Full Text of "A Brief History of South Dakota", pages 30-36

	This file contains part of a full transcription of "A Brief 
	History of South Dakota", by Doane Robinson, Secretary of the 
	State Historical Society of South Dakota. Originally published 
	in 1905, it was republished many times through the 1930's. This 
	transcription is from the 1919 Edition.

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	http://www.usgwarchives.net/sd/histories/brief.htm

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                          CHAPTER VI

                        LEWIS AND CLARK


   JEFFERSON selected to head his party of explorers his private secretary, 
Captain Meriwether Lewis, a cousin of George Washington.  Scientific knowledge 
was not very far advanced in America at this time, but early in the spring of 
1803, a few days before the bargain with Napoleon had been made and months 
before it had been thought of in America, Lewis hurried from Washington to 
Philadelphia to take a brief course in the natural sciences and mathematics, 
hoping to gain enough to enable him to make scientific observations of the 
country through which he was to pass, and to determine the latitude and 
longitude of various places.

   While Lewis was in Philadelphia, it occurred to him that it would be wise to 
organize the expedition in two parts, and keep two records, so that in case one 
record was lost there would be hope of preserving the other. He told Jefferson 
about it, and the President thought the plan a wise one; so Captain William 
Clark - a brother of General George Rogers Clark, the man who in the 
Revolutionary War had saved Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the United States - 
was selected to accompany Captain Lewis, and to enjoy with him equal rank in the 
command of the enterprise.

                          [PICTURE]
                  CAPTAIN MERIWETHER LEWIS
        Statue at the Lewis and Clark Exposition, 1903

   All of the remainder of that year was spent in preparation. In the summer the 
two captains set out for St. Louis, and not until they reached the Ohio River 
did they learn of the purchase of Louisiana by the American government. They 
secured the services of forty-one persons, all told - soldiers, guides, boatmen, 
and hunters - and encamped for the winter on the east bank of the Mississippi, 
opposite the mouth of the Missouri.

   The 9th of May, 1804, was set for the formal transfer of Louisiana from Spain 
to France and from France to the United States, and Jefferson desired Lewis and 
Clark to remain at St. Louis for that ceremony, which they did.  Therefore, it 
was not until three o'clock in the afternoon of Monday, May 14, that the little 
band set off up the Missouri. They had several boats, which they propelled with 
oars or sails, or towed with ropes, according to the condition of the river and 
the direction of the wind. They proceeded very slowly, examining the river and 
the country, and visiting the Indians, but without any event affecting the 
history of South Dakota until they arrived at the mouth of the Big Sioux River 
at eight o'clock in the morning of Saturday, August 21, 1804.  That night they 
camped on the Nebraska shore.

   Sergeant Charles Floyd having died the evening of August 20, when at the site 
of Sioux City, the men were allowed to select a successor to him, and the 
choice, which was made by ballot, fell to Patrick Gass. This occurred on the 22d 
when the party was encamped at Elkpoint, and it may reasonably be assumed to be 
the first popular election in South Dakota.  The next morning Captain Lewis 
killed a very large buffalo upon the bottom near Burbank, from which they salted 
two barrels of meat.

   On the 24th they arrived at the mouth of the Vermilion River, and the 
captains took two men and went up nine miles to examine Spirit Mound, about 
which they had heard strange stories from the Indians, who believed that it was 
inhabited by a race of dwarfs, little people not larger than gophers, who 
instantly put to death any one who came near their home. It is needless to say 
that the explorers found nothing mysterious or alarming about the very ordinary 
mound upon the prairie.  They did, however, find much that was pleasing to them. 
They say in their journal, "We saw none of these wicked little spirits, nor any 
place for them, except some small holes scattered over the top. We were happy 
enough to escape their vengeance, though we  remained some time on the mound to 
enjoy the delightful prospect of the plain, which spreads itself out until the 
eye rests upon the northwest hills at a great distance, and those of the 
northeast still farther off, enlivened by large herds of buffalo feeding at a 
distance. The soil of these plains is exceedingly fine."

                          [PICTURE]
                   CAPTAIN WILLIAM CLARK
       Statue at the Lewis and Clark Exposition, 1903

   It is noteworthy that Spirit Mound and other points along the Missouri in 
South Dakota then bore the names by which we still know them. This is one proof 
that the region was familiar to the French traders before Lewis and Clark came.  

   On August 27 Lewis and Clark came to the mouth of the James River and met 
some Yankton Sioux there, who informed them there was a large camp of the Sioux 
a few miles up the James. The captains, therefore, sent messengers to the 
Indians inviting them to a convenient point a few miles up the Missouri. They 
proceeded up the stream and made their camp on Green Island, on the Nebraska 
shore, near the site of Yankton. There they remained from Tuesday the 28th until 
Saturday, September 1, enjoying a grand council, powwow, and carousal with the 
Yanktons. They set up a tall flag pole over their camp and raised a beautiful 
American flag upon it. The days were occupied with feasting and speech-making, 
and the nights with feasting and dancing. The principal chiefs of the Yankton 
were Shake Hand, - known to the French as the Liberator, - White Crane, and 
Struck by the Pawnee.

   One day a male child was born in one of the Indian lodges. Learning of this 
fact, Captain Lewis sent for the child and it was brought to him. He wrapped it 
in the American flag and made a speech in which he prophesied that the boy would 
live to become eminent among his people and a great friend of the white men. His 
prophecy came true, for the boy grew up to be the famous Struck by the Ree, 
chief of the Yankton tribe, who was probably the means of saving the entire 
settlement at Yankton from massacre in the War of the Outbreak in 1863. All his 
life Struck by the Ree took great pride in his Americanism, and in the fact that 
he was first dressed in an American flag.

   On the 1st of September the party again embarked and proceeded up the stream. 
The next day they stopped to explore the embankment at Bon Homme Island, which 
they believed to be a prehistoric fort, but which has since been shown to have 
been but a bank of sand thrown up by the winds and floods. On the 8th they 
passed the Pawnee or Trudeau House which was established in 1794, and there was 
no other event of note for several days.

   While Lewis and Clark were at the Vermilion River, their two horses had 
strayed away, and George Shannon, the youngest man in the party, had been sent 
out to hunt them up.  Sixteen days had since elapsed, during part of which the 
captains had enjoyed their council and carousal with the Yanktons, and no word 
of the boy had come to them. They admit, in their journal, that they were 
becoming uneasy about him.  Shannon had found the horses and set off up the 
river.  During the first four days he used all his bullets and then he nearly 
starved, being obliged to subsist for twelve days on a few grapes and a rabbit, 
which he killed by making use of a hard piece of stick for a bullet.  One of the 
horses gave out and was left behind; the other he kept as a last resource for 
food. Despairing of overtaking the party, he was returning down the river in 
hopes of meeting some other boat, and was on the point of killing his horse when 
he was so fortunate as to meet his friends, on the 11th of September.

   The party now made their way up the stream, meeting no Indians, until the 
night of the 21st, when they were camped on the north side of the Big Bend, 
having almost completed its circuit.  Between one and two o'clock in the morning 
they were alarmed by the sergeant on guard, who cried out that the sand bar upon 
which the party were camped was sinking. They sprang to the boats and pushed 
over to the opposite shore, but before they had reached it, the ground upon 
which their former camp had been had entirely disappeared under the waters The 
next day they passed the Loisel post on Cedar Island, which they describe as 
being sixty or seventy feet square, built of red cedar, and picketed in with the 
same material; and on the 24th they arrived at the Teton River, where, as we 
shall see in the next chapter, they were to remain several days.