200 years ago this week, Lewis & Clark having discharged Colter, Charbonneau and Sakakawea, paddled one-half mile downstream to the village of the Mandan Chief Sheheke (meaning “Coyote”). The Chief, nicknamed “Big White,” had accepted Lewis & Clark’s invitation to journey with them to St. Louis, and on to Washington to meet President Jefferson, but only if he could take his wife and child, and his interpreter René Jusseaume and his family.

Arriving at the lower village on the afternoon of August 17, Clark described the dramatic departure of the Chief and his entourage, “I walked to the lodge of the Chief whom I found surrounded by his friends. The men were sitting in a circle smoking and the women crying. He sent his baggage with his wife and son, with the interpreter Jusseaume and his wife and two children to the canoes provided for them. After smoking one pipe…he informed me that he was ready and we were accompanied to the canoes by all the village. Many of them cried out aloud. As I was about to shake with the Grand Chiefs of all the villages there assembled, they requested me to sit one minute longer with them, which I readily agreed to and directed a pipe to be lit.”

After further discussion of issues of war and peace among the various tribes, and a request that Lewis & Clark “take care of this great Chief,” they boarded the boats. Clark continued, “We then saluted them with a gun and set out and proceeded on to Fort Mandan, where I landed and went to view the old works. The houses, except one in the rear bastion, was burnt by accident. Some pickets were standing in front next to the river.”

On August 18, 1806 the expedition camped on the east side of the Missouri, near present day Bismarck. Clark doesn’t mention Lewis on this day, but we know he was still convalescing from his gunshot wounds—unable to walk or sit. This was Lewis’ 32nd birthday.

Clark wrote of his fireside conversation with Sheheke that evening, “... After the fires were made I set my self down with the…Chief and made a number of enquiries into the tradition of his nation, as well as the time of their inhabiting the number of villages the remains of which we see on different parts of the river, [and] also the cause of their evacuation…” The chief told Clark of the origins of his people, and of the seven large villages they had once inhabited. He then explained, “... the Sioux and Smallpox killed the greater part of them and made them so weak that all that were left only made two small villages when collected…”

On the 19th, Clark wrote of Lewis’ condition, “Capt. Lewis' wounds are healing very fast, I am much in hope of his being able to walk in 8 or 10 days.” Patrick Gass wrote the same day, “We do not go on so rapidly as we did higher up the river: but having lashed our small canoes together, we go on very safe and can make fifty or sixty miles a day. Captain Lewis is getting much better and we are all in good spirits.”

On August 20, the Corps’ last day in North Dakota, Clark wrote, “…having made 81 miles only, the wind blew hard all day which caused the waves to rise high and flack over into the small canoes in such a manner as to employ one hand in throwing the water out. The plains begin to change their appearance…the grass is turning of a yellow colour…” Their camp that night was probably a few miles into present day South Dakota.

Written by Russell Ford-Dunker

Note: Spelling is corrected in journal quotes for ease of reading.
Sources:
Reid, Russell. Lewis and Clark in North Dakota. (1948). Bismarck, ND: State Historical Society of North Dakota.
http://www.pbs.org/lewisandclark/archive
http://www.lewis-clark.org

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