"Captain Lewis & Clark holding a council with the Indians,"an etching in A Journal of the Voyages and Travels of a Corps ofDiscovery, Under the Command of Capt. Lewis and Capt. Clarke,by Patrick Gass Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Rare Book and SpecialCollections Division, LC-USZ62-17372

The Lewis and Clark Expeditionset out with several goals when itleft the St. Louis area in 1804.One of these was to conductdiplomacy with and gatherinformation about the variousnations of American Indians theywould encounter on their journey.During the course of theexpedition, contact was made withat least 55 different native culturalgroups. Other groups, such as theCrow (Absaroke), almost certainlysaw the explorers without theexplorers ever seeing them. Some groups were encountered only throughindividual members, while others were met with in formal councils. Still otherAmerican Indians participated in the expedition by literally saving expeditionmembers from starving and losing their way as they crossed the continent. Some,like the Lakota and Blackfeet, had hostile encounters with the Corps, whileothers, like the Mandan, Hidatsa and Nez Perce, forged friendships and allianceswhose written descriptions in the journals still resonate with good will after 200years. Lastly, the expedition itself was staffed with at least six people who wereall or part American Indian. George Droulliard, one of the most essentialmembers of the Corps, was half Shawnee, while Pierre Cruzatte and FrancoisLabiche were half Omaha. Although little is known of Jean Baptiste Lepage, hewas also almost certainly part American Indian, as were most of the Frenchengages who helped pole and haul the boats up the Missouri in 1804. Lastly,Sacagawea and her baby boy Jean Baptiste, Lemhi Shoshone by birth and Hidatsaby adoption and clan, added important insights into American Indian cultures thatthe expedition members might never have understood otherwise.

At least 300 distinct languages existed in North America in pre-Columbian times.Sign language was highly developed among the Plains Indians as a method ofcommunicating between different tribes. In addition to language differences,cultures varied in size, wealth and economic systems. The Great Plains Indiansand the Northwest Indians are two diverse groups that Lewis and Clarkencountered on their journey. (Milner 1994, 15)

The history of the Great Plains Indianscan be traced back at least 13,000 yearsand possibly even millenia. During the

Anthropology Physical Anthropology - Lewis & Clark Expedition

A Nez Perce warrior--the Corps of Discoveryestablished a good relationship with the Nez Perceduring their journey. The Nez Perce are regardedas superior horse breeders credited withdeveloping the Appaloosa breed Photo from Northwestern University Library, Edward S.Curtis's 'The North American Indian': the PhotographicImages, 2001.http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award98/ienhtml/curthome.html

Photograph of an 1841 engraving of the interior of a Chinook cedarplank lodge in Oregon. The Corps of Discovery interacted withthese Northwest Coast Indians while at their winter encampment atFort ClatsopImage from Charles Wilkes' Narrative of the U. S. ExploringExpedition, 1845, vol. 4, p.341, courtesy of the University ofWashington Libraries. Manuscripts, Special Collections, UniversityArchives Division.

last stages of the Ice Age, small bands ofpeople migrated in search of megafauna,or game, such as mastodons andmammoths. As game became extinct,their cultural organization became morecomplex, shifting to bison hunting andliving in earth-lodge dwellings. However,European contact brought much change.Prior to this contact, tribes of the plainslived by agriculture or gathering. Theintroduction of horses by the Spanish inthe late 16th century provided Indianswith a more efficient method of huntingbuffalo. Many groups--the Kiowa,

Cheyenne, Sioux, Comanche and others--shifted to a nomadic culture. Portabletipis, immense value placed on horses, and the accumulation of herds werecommon patterns among these groups. Others such as the Mandans, Arikara,Hidatsas, Pawnee, Wichita and Omaha remained horticultural societies,establishing permanent settlements in the river valleys of the plains.

Little is known of the earlyhistory of the Northwest CoastIndians, though anthropologistsbelieve these groups represent themost elaborate nonagriculturalculture in the world. These Indiangroups established permanentsettlements with clearly definedterritories. The economy wasbased almost entirely on salmonand other marine life and requiredlarge amounts of seasonal labor.

The cultural influences ofAmerican Indians on the UnitedStates and the world go very deep. The American Indians gave Europeans thecultivation of corn, the potato, the sweet potato, tobacco, pumpkins, the tomatoand, philosophically, conceptions of democracy radically different from theancient Greek city-states. The Six Nations, an alliance of the Mohawk, Seneca,Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Tuscarora nations, practiced a participatorydemocracy from which Ben Franklin drew inspiration when uniting the Englishcolonies during the Albany Conference. Within the present day United States, theAcoma and Hopi pueblos, settled around A.D. 600-1000 stand as possibly theoldest occupied communities in the continental United States, discovered andsettled long before the Europeans came.

In order to negotiate intelligently with theAmerican Indian tribes and their leadersalong the route, Lewis received a "crashcourse" in diplomacy and about theknown Indian cultural groups from Dr.

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Front and reverse of a Jefferson Peace MedalreplicaCourtesy of Oregon Historical Society, [neg. numbers101540 and 101538]

1832 George Catlin painting of aMinitari chief identified in thejournals of Lewis and Clarks: Eh-toh'k-pah-she-pée-shah, BlackMoccasin, Aged ChiefFrom the George Catlin collection ofSmithsonian American Art Museum,Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr.

Benjamin Rush and others inPhiladelphia. Lewis also knew that giftgiving and trade were important parts ofmost known Indian cultures, and that hewould have to have trade goods fordiplomacy and for acquiring neededgoods and food along the route. Lewisalso brought along peace medalsproduced by the U.S. Government insilver for presentation to American Indianchiefs. Peace medals are a fascinating yetlittle-known aspect of American history.

They were an integral part of the government's relations with American Indians inthe 18th and 19th centuries. At the time, these medals represented a covenantbetween nations, and were valued equally by tribal people who had had contactwith European-Americans and by the governments of Britain, Spain, France andthe United States, each of which issued them. Lewis and Clark took along threelarge medals with an image of President Jefferson on them, 13 middle-sizedJefferson medals, 16 small Jefferson medals, and 55 of the "season medals" struckduring the presidency of George Washington. All but one of these medals weregiven out during the expedition. The obverse (front) of the Jefferson medals had aformal bust of President Jefferson in low relief, along with his name and the datehe entered office. The reverse showed clasped hands and bore the motto "Peaceand Friendship." This design depicted Indian nations as coequals of the UnitedStates.

Although the men of the expedition did not knowwhat to expect on their trek, they were prepared tomeet the various Indian tribal groups and curiousabout what they would be like. Previously, almostnothing had been known of the American Indianswestward from the Mandan villages, in present NorthDakota, to the Upper Columbia River. Lewis andClark and their men left behind various accounts ofdifferent tribal groups and their interactions withthem. Although the information is often inaccurate,and not every tribe is handled equally or in somecases discussed at all, today these descriptionsprovide insight into what the expedition membersexperienced during their journey.

Whether Lewis and Clark knew it or not, they werethe "spearpoints" of an invasion of American Indianhomelands in the West. Whether or not their actions were deliberate, they touchedoff an invasion which displaced entire peoples and tribal groups with Europeandescended settlers, backed by the U.S. Army and English land law. It is for thisreason and others that many native peoples see no reason to be happy about theLewis and Clark Bicentennial, and why this event should be looked upon by all asa "commemoration" rather than a "celebration."

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For more information please see Native Peoples on the Jefferson NationalExpansion Memorial's Lewis and Clark Journey of Discovery website, portions ofwhich were excerpted for this piece.

Milner, Clyde, Carol O'Connor and Martha Sandweiss. The Oxford History of the American West.New York: Oxford U Press, 1994.

Lamar, Howard R. The New Encyclopedia of the American West. New Haven: Yale U Press, 1998.

Journal CitationsComments or Questions

JPJ/RQ/SB

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http://www.nps.gov/jeff/historyculture/the-lewis-and-clark-journey-of-discovery.htm [1/27/2014]