Explorers, Fur Traders, and Native Peoples on the UpperMissouri: A History of the Naming of la Grande Rivierre
Written by John P. Joyce
Edited by: Roger Schauer
Introduction:
I live on a ridge three miles south from the town of Hettinger, North Dakota overlooking the beautiful, broad Grand River Valley. Steep cut banks six miles to the south defines the Grand River’s meandering course as it collides and grinds against its bank and high bluffs with the spring thaw or heavy upstream rain. A backdrop of inspiring, rugged buttes, grasslands and an endless horizon appear to anoint the river. On clear, crisp days the view can take your breath away. It is in these moments I am most often reminded of the Arikara, Mandan, Lakota, and Cheyenne who once lived here and hunted the buffalo. Early explorers, fur traders and trappers migrated through here as well. The big cattle outfits eventually came and were followed by the Norwegians, Swedes and Germans who immigrated to the area and tried to make a go at farming the land or to live and work in the many small towns that dotted the prairie. Most of their descendants have been gone now for several decades, and the prairie has reclaimed many of the old homestead and stage station sites except for a shallow depression or two in some. Stone circles are ever so slowly disappearing as well from the encroaching prairie sod. Traces of travois, wagon, and buffalo trails still persist if one knows where to look. One day these too will vanish.
Change is inevitable and adapting to change on the Dakota prairie has always posed significant challenges. Our resilience and capacity for change largely depends on community and spirit of place. Generational stories serve to bind and enrich us. As well stated by Clay Jenkinson in The Language of Cottonwoods, “Almost everyone has a homeplace.” The Grand River and its landscape has likely been a homeplace for people over thousands of years.
The Grand River and its landscape of buttes and unending sky has likely been a homeplace for people over thousands of years. Photo by FM Berg.
Each river in the Upper Missouri region is layered with old names. Most are unknown with the exception of those known from oral traditions. Some current river names are English translations from native place names. For example, our family farm in northwest North Dakota overlooks the White Earth River and its rugged valley. According to Geology of the Lewis and Clark Trail in North Dakota, by John Hoganson and Edward C. Murphy, the name White Earth is believed to be derived from a Hidatsa word meaning “white clay sand.” Likewise, the place-name, Yellowstone River, is an English translation from its original French name, “Riviere des Roches Jaunes.” However, credit the Hidatsa again since R des Roches is the French translation from the Hidatsa “Yellow Rock River.”
This paper explores an in depth, comprehensive history of the Grand River name origin, and to recognize other former and present names for the river — the Arikara River, We tar hoo River, and the R au Corn. It would be no surprise to me if one day la Grande Rivierre was found to be a French translation of a previous native name for “big” or “large” river or river valley. This paper also explores to some degree the danger, loss and mystery that peoples who lived in or moved through the Upper Missouri region were confronted with. Life was wild and unpredictable then as it had been for many thousands of years.
The Explorers:
Vous ne ferez assavloir combien que je p[eux] metre [=mettre] de paquet Dans un
canot de dix peau pour decendre la grande rivierre, pour moi jai Jamais decendue
cette rivierre la. (1837, letter of Joseph Halcrow, Grand River, South Dakota, to Pierre
Didier Papin, Fort Pierre, Dec.16, MHS, Chouteau Collection, reel 25, frame 243).
[You can inform me how many packs I can put into a canoe of ten hides to descend the
Grand River, for I myself have never descended that river.][1,2]
French voyageurs (boatmen) and coureurs de bois (unlicensed traders) began their ascent up the Missouri River from St. Louis as early as the 1680s. There is oral history and physical evidence of a Frenchman living with the Arikaras as early as 1700. It is no surprise then that virtually every stream the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery encountered in their 1804 ascent of the Missouri to the Mandan villages of North Dakota had already been named by the French. Many of these names remain to this day, though many in translation.[3]
In 1724 there was a written account by a Frenchman by the name of Derbanne who completed a mission to record details for Missouri River upstream navigation eighteen years earlier in 1706. He apparently ascended the Missouri 400 leagues (1 league equals approximately 2.6 miles) from its mouth. As noted anthropologist and author, Raymond Wood, pointed out, if the 400 league ascent was correct, Derbanne would have reached a point well above the White River in present-day South Dakota. That was the furthest north than any other recorded French explorer had achieved at the time on the Upper Missouri River. “Upper Missouri River” is defined as all of the Missouri River above the mouth of the Platte River in Nebraska. [4]
In 1714 French explorer Etienne Veniard de Bourgmont, Commandant de la Riviere du Missouri, was ordered at New Orleans to ascend the Missouri River in order to establish contact with and sign peace treaties with the Native tribes he encountered. He reached the mouth of the Platte River in present Nebraska and engaged with the Oto tribe on the lower reaches of that river. What made his written account, L’ Exacte description de la Louisianne, exceptional was his documentation of conversations he had with the Missouri River native peoples, assisted by the coureurs du bois who knew and were able to interpret them. Bourgmont was told that some Frenchmen have moved as far north as the Arikara villages in present-day South Dakota. In his account he noted that the Arikaras “have seen the French and know them.” Indeed, Raymond Wood points out that one such early French trader died in northern South Dakota sometime around 1700 at the Swan Creek Arikara village archaeological site located on a high terrace just below and opposite the mouth of the Moreau River. The presumed French trader was buried by the Arikaras in their burial ground among his former customers. Incredibly, in the 1990s the remains of a forty-to-fifty-year-old caucasian male were discovered by forensic anthropologists studying internments at an Arikara burial ground associated with the Swan Creek site, a village that was previously estimated to have been occupied between about 1675 and 1725.[5] Only modern forensic techniques made it possible for his identification among the Arikara with whom he had lived.[6]
In April,1738, Pierre de la Verendrye and his sons set out from Fort La Reine, a French fur trading post on the Assiniboine River some sixty mileswest from modern Winnipeg, to establish trade relations with the Mandan Indians. They were likely the first Europeans to have visited a Mandan village, the location of which remains a mystery though probably in the present Bismarck/Mandan area. Two of La Verendrye’s sons, sent by their father in 1742 to find the Western Sea, visited the same Mandan village. From there, they set out on an exploration of southwest North Dakota, western South Dakota, and Wyoming perhaps as far as the Big Horn Mountains. They may have crossed the Grand River early in their journey. By March 1743, according to historian Elizabeth Fenn, they encountered several Arikara villages located near the mouth of the Bad River with the Missouri near present day Pierre, South Dakota. It was in 1913 on a hilltop above the west bank of the Missouri River opposite Pierre that Hattie May Foster and her playmates found a plaque buried 170 years earlier by the two La Verendrye sons. During their stay with the Arikara’s the La Verendryes were told that “A Frenchman had been settled there for several years just three days away.” Intrigued, they had the Arikaras take a letter to this unknown Frenchman but did not get a response.[7] Since the La Verendryes were going to be traveling north to Canada from the Arikara villages it could be assumed that the unknown Frenchman must have been downriver near the Grand Detour (now called the Big Bend) of the Missouri River in South Dakota. It is compelling that both physical evidence and written records exist in documenting the early presence of French explorers and coureus du bois on the Upper Missouri River and Arikara villages.[8] It is also quite remarkable given these encounters occurred at least sixty-one years prior to the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery’s ascent up the river from St. Louis in 1804.[9]
Hidatsa Village Mih-tutta-hangkusch from the Joslyn Art Museum for the Karl Bodmer Art Collection.
Throughout the second half of the eighteenth century the Upper Missouri explorers, coureurs du bois and voyageurs fanned out beyond the Missouri on rivers such as la rivierre Platte (present Platte River) into Nebraska and Colorado, and la rivierre Grande into the western reaches of North and South Dakota and Montana. Most of these explorers and coureus du bois originally migrated from Canada and the northern reaches of the US to St. Louis and its nearby settlements via the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Others traveled across Iowa or southern Minnesota from Prairie du Chien, located on the confluence of the Wisconsin and Mississippi Rivers in southwestern Wisconsin.[10] By the time of the cession of French Louisiana Territory to Spain in 1763 it was reasonably clear that, considering also the activities of the Verendryes, the French had already explored the Missouri River from its mouth to the Mandan villages. [11]
In 1792, Jacques d’Eglise, a Frenchman operating under a Spanish license, became the first trader documented to reach the Mandan villages from St. Louis. As the crow flies the distance from St. Louis to the Mandan and Hidatsa villages located at or near the Knife River-Missouri confluence is about a thousand miles. However, given the winding Missouri River course, d’Eglise would have traveled almost double that distance. He reported meeting a Frenchman from Canada by the name of Menard who had already been living with the Mandan for fourteen years. Menard informed d’Eglise that, given “only fifteen days march” from the British trading posts on the Assiniboine River, the Mandans had an established relationship with fur traders/explorers employed by the Hudson’s Bay (HBC) and North West Companies (NWC). Notable visitors from Canada included Donald Mackay of the NWC who visited the Mandans in 1781, James Mackay in 1787, and David Thompson in 1797.[12] Elizabeth Fenn points out that between 1787 and 1804, with the arrival of Lewis and Clark, at least thirty-nine parties of traders—North West, Hudson’s Bay and free traders—visited the Mandan and Hidatsa from Canada’s Assiniboine River region. Yet, it appears the Canadian traders, perhaps wary of jeopardizing their relationship with the Mandan, did not explore or engage in trade further downstream the Missouri River to any extent.[13] There were many French Canadian voyageurs, who like Menard, for various reasons, migrated to Louisiana Territory. Most eventually ended up working for fur trading companies out of St. Louis.
Up until 1795 there were no credible maps of the Missouri River above the riviere Platte. James Mackay, the former Canadian fur trader/explorer turned Spanish citizen and now in St. Louis, was asked by the Spanish authorities among other things to ascend, survey and map the Missouri River to its source. He recruited John Evans, a Welshman and skilled surveyor, who had traveled to the United States in order to search for a long lost Welsh tribe believed to have discovered the New World in the year 1170. He and other nationalist Welsh came to a believe the lost tribe, possibly the Mandans, was established on the upper reaches of the Missouri.[14] Inevitably, based on his acquaintances with various tribes once he reached the Mandan, Evans concluded there were no such people.
James Mackay was arguably the best informed man on the geography of the Upper Missouri. The Mackay and Evans expedition of 1795-1797 produced geographical information that was the best available for the region until 1805.[15] The Mackay and Evans maps accurately depicted the course of the Missouri and every significant tributary of the river all the way to the Mandan villages. Evans did not speak French so we can assume he obtained the French names for many of the streams from French fur traders he met on the river and from his “engages” (common French laborers) hired to pole or tow their Berchas (flat bottomed barge boats) and pirogues upriver. Only a few of the less important streams remained for Lewis and Clark to name.[16]
Copies of Mackay and Evans maps were very limited. Thomas Jefferson managed to get a complete copy of them which were carried by Lewis and Clark on their 1804-1806 expedition. James Mackay actually met with Lewis and Clark at their winter base camp at the mouth of the Missouri prior to setting out on their expedition. He presented them with his and Evan’s journals, and passed on details about the Missouri River and the tribes they would likely come into contact with. The maps and journals proved to be vitally important to the Corps of Discovery. Whether or not Lewis and Clark were ever aware of John Evan’s obsession with the lost tribe of the Welsh, they had much to be thankful for his contribution to the maps. John Evans became despondent upon his return to St. Louis in July, 1797 and less than two years later at age 29 he died of chronic malaria in New Orleans. The location of his grave is unknown. Since he happened to die during a malaria epidemic in New Orleans he was likely buried in an unmarked mass grave.[17] Link to the Upper Missouri maps of John Evans/William Clark
The Arikara, Mandan and Hidatsa:
Pushed by drought conditions in the central plains, by 1200 AD ancestral Arikaras were migrating into central and upper South Dakota. Jones Village was an ancestral Arikara village established around 1200 AD on the east side of the Missouri River above the Grand River confluence. This was about the time the ancestral Mandans and Hidatsa’s established their first villages. The Arikara eventually encountered the ancestral Mandan located below the Missouri-Heart River confluence and at Menoken Village located ten miles east of Bismarck on Apple Creek. Menoken Village was the first known permanent village in North Dakota dating back to early 1200 AD. By 1450 AD the Mandan villages were centered at the Missouri-Heart River confluence in North Dakota. Ancestral Hidatsa of the Awatixa subgroup established Flaming Arrow Village forty-five miles northwest of Menokin Village. Their oral tradition says they were always there. They were later followed by the other two Hidatsa subgroups who settled more northward at the confluence of the Knife and Missouri Rivers. The Mandan and Hidatsa eventually coalesced to a similar degree as did the Mandan with the Arikara. Noted archaeologist Fern Swenson and UND historian Barbara Handy-Marchello, in their 2018 book, Traces: Early Peoples of North Dakota, describe how the people of these villages adopted new technologies from one another in growing corn, beans and squash, as well as produce storage, ceramics and permanent earth lodges. Yet, they maintained their distinct tribal autonomies by maintaining their language, stories and traditions. Over the years periodic violence at times did break out between them, usually brought on by food scarcity, rivalries and tribal trade competition. By the year 1650 AD the two great pre-European contact trading centers on the Upper Missouri were located between the Heart and Knife River confluences and the Arikara villages near the Cheyenne River confluence. It would be accurate to say the Mandan were at the center of trade on the Missouri River for the upper plains nomadic tribes.[18,19]
By the time fur trader Jean-Baptiste Truteau of St. Louis arrived at the two Arikara villages located near the mouth of the Cheyenne River in May, 1795, the Arikara people were greatly reduced in numbers by the devastating smallpox epidemic in 1781-82. Truteau was told that smallpox spread among them at three different times reducing their number of villages from thirty-two to the two present Cheyenne River villages formed by remnant survivors. It was possible there were yet a much smaller village or two around the mouth of the Moreau River. This catastrophic decline in population made the Arikara bands all the more vulnerable to attack by less disease-impacted nomadic tribes, particularly the Lakota, which put pressure on the Arikara to move further north from their villages in central South Dakota. [20,21]
In November or December, 1795 the Arikara relocated their two villages upstream near the mouth of the the Grand River. Truteau accompanied the Arikara and remained among them until May of 1796 when he began his descent of the Missouri River back to St. Louis. He never mentioned a place-name for the Grand River or an alternate name such as the Arikara River. He would not have been very impressed in viewing the Grand River in December of 1995 or the following early spring. The country encompassing the Grand River drainage from the confluence through the North and South Dakota borderlands to its origin on the divide with the Little Missouri River tends to significantly dry up by August. Consequently the river slows to a near-trickle by the fall. In Truteau’s ‘Description of the Upper Missouri’ he noted that “above the mouth of the Cheyenne River on the west side of the Missouri are found five small rivers. The Mandan villages are estimated to be one-hundred leagues distant from the Cheyenne River.”[22] Of the “five small rivers” Truteau would most likely have been told their names by Jacques d’Eglise, an interpreter or Old Menard, who came down from the Mandan villages and visited Truteau at the Cheyenne villages in September, 1795. Truteau might have thought the rivers too insignificant to bother naming them or could have gotten confused in associating which river with a given name or didn’t know their names in the first place. There actually are only four rivers—la rivierre au Moreau (present Moreau River);[23] la rivierre Grande (present Grand River);[24] la rivierre a la Bombe (present Cannonball River);[25] and la rivierre du Cote (present Heart River).[26] There are many creeks, any one of which could be mistaken for the “fifth” river.
In June,1803, fur trader/clerk Pierre Antoine Tabeau temporarily joined James Mackay’s expedition from St. Louis to the Omaha Indians in the vicinity of present-day Sioux City, Iowa. From there Tabeau continued upstream and eventually took up residence with the Arikara who, at the time, numbered about three thousand people and were settled in two large villages on the west side of the Missouri and an island village—all three a few miles above the Grand River-Missouri confluence.[27] Tabeau was born in Montreal in 1755 into a family noted to have produced three generations of voyageurs and coureurs du bois. He was highly educated in Montreal and Quebec (seminary school) before going west as an engage (laborer) in his brother’s canoe. Considered a French-Canadian voyager to the core, yet he became a US citizen in Illinois in 1785. Tabeau wintered with the Arikara in 1803-04 and subsequently divided his duties between a fur trading post on Cedar Island located just below present Chamberlain, South Dakota as well as with his post at the Grand River villages. By the beginning of 1805, according to his narrative report, he had about eight months experience in living with the Arikara. He resided in the Arikara village on Ashley Island (now inundated by the Oahe Reservoir) where his trading post was also located. During his time on the Missouri River Tabeau wrote what is likely the first extensive description of buffalo on the Upper Missouri. He never commented in his journal about the “Grand River” place-name nor by an alternate name such as “R au Corn” which had appeared on the Mackay-Evans maps. Tabeau was blessed with his two interpreters, Joseph Gravelines and Joseph Garreau, both of whom had lived with the Arikara and Mandan for many years. Through them he was able to document that both the Lakota and the Arikara themselves referred to the Grand River as the “Arikara River” in their own languages. The Arikara River place-name implies the Arikara formerly had their residence there for a long period.[28] Indeed, there are a large number of pre- and protohistoric former Arikara village sites such as Jones Village near the Grand River confluence as well as others up and down the Missouri in South Dakota. Villages tended to move for environmental reasons such as local deforestation so it would make sense that many of these sites would be Arikara in origin. Taking into consideration their ancestral origin, the Arikara can say they intermittently resided in the vicinity of the Grand River confluence since about 1200 AD.[29]
Years later, before his death in 1820, Tabeau reworked his original 1803-1804 narrative. This revised manuscript from the original, discovered in the late 1920s at the Archives of the Church in Montreal, proved to be more detailed and precise as to time and place. Tabeau was unique for the time he lived with the Arikara. Not surprisingly, as with most observers of indigenous people, his observations and opinions of native lifeways were often misconstrued. Tabeau did have valuable insights into Arikara tribal factionalism and of the symbiotic trading relationship between the Lakotas and Arikara which he passed on to the Corps of Discovery.[30]
Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery:
On October 8, 1804, as the Lewis and Clark expedition’s large keelboat and two pirogues came up to the Arikara village of Sawa-haini on Ashley Island, located a couple miles above the Grand-Missouri confluence, Captain William Clark noted the two to three mile long island was “covered with fields, where those people raise their corn, tobacco, beans etc.” Sawa-haini contained about sixty earth lodges, most constructed 30 to 40 feet in diameter. The two captains were eager to meet Pierre Tabeau because they were told in St. Louis he could give them much information about the Upper Missouri tribes. Later that day Captain Meriwether Lewis did meet Tabeau who reassured him that the Arikaras were “all friendly and glad to see us.” On October 9, with Gravelines’ and Tabeau’s interpretive assistance, the Arikara and Americans spent the day visiting each other. In the ensuing days up to their departure on Oct 12, Lewis and Clark met with the tribal chiefs and several principal men. Also present at the village were two Lakota representatives who were recognized by Clark as present during a tense stand-off with the Lakota several days before in their attempt to hold up the expedition at the Bad River mouth. Despite the background agitation of the two Lakota, thanks to Tabeau’s positive relationship with key Arikara leaders, no hostile attempts were made against the Corps of Discovery during their stay. On the contrary, the Arikara provided a relaxing atmosphere for the explorers who enjoyed the Indian food and hospitality. Unfortunately, as historian James P. Ronda puts it, despite Tabeau’s own imperfect though somewhat useful information along with an added dose of naivety by the two captains, Lewis and Clark did not fully understand the fractured cohesiveness among the many Arikara bands and their leaders. Additionally, Lewis and Clark underestimated the principle that the way to prestige and power among the men of all tribes was to gain honors in warfare. With a better understanding, they might have sensed how formidable a task it would be to cure old hurts and rearrange traditional alliances such as the Lakota-Arikara trade alliance. Arikara life was based on the production of agricultural surpluses that would have little interest by the American fur trade, except to round out their meat diet or when the buffalo was scare in the winter, given its focus on lucrative beaver pelts. The Lakota middlemen were both suppliers of trade-manufactured goods and customers for Arikara corn and horses. It’s no wonder the Arikara leaders continued their uneasy alliance with the Lakota, and for much of the next three decades the Arikara proved to be stubborn foes to the opening of the Upper Missouri.[31]
Of note, the official MHA Nation website of the Three Affiliated Tribes, the Sahnish (Arikara) refer to the Grand River as the Arikara River. Sahnish is the chosen name among themselves, which means “the original people from whom all other tribes sprang.” The website history link also states that “according to oral historians the names “Arikara, Arickara, Ricarees, and Rees” were given to them by the Pawnee and other informants to describe the way they wore their hair.” Within the context of historical accuracy, however, the website says it is acceptable to use the name of “Arikara.”[32]
William Clark noted in his journal entry for Oct. 8,1804 that they “passed the mouth of a river called by the ricares “We tar hoo.” He was evidently referring to “R au Corn,” recorded by John Evans seven years before. Evan’s written notes are lost, so we don’t know the origin of the name R au Corn. Clark liked to name or rename rivers, creeks and islands and write them in on the Mackay and Evans maps they carried. However, Clark did not write in “We tar hoo” on his copy of the 1795-97 Evans map though he may have written R au Corn. Later, in Clark’s maps published in 1814, “R au Corn'“ was replaced with “We tar hoo.”[33]
As the Corps of Discovery proceeded upstream to the Mandan villages on October 12, Arikara hereditary chief, Too-ne, and Clark took a long walk together along the Missouri shore. Clark later summed up their conversation for his journal: “This chief tells me of a number of treditions about Turtles, Snakes, &, the power of a perticiler rock or Cave on the next river which informs of everr thing none of those I think is worth while mentioning.”[34] At this point Clark was focusing largely on physical geographical map details. Too ne did eventually influence William Clark to add ethnographic information into his copy of the Mackay-Evans map which he later did that winter. Noted author and historian, Clay Jenkinson, has insights as to what Too ne was trying to tell Clark. For example, the “next river” is the Cannonball River, and the “perticuler rock or Cave” would have to be Medicine Rock, a sacred native site for a long time— perhaps thousands of years. It is located on a nondescript butte south of Elgin and about 70 miles west of the Missouri. Medicine Rock sits on a common butte with an unimpressive sandstone outcrop on top that has on it several identifiable petroglyphs (pecked images) and pictographs (painted figures) that is the sacred rock. Here on the prairie the sacred is in the ordinary. Its big view of the surrounding prairie, however, is amazing. William Clark did eventually place it on his map.[35] Link to LewisandClarktrails.com for Knife River Village/ Fort Mandan maps
Too Ne’s own maps incorporated the spiritual with the geographical and historical. That is in sharp contrast for those who just want an uncluttered road map that gets us from point A to point B the fastest. Thad Hecker, an archaeologist with the State Historical Society of ND from 1937-1950, observed “how Indian trails crisscrossed the prairie in every direction following rivers, winding in and around ponds, berry patches, gravel knolls and following easy grades with dry footing according to the contour of the area passed over.” Hecker noted that the non-native temperament is to get to places quickly—a straight road that bludgeoned through the landscape. Meanwhile, “the Indian meandered along leaving a small imprint on the landscape and was in no hurry to arrive.”[36] For Native people, their entire life way beliefs and experiences were and still are centered around the sacredness of the natural world.
In Clay Jenkinson’s 2021 book of essays on the future of North Dakota, The Language of Cottonwoods, he quotes an unknown Lakota elder who perhaps says it best about sacred places such as Medicine Rock:
“The Sacred is like the rain. It falls everywhere but pools in certain places.”[37]
Most of us would agree that it is really difficult for non-native people to experience the true depth, meaning and mysteries of native spirituality and religion. However, many of us may have encountered something similar to Medicine Rock through the mystery and sacredness of “thin places” —out in the natural world , inside a church, or even while sitting in a crowded subway car. It is an experience unique to each person that, among other things, invites us into a keen awareness or a vision, possibly pictorial, of the Divine in everyone and everything—family, strangers, neighbors, one’s enemies, a leaf, rocks, caves, turtles, snakes, Sister Moon, Brother Sun…
Looking back once more as the Corps of Discovery pulled away with much fanfare from the Grand River Arikara villages on October 12,1804, as reported by Tabeau and put into perspective by noted writer and historian, James P. Ronda, the Arikara people had been left with a “strange set of impressions.” First, they had never seen so many white visitors. Secondly, the intentions and behavior of the captains, and the power of their technology such as the sextant and magnet were viewed by the Arikara as medicine. There also was the mystique of York, Clark’s African slave. All these produced a “vivid folklore.” (both above quotes are from James Ronda.) Kakawita, the most popular of the Arikara chiefs, later reported to Tabeau these shared impressions among the people about the Lewis and Clark expedition. “In their opinion,” wrote Tabeau, “the explorers were on a special vision quest.” Indeed they were, and perhaps most of all, Meriwether Lewis—a vision quest on behalf of a young nation.[38,39]
A great example of a vision quest pertaining to America subsequently occurred on November 24, 1805, in the form of a crucial vote or canvass that included the entire expedition party as recorded in William Clark’s journal. This concerned a significant question whether to settle for the winter on the north or south side of the Columbia River. Each side of the river brought advantages and serious potential risks for the expedition. Clark personally recorded the “vote”, which included “Janey” (Sacajawea), and William Clark’s African-American slave, York. Imagine such a vote that included a young Indian woman, and an African slave in what was considered United States territory in 1805? [40]
The Grand River place-name becomes evident:
Fort Union from the Joslyn Art Museum for the Karl Bodmer Art Collection.
On April 10, 1833, German explorer, ethnologist, and naturalist Prince Alexander Phillip Maximilian of Wied and Swiss artist Karl Bodmer left St. Louis on the side-wheeler steamboat Yellow Stone bound for the Upper Missouri. They carried with them copies of the 1810 finalized Clark maps based on William Clark’s original maps of the 1804-1806 Lewis and Clark expedition. They switched steamboats at Fort Pierre to continue their upriver journey on the Assiniboin to Fort Union located at the Yellowstone-Missouri River confluence west of present Williston, North Dakota. From there Bodmer would paint and Maximilian would map and collect specimens while on the Upper Missouri River all the way to the Fort McKenzie fur trading post located in northwest Montana near the Marias River-Missouri confluence. In all, Maximilian’s maps illustrated nine hundred additional miles that essentially replaced many of the lost original Lewis and Clark 1804-6 expedition maps. The Maximilan maps were careful copies, though not perfect, of Clark’s originals with some corrections of evident mistakes. Indian names of some rivers were re-worded with the correct pronunciation and phonetically spelled to match the pronunciation. Specifically, while on the Upper Missouri, the “We tar hoo” map name previously written in by William Clark was eliminated by Maximilian who replaced it with “Wetacko or Grand R.”[41]
Link for the Maximilian interactive map of the entire Upper Missouri
Bodmer and Maximilian left Fort Union going down river on a Mackinaw boat on October 30,1834 to winter at Fort Clark and the adjacent Mandan village of Mih-tutta-hang-kusch which was located on a bluff overlooking the Missouri River about eleven miles below the Knife River villages. After a trying winter at Fort Clark marred by food scarcity, a whooping cough outbreak in the inhabitants, and Maximilian”s own apparent bout of scurvy that was cured by eating onions, they eventually left for St. Louis on April 18,1834. [42]
Fort Clark from the Joslynn Art Museum for the Karl Bodmer Art Collection
Maximilian’s astute observations and insights into the Mandan are considered the last and best credible ethnocultural study prior to the 1837-38 smallpox outbreak that devastated Mih-tutta-hang-kusch village and other Mandan and Hidatsa villages in the area. The outbreak began about two weeks following a visit to Ft. Clark by the steamboat St. Peter’s on June 19, 1837 to drop off supplies and passengers. Unbeknown to the Mandans, the St. Peter’s had carried the smallpox virus upstream. The carrier of the disease remains unknown. Given the long incubation period before the earliest viral symptoms and signs—fever, achiness and rash— cases didn’t appear for ten to fourteen days. The first person, a young Mandan, died on July 14 followed by an explosion of daily deaths. The surviving Mandan post-smallpox population was somewhere under three hundred people according to Elizabeth Fenn’s research.[43] According to the MHA website, their research found that only one hundred twenty-five Mandan people survived. This pales in comparison to an estimated Mandan population of at least fifteen thousand at the time of the first Verendrye visit in 1738. It was estimated by the commissioner for Indian affairs that no less than 17,200 Native peoples in the upper Missouri Valley perished—Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, Dakota, Assiniboine, and Blackfoot. Tragically, Francis Chardon, the bourgeois at the Fort Clark fur trading post, knew about smallpox vaccination but didn’t attempt it. There also was an underfunded, undermanned vaccination program passed by Congress in early 1832 that had reached up the Missouri as far as Fort Pierre by late 1832. Unfortunately, due to bureaucratic delays and lack of funding, the program did not reach the Missouri River tribes north of Fort Pierre until well after the 1837 epidemic broke out.[43] According to the MHA website, their research found that only one hundred twenty-five Mandan people survived. This pales in comparison to an estimated Mandan population of at least fifteen thousand at the time of the first Verendrye visit in 1738. It was estimated by the commissioner for Indian affairs that no less than 17,200 Native peoples in the Upper Missouri Valley perished—Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, Dakota, Assiniboine, and Blackfoot. Tragically, Francis Chardon, the bourgeois at the Fort Clark fur trading post, knew about smallpox vaccination but didn’t attempt it. There also was an underfunded, undermanned vaccination program passed by Congress in early 1832 that had reached up the Missouri as far as Fort Pierre by late 1832. Unfortunately, due to bureaucratic delays and lack of funding, the program did not reach the Missouri River tribes north of Fort Pierre until well after the 1837 epidemic broke out.[44]
Letter book records for the fur trading posts, Fort Tecumseh and Fort Pierre Chouteau, opposite the present city of Pierre, South Dakota contain numerous business references mentioning the Grand River. A letter book is a written copy of business messages, sometimes of a personal nature, usually sent out to another post’s clerk. They were written in English or French. These letters would have been carried by boat, horseback or foot and in winter by snowshoe or dog sled. Below is one example written originally in French:
Fort Tecumseh 4th Dec: 1831 To Mr. P. D. Papin Dear Sir …..I had a letter
a few days ago from the Yellow Stone, and the intermediate posts; every thing
appears to be getting on smoothly; Messrs. Picotte, Cerre, and Lachapelle are
all at our post at Apple River ( located south of present day Bismarck). Picotte
thought it imprudent to have Lachapelle, as they did not see a Ree, and the
Sioux threatened to pillage him, if they found him in that neighborhood. The
Rees are all camped somewhere upon the Grand River. In hopes of hearing from
you soon I remain Dear Sir Your Most Obt. Servant(Sign’d) Wm. Laidlaw[45]
The earliest record I have found thus far for the Grand River place-name is from St. Louis merchant, explorer/fur trader Wilson Price Hunt’s journal written while leading an overland trip of the “Astorians” to Oregon in 1811-12. The Astorians consisted of about sixty trappers-voyageurs employed by John Jacob Astor’s Pacific Fur Company. Also included in the Hunt expedition were the wife and two small sons of the interpreter, Dorian. Hunt noted they had “sailed, poled, cordelled and rowed” their way up the Missouri River from St. Louis to the Grand River Arikara villages. At the time the Blackfoot were at war with Manual Lisa’s traders on the Three Forks region of Montana. The Astorians’ intent was to avoid the Blackfoot by trading for horses with the Arikara and abandoning the Missouri River for the Grand River. Their route would take them up the Grand River and its South Fork and over to the Little Missouri River, and from there, westward across the Powder River Basin and Bighorn Mountains. They then crossed the Continental Divide at Union Pass in the Wind River Range of Wyoming and proceeded to the Snake and Green Rivers to Oregon and then all the way to the mouth of the Columbia River with the Pacific. There, the Fort Astoria trading post had been recently constructed by ship crewmen sent in advance around Cape Horn to Oregon by John Jacob Astor. This more southern route contrasted with that of Lewis and Clark’s which continued on the Missouri up to its source thus forging a more northernly route through the Rocky Mountains in 1804 and again in 1805.[45]
The English version of Hunt’s journal for July 18,1811 notes the Hunt party set out along the Grand River. They had “eighty-two horses packing commodities, munitions, food, and animal traps”..… “On the same day we camped near a small stream a short distance from its confluence with the Grand River.” By July 24 they had covered sixty-seven miles but had to lay up because several members of the company were ill. During this interval Hunt visited a Cheyenne camp and bought an additional thirty-six horses. The Cheyenne were friendly and told him “they hunt buffalo and burn buffalo chips to keep themselves warm. They raise horses that each year they trade to the Arikara for corn, kidney beans, pumpkins, and some merchandise.” The Astorians resumed their journey on August 6 and “camped on a tributary of the Grand River” Hunt’s journal noted the rugged terrain of the Grand River landscape. They covered an additional forty-two miles on the 6th and 7th. On August 12 “they forded two tributaries of the Grand River that flowed from the southwest, one of them appearing to be the main branch.” On August 13 or 14 they reached the Little Missouri River. On February 15, 1812 after enduing many hardships, lives lost at Snake Canyon and “covering 2,073 miles from the village of the Arikara,” the Hunt party finally reached Fort Astoria.[47]
Hunt’s original diary is lost. I’m not certain if the original diary was written in French or English, but I believe it was originally written in English and then later translated into French when the journal was first published in Paris in 1821. That publication translated “the Grand River” to “le Big River.” “Grand” or “Grande” translated to English means “big” or “large”. The Grand River is not large, nor is it big. However, its valley is wide and the surrounding landscape rugged due to glacial meltwater flooding about twenty-three million years before. An early French explorer ascending the Grand River from its mouth and, observing its majestic valley, might have used descriptive words such as “beautiful” or “grande.” Perhaps he had named the valley “Grande” first, and the river name logically followed?[48]
In 1811, St. Louis fur trader, Manuel Lisa, made his way upriver from St. Louis to the Knife River villages. Traveling with him on his keelboat was tourist Henry Brackenridge, an American naturalist, and frontier lawyer who wrote in his journal at the time: “We had on board a Frenchman named Charbonet, with his wife, an Indian woman of the Snake nation, both of whom had accompanied Lewis and Clark to the Pacific. The woman, a good creature of a mild and gentle disposition greatly attached to the whites…..but she had become sickly and longed to revisit her native country.”[49]
In 1812, Lisa returned to the Upper Missouri in order to establish a fur trading post for the Missouri Fur Company, Fort Manuel, at or near the Grand River villages. Lisa set out from St. Louis on May 8, 1812. With him was his clerk, John C. Luttig, who kept a daily journal up to March 5, 1813 when Fort Manuel was abandoned. Luttig wrote in a matter of fact style documenting business transactions, weather, happenings and notable events such as details of the latest conflict between the Arikara and Lakota. As a result of this conflict several of Lisa’s engages were killed.
Luttig’s journal stands out to me for two reasons. First, as the expedition approached the Arikara villages on August 6, 1812 Luttig wrote: “Thursday August 6, at 6 A.M. passed Grand River, Mr. M. Lisa had intended to build a fort here but finding the Situation not eligible for a Fort, moved on and camped about 12 Miles below the Rees.”[50]
Second, Luttig documented the probable death of Sacagawea in his entry for December 20, 1812:
“Sunday the 20th, clear and moderate, our hunter say Rees went out and
Killed 20 Cows [buffalo] head and foot was received this Evening, purchased
a fine dog of the Chajennes, this Evening the wife of Charbonneau a Snake
Squaw, died of putrid fever she was a good and the best women in the fort,
aged abt 25 years she left a fine infant girl.”[51]
The infant girl’s name was Lisette who was born in the summer of 1812. By the time Fort Manuel was abandoned Charbonneau had disappeared. John Luttig, who was thought to have nothing but contempt for Charbonneau, brought Lisette to St. Louis in June 1813, and possibly also Sacagawea’s son, Jean Baptiste, nick-named Pompy by Clark in 1806.[52,53] Baptiste might have stayed in St. Louis with William Clark and his wife in 1811 when Charbonneau and Sacagawea returned to the Knife River villages. Luttig later filed a guardian petition to a St. Louis Orphans Court judge to care for Sacagawea’s two children until William Clark, temporarily out of town, returned to assume the petition.
Summary:
Though we do not know the name of the voyageur or French trader who first named the rivierre Grande, we do know the French were on the Upper Missouri River possibly as early as 1700 if not sooner. As noted in the beginning of this thesis, virtually every stream that the Corps of Discovery encountered in 1804 from St. Louis to the Knife River villages north of Bismarck, ND had already been named by the French. Essentially, the Missouri River became a French road prior to Lewis and Clark. No wonder Meriwether Lewis had to reach all the way to the Great Falls of the Missouri in Montana before he could credibly say he was the “first civilized man” to see the Falls.[54]
By 1811, Hunt’s journal referred to the Grand River place-name as did Luttig in his journal in 1812. It makes sense that the “Grand River/rivierre Grande” place-name was previously used by illiterate engages, coureurs du bois, and voyageurs for many years prior to 1800.
The Native peoples perspective:
The Jones Village site establishes the Sahnish (Arikara) in the Grand River area approximately five hundred years before the French. Tabeau noted in his journal the Arikara and Lakota name for the Grand River was the Arikara River. Today’s Sahnish people continue to use the Arikara River place-name. According to the Lewis and Clark journals and Cheyenne/Lakota traditions, between 1730 and 1795 the Cheyenne lived in six villages on the Missouri and two others on the middle reaches of the Grand River. What name did the Cheyenne call the Grand River?
There are several worthy recorded examples from the early 19th century that sheds light on Native opinions toward the explorers and fur traders of the Upper Missouri. One such pertinent example was a critique possibly from the Hidatsa Chief, Le Borgne (One Eye). This was recorded by Hudson’s Bay Company trader, Charles McKenzie, in 1804 at the Knife River villages while Lewis and Clark were wintering there:
“White people, said they, do not know how to live— they leave their homes in
small parties; they risk their lives on the great waters and among strange
nations, who will take them for enemies:— What is the use of the beaver? Do
they preserve them for sickness? Do they serve them beyond the grave?” …… “the
White people came, they brought with them some goods: but brought the small pox,
they brought evil liquors— the Indians since are diminished, and they are no longer
happy.”[55]
Lastly, any study of Upper Missouri history would be incomplete without an awareness of the importance of both Native oral traditions. History does not just belong to the literate. [56]
A great example is the mystery of Sacagawea. Hidatsa and Shoshone oral traditions differ significantly from what we think we know about her. We know something of her humanity and of certain facts, yet, despite any added information many of us are still wanting. For some it is out of a desire to confirm her in our own image. For others it is to score points in the debates about her life. Maybe we could be satisfied with what information we have? That she was no doubt a good, exceptional person has been confirmed through many sources. Contemplating her mystique can be inspiring enough to calm the cynicism within our hearts. Mystical being or not, she is a part of all of us. That is reassuring. I really cannot put that into any other words.
Bibliography
1. Anderson, Irving W, “Fort Manuel: Its Historical Significance”, South Dakota History, Vol. 6, No. 2 , Pierre: South Dakota State Historical Society Press 1976.
2. Casler, Michael M., and W. Raymond Wood, eds, Fort Union and Fort William: Letter Book and Journal, 1833-1835. Pierre: South Dakota Historical Society Press, 2020.
3. Casler, Michael M., and W. Raymond Wood, eds, Fort Tecumseh and Fort Pierre Chouteau, Journal and Letter Books 1830-1850, Pierre: South Dakota Historical Society Press, 2017.
4. Clausen, Eric, “Origin of the Little Missouri River’ - South Fork Grand River and nearby Drainage Divides in Harding County, South Dakota and Adjacent Eastern Montana USA”, Open Journal of Geology, Vol. 7 No. 8, August 2017.
5. DeMallie, Raymond J., Douglas R. Parks, and Robert Vezina., eds. A Fur Trader on the Upper Missouri: The Journal and Description of Jean Baptiste Truteau, 1794-1796; Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press. 2017.
6. Fenn, Elizabeth A., Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People; New York: Hill and Wang, 2014.
7. Handy-Marchello, Barbara, Fern E. Swenson, Traces: Early Peoples of North Dakota; Bismarck: State Historical Society of North Dakota, 2018.
8. Hecker, Thad., “Addendum to Notes Regarding Surveys of Indian Campsites in Western North Dakota,” Hecker Survey Documentation (Manuscript #019175), compiled by Amy C. Bleier, State Historical Society of North Dakota, 2021.
9. Hunt, Wilson P., “Voyage of Mr. Hunt and his companions from St. Louis to the mouth of the Columbia by a new route across the Rocky Mountains,” New Annals of Voyages, Geography, and History, Vol. 10, Paris: Mrs. J.B. Eyries and Malte-Brun, Publishers 1821.
10. Jenkinson, Clay S., The Character of Meriwether Lewis: Explorer in the Wilderness, Washburn: The Dakota Institute Press of the Lewis and Clark Fort Mandan Foundation, 2011.
11. Jenkinson, Clay S., “Maney Extroadenary Stories”: The Significance of the Arikara Too Ne’s Map.” We Proceeded On Quarterly, May 2018.
12. Jenkinson, Clay S., The Language of Cottonwoods: Essays on the Future of North Dakota, Virginia Beach, Cape Charles: koehlerbooks, 2021.
13. Luttig, John C., Journal of a Fur-trading Expedition on the Upper Missouri, ed. Stella M. Drum, St. Louis: Missouri Historical Society 1920.
14. MHA Nation Three Affiliated Tribes, mhanation.com history link.
15. Moulton, Gary E., ed., The Journals of the Louis and Clark Expedition, 13 vols., Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983-2001.
16. Nasatir, A. P., Before Louis and Clark: Documents Illustrating the History of the Missouri 1785-1804, Volume 1; introduction by James P. Ronda; Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1990.
17. Nasatir, A. P., Before Louis and Clark: Documents Illustrating the History of the Missouri 1785-1804, Volume 2; introduction by James P. Ronda; Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1990.
18. Ronda, James P., Lewis and Clark Among the Indians, Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1984.
19. Sandoz, Mari, The Beaver Men: Spearheads of Empire, New York: Hastings House Publishers, 1964.
20. Tabeau, Jean-Antoine, Tabeau’s Narrative of Loisel’s Expedition to the Upper Missouri; edited by Annie Heloise Abel and translated by Rose Abel Wright, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1939.
21. Wedel, Waldo, Archeological Materials from the Vicinity of Mobridge, South Dakota, Anthropological Papers, No. 45, Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1955.
22. Wood, Raymond W., Prologue to Lewis and Clark: the Mackay and Evans Expedition; forward by James P. Ronda; Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003.
23. Wood, Raymond W., “Tribal Relations on the Upper Missouri Before Lewis and Clark,” In: Finding Lewis and Clark: Old Trails, New Directions, edited by James P. Ronda and Nancy Tystad Koupal; Pierre: South Dakota State Historical Society Press, 2004.
24. Wood, Raymond W., “Mapping the Missouri River Through the Great Plains, 1673-1895.” Great Plains Quarterly, Winter 1981.
25. Wood, Raymond W. And Gary E. Moulton, “Prince Maximilian and New Maps of the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers by William Clark”, The Western Historical Quarterly, October 1981.
26. Wood, Raymond W., William J. Hunt, Randy H. Williams, Fort Clark and Its Indian Neighbors: A Trading Post on the Upper Missouri, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2011.
27. Wood, Raymond W., Thomas D. Thiessen, eds, “Charles McKenzie’s Narratives”, Early Fur trade on the Northern Plains: Canadian Traders Among the Mandan and Hidatsa Indians, 1738-1818, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985.
Notes:
1. Demallie, Raymond J., ed. A Fur Trader on the Upper Missouri: The Journal and Description of Jean-Baptiste Truteau,1794-1796, p. 489.
2. Casler, Michael M., and W. Raymond Wood, eds, Fort Union and Fort William: Letter Book and Journal, 1833-1835. Joseph Halcrow worked for the Upper Missouri Outfit (UMO) as a clerk/ trader assigned to Fort Union located on the north bank of the Missouri River just west of the confluence of the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers in NW North Dakota. He may have also been an interpreter for the Assiniboines. pp. 34, 46-47, 76n179 Pierre Papin also worked for the UMO as a clerk/trader assigned to Fort Pierre Chouteau located in South Dakota on the west bank of the Missouri River opposite present Pierre. He was a descendent of one of the original French families that settled in St. Louis. p. 66n4.
3. W. Raymond Wood, Prologue to Lewis and Clark: the Mackay and Evans Expedition, p 11.
4. W. Raymond Wood, Prologue, ibid 3: 12-15.
5. W. Raymond Wood, “Tribal Relations on the Upper Missouri Before Lewis and Clark”, In: Finding Lewis and Clark: Old Trails, New Directions, edited by James P. Ronda and Nancy Tystad Koupal, p.13.
6. W. Raymond Wood, Prologue, ibid 3: 93-94.
7. Fenn, Elizabeth A., Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People, pp 88-95,136-140,150. The inscription on the la Verendrye plate translates: “In the twenty-sixth year of the reign of Louis XV, the most illustrious Lord, the Lord Marquis of Beauharnios, 1741, Pierre Gaultier De la Verendrye placed this.” On the back of the plate it read: “Placed by the Chevalier Verendrye, Louis La Londette, and A. Miotte. 30 March 1743.”
8. W. Raymond Wood, Prologue, ibid 3;103.
9. W. Raymond Wood, Prologue, ibid 3: 3 Wood points out that Lewis and Clark, unlike all their predecessors, succeeded by reaching the Pacific coast and returning.
10. Prairie du Chien was established as a European settlement/fort by French voyageurs in the late 17th century.
11. Nasatir, A. P., Before Louis and Clark: Documents Illustrating the History of the Missouri 1785-1804, Volume 1, pp. 56,76 As a result of its defeat in the Seven Years’ War in 1763 France was forced to cede the east part (Canada and Florida) of its territory to the victorious British, and the Louisiana Territory to Spain. France regained the Louisiana Territory back from Spain in 1803. Later in 1803, thanks to Thomas Jefferson’s efforts, France sold the Louisiana Territory to the United States.
12. W. Raymond Wood, Prologue, ibid 3: 3, 35-42 In 1793, James Mackay, a Scotsman and a pragmatic fur trader and explorer, “displeased with the Canadian Companies,” left Canada for New York City. In 1794 he moved on to St. Louis to later lead the highly successful Mackay and Evans 1795-97 Spanish expedition up the Missouri.
13. Fenn, Elizabeth A., Encounters, ibid 7: 153, 179-181.
14. W. Raymond Wood, Prologue, 3: 3, 42-45.
15. Nasatir, A. P., Before Louis and Clark: Documents Illustrating the History of the Missouri 1785-1804, Volume 2, p 485.
16. W. Raymond Wood, “Mapping the Missouri River Through the Great Plains, 1673-1895”, Great Plains Quarterly, Winter 1981 pp. 41-53.
17. W. Raymond Wood, Prologue, ibid 3: 5-7, 158-161.
18. Fenn, Elizabeth A., Encounters, ibid 7: 8-11,18-22, 34-36.
19. Handy-Marchello, Barbara, and Fern E. Swenson, Traces: Early Peoples of North Dakota, pp 61-63, 65, 68-76.
20. DeMallie, Raymond J., Douglas R. Parks, and Robert Vezina., eds. A Fur Trader on the Upper Missouri: The Journal and Description of Jean Baptiste Truteau, 1794-1796, pp 167,169,179.
21. W. Raymond Wood, “Tribal Relations on the Upper Missouri Before Lewis and Clark”, In: Finding Lewis and Clark: Old Trails, New Directions, pp 16-20.
22. DeMallie, Raymond J., Douglas R. Parks, and Robert Vezina., eds. A Fur Trader on the Upper Missouri: The Journal and Description of Jean Baptiste Truteau, 1794-1796, p 257.
23. Tabeau, Jean-Antoine, Tabeau’s Narrative of Loisel’s Expedition to the Upper Missouri, p 84.
24. This is an opinion from the author of this paper.
25. W. Raymond Wood, Prologue, ibid 3: 202.
26. W. Raymond Wood, “Mapping the Missouri River Through the Great Plains, 1673-1895”, Great Plains Quarterly, Winter 1981 p 49.
27. W. Raymond Wood, Prologue, ibid 3: 76-77,142,145,146.
28. Tabeau, Jean-Antoine, Tabeau’s Narrative of Loisel’s Expedition to the Upper Missouri, pp 27, 29, 32-35, 40-41, 45, 69, 70-75.
29. Wedel, Waldo, Archeological Materials from the Vicinity of Mobridge, South Dakota, Anthropological Papers, No. 45, pp. 76-84.
30. Tabeau, Jean-Antoine, Tabeau’s Narrative of Loisel’s Expedition to the Upper Missouri, pp. 47-51, 123-127,130-132,148-149.
31. Ronda, James P., Lewis and Clark Among the Indians, pp 54-61.
32. MHA Nation Three Affiliated Tribes, mhanation.com history link.
33. W. Raymond Wood, “Mapping the Missouri River Through the Great Plains, 1673-1895”, Great Plains Quarterly, Winter 1981 pp 47-48.
34. Gary Moulton, ed., The Journals of the Louis and Clark Expedition, 13 vols., p 3:180.
35. Jenkinson, Clay S., “Maney Extroadenary Stories:” The Significance of the Arikara Too Ne’s Map”, Jenkinson, Clay S., We Proceeded On Quarterly, May 2018, pp 23-27.
36. Hecker, Thad., “Addendum to Notes Regarding Surveys of Indian Campsites in Western North Dakota,” Hecker Survey Documentation (Manuscript #019175) pp 1-3.
37. Jenkinson, Clay S., The Language of Cottonwoods: Essays on the Future of North Dakota, p 126.
38. Ronda, James P., Lewis and Clark Among the Indians, p 64-66.
39. Tabeau, Jean-Antoine, Tabeau’s Narrative of Loisel’s Expedition to the Upper Missouri, pp 200, 201.
40. Moulton, Gary, ed., The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries-Electronic Text Center, 2005. November 24, 1805, http://lewisandclarkjournals.unl.edu
41. Wood, Raymond W. And Gary E. Moulton, “Prince Maximilian and New Maps of the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers by William Clark,” The Western Historical Quarterly, October 1981 pp 371-374, 384.
42. Wood, Raymond W., William J. Hunt, Randy H. Williams, Fort Clark and Its Indian Neighbors: A Trading Post on the Upper Missouri, pp 139, 150-154,157.
43. Fenn, Elizabeth A., Encounters, Ibid 7: 311-32. Fenn has devoted an entire chapter to the smallpox epidemic of 1837 and is well worth reading.
44. Wood, Raymond W., William J. Hunt, Randy H. Williams, Fort Clark and Its Indian Neighbors: A Trading Post on the Upper Missouri, pp 163-167.
45. Casler, Michael M., and W. Raymond Wood, eds, Fort Tecumseh and Fort Pierre Chouteau: Journal and Letter Books 1830-1850, p 79.
46. Sandoz, Mari, The Beaver Men: Spearheads of Empire, pp 260-267.
47. Hunt, Wilson P., “Voyage of Mr. Hunt and his companions from St. Louis to the mouth of the Columbia by a new route across the Rocky Mountains,” New Annals of Voyages, Geography, and History, Vol. 10, The journal covers the journey from the Grand River Arikara villages and westward from there along the Grand River and on to Astoria.
48. Clausen, Eric, “Origin of the Little Missouri River - South Fork Grand River and nearby Drainage Divides in Harding County, South Dakota and Adjacent Eastern Montana, USA,” pp 1069-1070.
49. Anderson, Irving W, “Fort Manuel: Its Historical Significance”, South Dakota History, Vol. 6, No. 2 p 138, 143.
50. Luttig, John C., Journal of a Fur-trading Expedition on the Upper Missouri, p 64-65.
51. Jenkinson, Clay S., The Character of Meriwether Lewis: Explorer in the Wilderness, P 183 Clark is quoted and establishes Pomp as Sacagawea’s son, Jean Baptiste, on the expedition, “my little dancing boy Baptiest.”
52. Gary Moulton, ed., The Journals of the Louis and Clark Expedition, pp 8: 224-228. In William Clark’s journal entry for July 25, 1806 he names Pompy’s Pillar and an adjacent small creek “Baptiests Creek” (modern day Pompey’s Pillar Creek) for Sacagawea’s son. Clark had an appreciation as well for Sacagawea, “Janey”, noted in his journal entry of November 24, 1805 and in a letter to Charbonneau dated August 20, 1806.
53. Luttig, John C., Journal of a Fur-trading Expedition on the Upper Missouri, p 132-135.
54. Jenkinson, Clay S., The Character of Meriwether Lewis: Explorer in the Wilderness, p 31 The first chapter, particularly pages 16 through 47, sets the stage for Meriwether Lewis’ dream “of being the first explorer.” Jenkinson’s entire book is well worth reading.
55. Wood, Raymond W., Thomas D. Thiessen, eds, “Charles McKenzie’s Narratives”, Early Fur trade on the Northern Plains: Canadian Traders Among the Mandan and Hidatsa Indians, 1738-1818. p 234.
56. Jenkinson, Clay S., The Character of Meriwether Lewis: Explorer in the Wilderness p 31. In Jenkinson’s quote, “History belongs to the literate,” he reminds the reader to be aware of the potential murkiness of recorded history.
