemies gave
the Sioux their name, and it stuck! Never mind the fact that Lakota means “friendly”
or “ally,” or that they call themselves the
Oceti Sakowin, it was “Snakelike” and “enemies” that stuck to them. Now,
the three Nations that composed the Oceti
Sakowin were: the Lakota, Yankton’s and the Santee. The name they gave themselves, Oceti Sakowin, means Seven Council Fires
and they were composed of seven smaller tribes.[ii] For
the sake of wanting to stay true to Native Americans, the terms Lakota and Seven
Council Fires will be used in favor of Teton Sioux and Great Sioux Nation,
respectively.
The Sioux subset
that Lewis and Clark encountered they called the Tetons, but are properly known
as the Lakota; possibly the most dogged and stalwart Indian tribe that fought
the United States during the Plains War of the late 19th century—certainly
the most famous.[iii] The
Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876 and the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1880 are
some of the most well known events in U.S. history! These battles featured some
of the most popular and famous Native Americans in Sitting Bull and Crazy
Horse, both of which were Lakota leaders. This one nation is involved in a
substantial segment of American history and everything began in the September
of 1804, when the Corps of Discovery first met Black Buffalo and Partisan.
On September 23rd
the Corps of Discovery heard three boys hail them as they sailed down the
Missouri River. The expedition was in modern day South Dakota and near the Bad
River; this was Lakota territory and Lewis believed the boys were almost
certainly some of them. The boys were welcomed aboard and informed the
expedition that two Lakota villages were encamped just up the river. Lewis and
Clark then requested to meet the chiefs the next day, asking if they could hold
a conference with them. The boys promised to tell their chiefs and Clark
thanked them and, “sent them back, with a present of two carrots of tobacco to
their chiefs.”[iv] A carrot of tobacco weighed about two
pounds and was literally shaped like a carrot; traders would roll a bundle of leaves in linen and then bind it with
cord. Clark offered it as a gift that showed good will and as an inducement to
exchange goods; this was a common way for Europeans to begin trade talks with
native tribes. Native Americans greatly valued tobacco and considered it a
sacred plant, often using it in a pipe ceremony celebrating the creation of
newly negotiated alliances. This was Clark’s hope, to forge an alliance with a
powerful nation.
The following
morning the expedition grounded on an island in the Teton River, which is now
called the Bad River. One of their men, John Colter, went on a successful hunt,
but when he returned to his horse he found it missing and was forced to trek
back on foot. When Colter arrived, he instantly told Lewis that Native
Americans stole his horse. Lewis ordered the men to search the area in an
attempt to discover who took the horse; soon five men were discovered standing
on the shore and Clark inquired about the missing horse through one of the
French interpreters. Clark emphasized the point that, “we were friends, &
wished to Continue So but were not afraid of any Indians.”[v]
One thing that
might be noticeable by now is the fact that William Clark was typically the
person who would talk to the Native Americans and was essentially the go to
person when interacting and negotiating with the natives. Meriwether Lewis was
well educated, but he had virtually no experience with Native Americans; on the
other hand Clark was raised on the frontier and fought for a number of years in
the Northwest Indian Wars. He was well versed with Native American affairs and
his plethora of interactions with them gave him invaluable experience. It was wise
delegation for Lewis to allow Clark the lead when it came to interaction with
the native people.
The French
interpreter was Pierre Cruzatte and he only had a rudimentary knowledge of the
Native Americans’ language. He
was one-eyed and nearsighted as well. He could barely take care of himself it
seemed, let alone take care of the entire expedition—he was not exactly someone
who would instill confidence in others! Originally recruited as a boatman, he
also served as interpreter because he knew the Omaha language. The only problem
with the Lakota was that they spoke Teton. Both dialects were connected to the
Siouan language, but they still branch into two completely different languages.
Going back to the introduction, the interpreter from the introduction was
Scottish, and he was hired to translate German to English—that is a parallel
circumstance to Cruzatte and the Lakota! Sargent Ordway commented on Cruzatte saying,
“We had no good interpreter, but the old frenchman could make them understand
tollarable well."[vi]
The fate of diplomacy hinged on tolerability.
Going back to the missing horse, Clark claimed
it was a gift that “their great father had sent for their great chief.”[vii]
He also threatened that the expedition, “would not speak to them until the
horse was returned to us.”[viii]
This was nothing more than a ruse to get their horse back; Clark did not expect
the men to be honest about the horse. He believed manipulation was the best
option to reacquire their valuable horse, but it didn’t work. The Native Americans
denied any recollection of a horse, and it was never recorded that the horse
was returned. However, as their conversation progressed, the expedition learned
that the Lakota chiefs would be arriving in the morning. The first direct
interaction between the Lakota and the Corps of Discovery was over thievery and
deceit, something that remained a staple of their interactions for the next
eighty years.
The men spent the
night with the expedition, and the following morning three Lakota chiefs and
about sixty warriors arrived. The primary chief was Black Buffalo; he commanded
the largest group of Lakota Sioux and had a commanding influence. He was also
the maternal grandfather of Crazy Horse—the Lakota war chief that defeated
General Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876. His genealogy not only
proved to valiantly fight for Native American rights, but it was one of the
biggest thorns in the side of the United States thirst for imperial conquest.
Lewis and Clark
went though a traditional ceremony of acknowledgement with the chiefs. They announced
that the Spanish and French no longer own the land, but the father of seventeen
nations, President Jefferson, now owned it and only wanted peace, friendship
and trade. The ceremony included giving
the “grand chief a medal, a flag of the United States, a laced uniform coat, a
cocked hat and feather [and] to the two other chiefs a medal and some small
presents; and to two warriors of consideration certificates.”[ix] Clark
wrote that the chiefs and warriors seemed very grateful to receive gifts and
the ceremony went exceedingly well.
After the
semantics of the ceremony, Black Buffalo and the two chiefs who came with him,
Buffalo Medicine and Partisan went aboard Lewis and Clark’s boat for several
hours. Guns and other random curiosities were displayed to the chiefs in an
attempt to show friendship and open commerce possibilities. They believed that
a show of power was the best way to convince the Lakota to forge an alliance
with them. It was the whiskey that drew the most attention, the chiefs quickly
drank a quarter bottle and sucked every last drop from it. At once they became
obstinate, the Native Americans tasted whiskey and saw a copious amount of tobacco
on the boat—they wanted more and refused to leave.
After some
coaxing, Clark finally convinced them to leave and then put them into a pirogue
to row them back to shore. As they reached the shore, the chiefs began to loudly
proclaim that they were extremely poor and requested that Clark leave one of
their pirogues with them.[x] This
was a tactic the Lakota had used before, demand more then they were given and
if it is refused, take it anyways. The difference this time is that the Corps
of Discovery had the firepower to back themselves up, unlike previous traders. One
of the privates with them, Joseph Whitehouse, wrote that Clark was onboard with
the chiefs because he feared “some treachery from those savages.”[xi] They
expected their tense interactions to erupt into violence and prepared for the
worst, everyone was on edge as the pirogue reached shore.
Almost immediately
“three of the Indians seized the cable of the periogue, and one of the soldiers
of the chief put his arms around the mast.”[xii]
Partisan suddenly began to act inebriated and demanded more presents, just as
the expedition was warned. Clark’s worst fears began to materialize on the
shoreline. He recorded the chief as, “pretending drunkenness & staggering
up against me.”[xiii]
Clark refused to give any more gifts; he knew the Native Americans were
attempting to manipulate them and would have none of it. He told him that they
could not stop the expedition, proclaiming that they, “were not squaws, but
warriors; we were sent by our great father, who could in a moment exterminate
them.”[xiv] In
one sentence he not only warned the Lakota of their strength, but also insulted
them—insinuating they were the ‘squaws.’ He was prepared for hell to break
loose and giving into their demands was not an option. The Lakota believed that
“if the white man’s party were strong there would be trade; if it were weak,
there was the possibility of plunder.” The
Corps of Discovery were not a defenseless trading party; they warned the Native
Americans that the expedition was, “strong enough and resolute enough to defend
itself.”[xv] Partisan
retorted that he had warriors and would resort to violence. This was an
incredibly tense standoff, the Lakota were testing the Corps of Discovery and
the expedition was flexing its muscles in order to starve off violence. The
warnings from Jefferson and previous traders was flying though William Clark’s
mind, he probably thought that diplomacy was scrapped and was more concerned
with ensuring that his men would be able to continue on without suffering too
much damage. Clark was a smart soldier and a man who greatly valued diplomacy
and friendship with Native Americans over war.
The warriors already had “their bows Strung
and guns Cocked” according to Clark, so he “sent all the men except two
[interpreters] to the boat.”[xvi] One
of those interpreters was the Omaha speaking Cruzatte. Clark then drew his
sword and ordered the expedition to prepare to fight; he needed to stand
firm. A pirogue with twelve armed men
instantly joined him and everyone was prepared for a fight.
[i] Guy Gibbon, “Sioux.” University of Nebraska-Lincoln,
2011. Accessed: Sept 3, 2014. http://plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/doc/egp.na.107
[ii] Jeffery Ostler, The
Plains Sioux and U.S. Colonialism From Lewis and Clark to Wounded Knee.
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 21.
[iii] Lewis and Clark recorded these Native American people
as Teton; this article uses their linguistic name of Lakota, which means
“friend” or “allies.”
[iv] Nicholas Biddle, The
Journals of the Expedition Under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark Vol
1. (New York: Heritage Press, 1962), 50.
[v] Reuben Gold Thwaites, Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition Vol 1. (New
York: Antiquarian Press, 1959), 163.
[vi] Bernard Augustine De Voto, The Journals of Lewis and Clark. (Houghton-Mifflin Trade and
Reference, 1997), 36.
[vii] Biddle, The
Journals of the Expedition, 1:51. The particular dialect these Tetons spoke
was Lakota, but most likely Cruzatte spoke Omaha to them. Both languages are
part of the Siouan family.
[viii] Thwaites, Original
Journals, 1:163.
[ix] Biddle, The
Journals of the Expedition, 1:52.
[x] Gass, “The Journals of Patrick Gass,” 45.
[xi] Joseph Whitehouse, “The Journals of Joseph
Whitehouse,” in The Journals of the Lewis
& Clark Expedition, ed. Gary E. Moulton, vol 11, (Lincoln: University
of Nebraska Press, 1997), 86. In the journal of private Whitehouse the word
“savages” is written over “Indians” during his recount of the first Teton
meeting. A telling sign that the expedition was probably seriously upset at
their experience with the Tetons.
[xii] Biddle, The
Journals of the Expedition, 1:52.
[xiii] Thwaites, Original
Journals, 1:165.
[xiv] Biddle, The
Journals of the Expedition, 1:52.
[xvi] Ibid, 145;
Thwaites, Original Journals, 1:165.
