November, 1804
The captains went again in search of a place for winter quarters, threading their way through dense brush for miles. As they hiked, Lewis discovered the Silver Leaf Breadroot plant, a new plant that he happily recorded in his log. They finally came upon a site they decided was suitable for their fort, near where the mouth of the Knife River emptied into the Missouri. The location offered plenty of fresh water, wood, and game—and it was across the river from one of the Mandan villages.
“This ought to be an excellent location,” Clark said with satisfaction, “and being so close to one of the Mandan villages will be a real advantage for trading with them.”
The captains began to design a fort that could withstand attack from less friendly tribes.
“The Sioux aren’t so far away that they can’t attack us, and we must be prepared,”
Lewis said, the dangerous days with the Teton Sioux still fresh in his mind.
They laid out the position of the huts in the fort with two rows joined at one end forming an angle. Each hut would contain four small rooms, with roofs covered with earth and sod for insulation. The roofs were to be made “shed fashion,” sloping to expel rain or snow, and projecting a foot over the walls. The outer walls of the huts would also serve as part of an eighteen-foot palisade. There would be a sentry post with the swivel gun from the keelboat mounted like a cannon.
Sergeant Gass, the Corps of Discovery’s best carpenter, was again given responsibility for supervising the construction of the fort. The men established a tent camp where they could live while building their new fort. Each night as the men lay in their tents, they heard the chirping of hundreds of crickets hiding in the coarse grass, the deep-throated frogs on the riverbanks, and the wind rushing through leafless trees. Some of the birds in the area were species that Lewis recorded in his log during the winter months.
Surveying the partially completed fort, Clark said with satisfaction, “This fort should keep us warm and secure for the winter.”
“Once it’s finished, all we’ll have to worry about is providing ourselves with food,” Lewis added, “but that isn’t going to be easy.”
“We’ll probably have the nearby area hunted out in a month or so,” Clark agreed. “Maybe we should set up a hunting camp twenty or so miles up the Knife River where a permanent detachment of hunters can stay to provide us with a continuous supply of game.”
“Good idea. We can rotate the men for that duty, and that should help ensure us enough meat for the winter,” Lewis added.
The next day, Captain Clark took six hunters and set out in one of the pirogues up the Knife River to establish a permanent hunting camp while the rest of the men continued to build the fort.
Lewis had hired the Frenchman Jessaume as an interpreter, and he now moved into the new camp with his squaw and child. Having a child in camp was a novelty to the men, and many of them enjoyed playing with him in their off hours. Jessaume’s squaw even helped with cooking for the mess group to which they were assigned. Lewis also hired another Frenchman, Baptiste LePage, to replace John Newman, who had been relegated to unpaid status in a pirogue. LePage had trapped in the upper Missouri country, and both captains thought his experience would be useful.
Eventually, the men raised one line of huts and began filling the cracks in the construction with grass, pieces of old tarpaulin, and mortar, applying a thick coat of earth over it all to seal the huts and make them as warm as possible. Then all hands worked to raise the second line of huts. Finally they began building the chimneys, working as quickly as possible so they could all move into the shelter before the really bad weather arrived. Already, heavy frost and bone-chilling air greeted them each morning. The Hidatsa and Mandan Indians, curious about the white men’s construction methods, visited them every day as the men completed the fort.
“We’re running out of meat, Captain,” Sergeant Ordway told Lewis one evening. “We’ll be completely out in a couple of days.”
“Surely, the hunters will return soon,” Lewis said hopefully.
Water was freezing at night, prompting the men to hasten the pace of their construction work even more. The hunters had not returned, and just as the meat supply was running out, the chief of the lower Mandan village arrived with a gift—about a hundred pounds of buffalo meat strapped on his wife’s back.
The Corps was delighted to receive the meat, but William Carson observed, “Damn! They don’t treat their women very well.”
“None of the Indians do,” Joseph Whitehouse responded. “They treat their wives like pack animals. Look how she’s struggling under the load. And I’ve never seen one complain. It’s their way of life, but really I’m not sure we do a hell of a lot better.”
Captain Lewis gave the chief’s squaw some trinkets and a small axe for her labor.
Lewis sent a scout to search for the hunters and learn the cause of their delay. Two Frenchmen had gone out on a trapping expedition some days before, returning with twenty-two beavers, but they had not seen the hunting party from the Corps.
Each morning the trees were now covered with frost so thick that it fell off in chunks when the sun came up. The soldiers, who had never seen such a frost “back east,” worked by firelight until one o’clock in the morning to complete the 24-by-14-foot smokehouse, and they raised the roof on it the next day in anticipation of the hunters’ return.
Chief Black Cat visited the fort, with his squaw carrying a load of corn for the expedition. Black Cat was very interested in the customs of the white man and came to the camp often to study them. Captain Lewis was continually impressed with Black Cat’s integrity and intelligence.
All hands were employed at different kinds of work now, some daubing the smokehouse, some cutting firewood, some hunting, and some doing other chores.
“Here come the hunters!” Joseph Barter shouted jubilantly on a cold afternoon, waving to attract attention.
The hunters tied up their heavily loaded pirogue at the riverbank, and men gathered to help unload the meat they had brought—five buffalo, eleven elk, thirty deer, and all sorts of small game. The eager men splashed into the shallow water at the riverbank, hoisted large pieces of meat onto their shoulders, and headed for the smokehouse where the meat would be smoked over fires kept burning twenty-four hours a day.
“You are a very welcome sight!” Lewis exclaimed to the returning Clark and his hunting crew. “We were completely out of meat except for part of a buffalo that the Indians gave us.”
Clark smiled at the eager reception. “The hunting was so good that we kept at it until we had killed all the meat we could haul back. I thought it was important to bring back as much game as we could.”
Toussaint Charbonneau was a forty-four year old French Canadian who lived with the Hidatsas and spoke Hidatsa and French, but not English. He was a trapper, laborer, and interpreter of the Hidatsa language. He had two teenaged Shoshone wives from a tribe that lived in the Bitterroot Mountain range on the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains, some six-hundred miles west of Fort Mandan. One of his two wives, Sacagawea, presented the captains with a gift of two buffalo robes. In return, Lewis gave her blue beads, highly praised by Indians. Sacagawea sewed the beads onto a belt around the waist of her deerskin dress. A slender young woman with braids down her back, Sacagawea was a cheerful, outgoing fifteen-year-old who was about six months pregnant.
The captains agreed to take Charbonneau and one of his wives with the expedition in the spring to interpret for them when they reached the Shoshone nation, and Charbonneau chose Sacagawea. She could talk to the Shoshones in their own language and to Charbonneau in Hidatsa. Charbonneau could then translate Hidatsa to French for Drouillard, who could pass the message to the captains in English. It was a convoluted method of communication, but Lewis was confident it would work.
“Having a squaw with us will also show any tribes we encounter that we are not a war party,” Clark offered.
Charbonneau had won both Shoshone girls in a bet with the Hidatsa warrior who had captured them in a raid on the Shoshones six years before, when Sacagawea was only nine years old. His “wives” were actually his slaves, and he owned Sacagawea just as Clark owned his slave, York. The fact that she would be the only female on the expedition made her feel special, and knowing that she would be the interpreter with the Shoshones made her feel important and proud. She was excited to be going to the village of her birth, although she had been gone so long that she wondered if any of her own people would remember her.
Like all Mandan and Hidatsa squaws, Sacagawea wore a dress and leggings made of deerskin, topped by a knee-length robe made from buffalo hide that doubled as a blanket at night. Her clothes were decorated with beads and porcupine quills, and her moccasins were made of buffalo hide, with the furry side turned in.
A problem arose concerning one of the squaws staying in Fort Mandan with one of the interpreter’s wives. Her husband beat her, stabbed her, and was ready to kill her when Colter and Shields intervened. The man was angry because he said his squaw had slept with Sergeant Ordway. Captain Clark ordered Ordway to give the man some presents to mollify him. Then the captains ordered that none of their men have sexual intercourse with this particular woman under penalty of severe punishment. That evening Black Cat arrived, learned of the situation, and lectured the husband as well. Both the man and his wife left, dissatisfied with the whole episode.
One village of Hidatsa Indians was told by traders from the Northwest Company that the Americans intended to join with the Sioux and attack their village from their newly built fort. Captain Lewis, with an interpreter and six men, set off upriver on a diplomatic mission to visit the Hidatsa village, twenty-four miles away. The Hidatsas had learned from the Mandans that the soldiers were peaceful, however, and there was no problem. After Lewis held council with the Hidatsas elders, three of their chiefs let him know that they wished to see the new fort. When they came to visit Fort Mandan, the soldiers, curious about the name “Big Bellies,” shook hands with the chiefs and tried to converse with them.
“Why are you called Big Bellies?” Private Charles Chaugee asked through an interpreter.
The chief responded with a laugh, patting his stomach. “Because we always choose the warrior with the biggest belly as our big chief.”
“Is that a joke?” Chaugee asked the man next to him.
“Of course it’s a joke. Look at him grin,” Jean LaJeunesse said. “Why would they really choose the warrior with the biggest belly as their chief?”
A Mandan visitor to the fort told the captains one late November day that a raiding party of Sioux had attacked five Mandan hunters, killing one, wounding two others, and stealing nine horses. The captains huddled to discuss the raid.
“I think we should offer them our help in fighting the Sioux,” Clark said.
Lewis was thoughtful for a moment. “They have been very kind to us, and we damn sure have no love for the Sioux.”
Clark gathered twenty-three volunteers and led them across the river to the Mandan village.
“We will help you fight the Sioux,” Clark said to Chief Black Cat through interpreter Drouillard, expecting him to be pleased.
Black Cat was surprised and a little alarmed at the sight of such a formidable armed fighting force standing before him. He looked at Clark curiously for a moment and then slowly shook his head. “The snow is too deep, and the Sioux have too much headstart,” he signaled. “If you will go with us in the spring, after the snow is gone, we will make war on the Sioux.”
“But if they can travel in the snow, so can we,” Clark had Drouillard respond.
“You don’t know this country as we do,” Black Cat communicated. “We cannot catch them now. We will even the score another time. You do not understand our ways. We thank you for your offer to help.”
Clark and the soldiers returned across the river, and Clark reported the episode to Lewis, shrugging his shoulders in perplexity.
“That’s surprising, to say the least,” Lewis said. “All Indians love to fight.”
“I guess they think we are meddling in their affairs, which they feel we don’t understand,” Clark said with resignation, “and of course, we are and we don’t.”
The members of the expedition needed an enormous amount of food every day, and even more as winter gripped the land. To get through the winter, the Corps would need large quantities of corn, beans, and squash from friendly tribes in addition to the game provided by their own hunters. This winter would be a challenge to the Corps of Discovery.