Sunday, July 22, 2007

Meriwether Lewis’s Fateful Encounter with the Blackfeet: Was It a Set-Up?

Meriwether Lewis’s encounter with the Blackfeet at Two Medicine River on today’s Blackfeet Reservation near Browning, Montana was the start of the war between the Blackfeet and Americans which lasted for more than two decades. Why do I think that Lewis "set up," or provoked, a fight with the Blackfeet in 1806? Well, simply put, it’s because he fell into a "profound sleep" while he and his three companions spent the night with eight young Piegan horse thieves whom they encountered at the Two-Medicine River area near today’s Glacier National Park. The teenagers were just returning from a successful raid on Crow Indian horses with 30 horses. The next morning (July 27, 1806) the boys stole the guns of all four men while Reuben Field was on guard duty and the other three were sleeping. During the ensuing uproar, the guns were recovered, and Reuben killed one of the robbers. Then the boys attempted to make off with the men’s horses, and Meriwether Lewis killed another young thief.

I am extremely skeptical of the idea that four experienced Indian fighters could not have prevented this from happening, if they had wished to avoid trouble.  This was geo-politics. The Blackfeet controlled the area with the help of British supplied arms and ammunition. The Lewis and Clark Expedition represented the first American presence in the area, and they had promised to supply arms and ammunition to the Blackfeet’s traditional enemies, the Shoshone, Flatheads and Kutenai, and to establish a trading post in Blackfeet territory east of the Rocky Mountains. I think it is plausible that Meriwether Lewis allowed an incident to happen, as the start of the armed struggle for control of the Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountain area between the United States and Britain. 
Lewis wrote several entries in his journal about how worried he was about meeting up with the Blackfeet when he went north to explore how far the Marias River extended. The purpose of his dangerous journey with three of the best and toughest members of the Corps of Discovery was to find out if whether the United States could claim more land, based on the northern extent of the tributaries of the Missouri River. If instead of following the Marias River and its branches, they had chosen instead to follow the Milk River, the present day boundary line between the United States and Canada might well extend about 15 miles further north to the area of Writing-in-the-Stone Provincial Park and the town of Milk River in Alberta, Canada. 
When Lewis first sighted the Indians and horses, he wrote in his journal on July 26, 1806: "I counted eight of them…I told the two men with me…I was convinced they would rob us in which case be their numbers what they would I should resist to the last extremity, preferring death to that of being deprived of my papers instruments and gun and desired that they would form the same resolution and be alert and on their guard."  After the initial meeting with the Piegan he wrote: "I believe they were more alarmed at this accidental interview than we were…I now concluded they were only eight in number and became much better satisfyed with our situation as I was convinced that we could manage that number should they attempt any hostile measures. As it was growing late in the evening I proposed that we should remove to the nearest part of the river and encamp together. I told them that I was glad to see them and had a great deel to say to them….I told these people…that I had been to the great waters where the sun sets and seen a great many nations all of whom I had invited to come and trade with me on the rivers on this side of the mountains." 
The Blackfeet had lived in this area for at least 3,000-5,000 years and were considered the most aggressive and warlike tribe in the Northwest. Since acquiring guns and ammunition from British traders on the Saskatchewan River in the 1750’s, they controlled the buffalo plains from the Saskatchewan River to the Yellowstone River in Montana. They terrorized the Shoshone, Flatheads and Kutenai, who had no guns. The western tribes risked their lives when they ventured out of the mountains in pursuit of buffalo. The Piegans were the southernmost of the three tribes of the Blackfeet Nation, with an estimated 700 warriors in 1809.  When Lewis and Clark encountered the Shoshone in the Rocky Mountains in the famous episode where Sacagawea realizes the chief is her brother, the Shoshone were starving and waiting to join up with the Flathead and other Shoshone bands before coming down from the mountains to hunt buffalo. Lewis and Clark promise to supply all these tribes with guns and ammunition, including the Nez Perce in Idaho. The buffalo were so numerous on the plains that on July 18th, Lewis comments they rode for twelve miles surrounded by buffalo herds (probably a quarter million buffalo). They estimated they saw 10,000 or 20,000 in one view at other times. 
I gave a talk at the White Catfish Festival at Western Historic Trails Center in Council Bluffs, Iowa yesterday (7/21/07). Our weekly Lewis and Clark Study Group meets at the Trails Center, so many of the talks at the Lewis and Clark annual event were given by us. Study group asked me to talk about my idea that Meriwether Lewis intended to have a fight with the Blackfeet. Well, I had always wanted to research this more closely so I accepted the challenge.  I had Lewis’s journal account, but I needed to learn more about the Blackfeet. I found John C. Ewers classic 1958 book, The Blackfeet: Raiders on the Northwestern Plains, on ABE the used book site; and called the Blackfeet Heritage Center at Browning, Montana and got a DVD, Two Worlds at Two-Medicine: the Blackfeet Meet Meriwether Lewis (2004). The Historical Society of Montana provided an1833 Alexander Culbertson reference to the encounter from a 1917 society publication.  A fellow Lewis and Clark blogger, at Lewis and Clark Trail Watch, Kathleen Dahl, was just posting blogs on the internet on her visit to the Two Medicine and Fort Benton area; and she agreed to let me use some of her photos. I found the Trail Tribes website to be very helpful. I used a digital camera to copy some of Karl Bodmer’s illustrations from Travels in the Interior of North America during the years 1832-34 from Taschen, the German publisher, and put in some maps from my own Lewis and Clark Road Trips book. I showed excerpts from the DVD at the end of my talk; we all would have just settled down to watch the whole video if I started with it. It’s very good, and features Curly Bear Wagner the famous Blackfoot historian and tour guide, and other experts.  The Blackfeet accounts contribute the names of the two who died, Side-hill-calf and He-that looks-at-the-calf, and the fact that the eight Piegans were young teenagers. Wolf Calf, whose photo is shown above, was a 13 year old participant. He was photographed and interviewed by George Bird Grinnell in 1895 when he was 102 years old. 
The Blackfeet were out to kill American trappers from 1806 on. In 1807, Manuel Lisa and George Drouillard led the first expedition up the Missouri after Lewis and Clark’s return. John Colter and other men from the Corps of Discovery were part of the group. Colter was with a group of Flatheads when they were attacked by the Blackfeet, and he fought on the side of the Flatheads, reinforcing the Blackfeet’s distrust of Americans.  In 1808, Colter and John Potts, another former member of the Corps of Discovery, were caught by the Blackfeet in the Missouri headwaters area. Potts was killed, but Colter was stripped naked and allowed to run for his life while being pursued by the Blackfeet. In one of the great frontier adventure stories, he managed to escape being killed, and found his way back to the Missouri Fur Company fort on the Bighorn River.  In 1810, the Blackfeet killed twenty men of the Missouri Fur Company who were trapping in the headwaters area, including George Drouillard.  Fighting in Blackfeet territory continued, but now it was between Indian tribes, who were all being supplied with guns and ammunition. The Missouri Fur Company abandoned its fur posts from 1810 until 1821, when they tried to reopen the fort on the Yellowstone. The Blackfeet killed 6 trappers and made off with $15,000 worth of furs. Finally the American Fur Company succeeded in making peace, and establishing trade at Fort Union in 1828. 
All of these places are destinations in my Lewis and Clark Road Trips book. There are links to their websites and MapQuest maps on the website. The Blackfeet today have a thriving tourism business, entertaining and educating many visitors from Europe, who respect their long history and heritage and love the beautiful landscape of Glacier National Park. The Blackfeet have participated whole heartedly in the Lewis and Clark bicentennial, issuing special commemorative coins and leading tours to the encounter site. It is one of the great destination areas of Lewis and Clark Road Trips.

Posted by Kira Gale on 07/22/2007 at 03:42 PM

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