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Historical Background

Hunting and other activities

Hunting was a major function. Plentiful game—antelope, deer, elk, buffalo—supplemented vegetables obtained from the Indians, but sometimes it was located many miles away and long sleigh hauls were necessary. At other times, animals came close to Fort Mandan, apparently seeking shelter along the river breaks from the cold winds of the Plains. Other chores were gathering firewood and making moccasins and clothes. To obtain corn from the Indians, Lewis and Clark set their blacksmiths to work on trade items. Utilizing a sheet iron stove that had been damaged, they made battleaxes, arrow points, and scrapers (used to separate flesh from buffalo hides before tanning).

But, during the long winter nights, the men found time to relax around the fire. Cruzatte's fiddle provided music for frequent dances. [80] Christmas and New Years were also celebrated with drinking and feasting. On the former occasion, a U.S. flag was hoisted and saluted with a shot from the keelboat cannon.

Some of the Mandans paid visits to the fort, where they were allowed during the day. On special occasions, Lewis and Clark authorized members of the party to visit their villages. Less friendly were the Minitaris, whose towns were farther away anyway. The Mandan women, as promiscuous as the Arikaras, passed on venereal disease to their paramours. York was again highly popular with the natives. Because none of them had seen a black man before, he elicited exceptional curiosity. The Minitari principal chief Le Borgne ("One-Eye"), who had heard reports about him, examined him closely. The astonished Le Borgne suspected a trick. Unable to rub off the "black paint" from York's body with his moistened fingers, he was only convinced that York was indeed black when he examined his scalp through his hair.

Any boredom was alleviated by recurring rumors of Sioux attacks on Fort Mandan. The Tetons did make raids in the area, but on only one occasion did the expedition's members become involved with them. In February Clark ranged far afield on a 9-day hunt. Killing more meat than he could transport, when he returned to the fort he dispatched Drouillard with three men and three horse-drawn sleighs to retrieve it. A large band of Sioux, numbering more than 100, jumped the party and stole two horses and the knives of two of the men. Lewis and 24 men later pursued the culprits without success. The only other Indians encountered were some Cheyennes, who traveled up from the Arikara to the Mandan villages; and bands of Assiniboins, who lived to the north of the Mandans and Minitaris and came to trade for corn.

York, whose blackness and strength incited interest among the natives, contributed substantially to the success of the expedition. This painting of a scene in a Mandan lodge shows a chief, suspicious of York's color, trying to rub it off. (Oil by Russell. Montana Historical Society.)

Learning of the country to the west

Highly concerned as they were with their westward route in the spring and the nature of the land and its occupants, Lewis and Clark zealously questioned the Mandans and Minitaris on these subjects. The two leaders possessed only a rudimentary knowledge about them, based mostly on information they had obtained in St. Louis from people who had never visited the area.

The Minitaris had. Their war and hunting parties had ranged far to the west, some of them penetrating the Rocky Mountains. The tribe possessed an intimate knowledge of the terrain, drainage, and inhabitants of the Upper Missouri country all the way to the Three Forks, as well as good understanding of the area beyond up to the Bitterroot Mountains. Tracing stream courses with charcoal on animal hides or with a stick in the dirt and heaping up mounds of earth to show the main mountain ranges, the Minitaris provided Lewis and Clark with exceedingly valuable information about the region—much more probably than any white men had ever possessed before.

The Indians told of the Yellowstone and its tributaries and the Great Falls of the Missouri. They explained that the Missouri was navigable nearly to its source. They said that in the country west of the point that it branched into three forks (Three Forks) was a tribe (the Shoshonis) that possessed many horses. The northernmost fork of the three would lead to a route across the Rockies. Just west of the Continental Divide at the base of the mountains ran a big northward-flowing river (apparently the Lemhi-Salmon or Bitterroot Rivers or the combination of them). Lewis and Clark hypothesized this to be a south fork of the Columbia River, particularly because their native informants said that a tribe (the Flatheads) residing along this stream north of the westernmost area frequented by the Shoshonis lived principally on large fish, which the two captains assumed to be salmon.

For the crossing of the Rockies, the Minitaris described two routes, both requiring a considerable amount of land travel: the easier one led west just beyond the Great Falls to the Bitterroot River; the second, far more difficult, continued up the Missouri from the Great Falls to the Three Forks, moved up the Jefferson and Beaverhead Rivers, crossed the divide to the Lemhi River, and then went down it to the Salmon River. For some reason, the two captains misunderstood the nature of the first of the routes, and apparently applied the information the Minitaris presented to the second. The captains were also to interpret incorrectly some of the other data presented by the Minitaris. Most of it, however, was essentially accurate, even on details.

One subject of special interest to Lewis and Clark in their queries to the Minitaris—the possible existence of a navigable tributary of the Missouri flowing into it from the north—involved a farsighted goal of President Jefferson in the realm of international geopolitics. Such a stream would be part of the Missouri drainage and the Mississippi system, whose farthest reaches he hoped would extend to at least 49° and hopefully to 50°, which he planned to propose to Great Britain as the northern boundary of the Louisiana Purchase. This boundary had not been defined at the time the United States acquired Louisiana from France in 1803 nor had a comparable boundary ever been specified in earlier treaties—Treaty of Utrecht (1713), Treaty of Paris (1763), Treaty of Paris (1783), and Jay's Treaty (1794)—transferring territory in North American between the major powers.

A second reason for the interest in a northern tributary of the Missouri, which the Minitaris said did exist, was Jefferson's feeling that such a river, even if a portage were involved, would provide an entree to the rich fur trade of present Canada and in time, hopefully, to U.S. control of it.