What 3 tribes did Lewis and Clark meet?
Among the
Lewis and Clark NHT Visitor Centers and Museums
The Two Medicine Fight Site represents the first encounter with the Blackfeet Nation, a Native American Tribe that for much of the trip through Montana had been narrowly avoided.
In the summer of 1804, the Otoe and Missouria were the first tribes to hold council with Lewis and Clark in their official role as representatives of President Jefferson.
In 1804, Meriwether Lewis and Captain William Clark, on their expedition to the Pacific Northwest, held a “council” with the members of the Otoe tribe in the area of Fort Calhoun, NE, and the entire area became known as “Council Bluff”.
Among the Plains tribes Lewis and Clark met were the Osage, Sioux, Cheyenne, Crow, and Mandan. Upon reaching the Rocky Mountains, Lewis and Clark entered the country of the Plateau Indians. Living here were the Blackfeet, Flathead, Shoshone, Nez Perce, Spokane, and Yakima Indians.
The circle marks the approximate place where Lewis and three companions camped with eight Blackfeet Indians on the evening of July 26, 1806, along Two Medicine River. The next morning, a fight erupted when the natives tried to seize the explorers' rifles and run off with their horses.
In fact, the Corps encountered around 50 different Native American tribes including the Shoshone, the Mandan, the Minitari, the Blackfeet, the Chinook and the Sioux. Lewis and Clark developed a first contact protocol for meeting new tribes.
Sacagawea was a member of the Agaideka (Lemhi) Shoshone, who lived in the upper Salmon River Basin in present-day Idaho. In about 1800, she was kidnapped by members of the Hidatsa tribe and taken to their homeland in the Knife River Valley, near present-day Stanton, North Dakota.
What aggressive tribe was Lewis and Clark warned about?
Louis contacts had warned them about the often violent tactics used by the Tetons to control river traffic, the expedition was armed with more than gifts.
Members of Lewis and Clark's Corps of Discovery met for the first time with the Lakota people, known to them as the Teton Sioux. Differences in trade objectives, diplomacy, and the lack of an interpreter lead to an armed confrontation, the closest Lewis and Clark came to a premature end to their expedition.
The explorers had their first council with a Sioux tribe, the Yankton, at Calumet Bluff on Aug. 30, 1804. The two groups met under the shade of an oak tree. Lewis delivered his customary speech, promoting commerce with the United States, and presented the chiefs with gifts of tobacco, clothing and peace medals.
What Native American tribe gave Lewis and Clark food and shelter after they made it through the Rocky Mountains? The Sioux allowed safe passage through their lands; they were helped by the Hidatsa, and the Mandan allowed them to winter with them.
Lewis and Clark described the1250 remaining Mandan in 1804 as "brave, humane, and hospitable" – "the most friendly Indians" along the Upper Missouri River.
When St. Louis was founded in 1764, the Osage were the original "Gateway to the West," using their talents and knowledge to make the fur trade profitable and western exploration possible. The Osage leaders met Lewis and Clark long before the Expedition began and gave valuable information about Missouri River tribes.
When she was approximately 12 years old, Sacagawea was captured by an enemy tribe, the Hidatsa, and taken from her Lemhi Shoshone people to the Hidatsa villages near present-day Bismarck, North Dakota.
Lewis and Clark's expedition would likely not have been successful without Sacagawea's help, because they would not have been able to communicate with the Native American tribes they met along the way and therefore would have had trouble trading for horses and supplies.
Captain Lewis had the more dangerous assignment because his explorations took him to the lands of the feared Blackfoot and Gros Ventre Indians – warlike tribes already well known for attacking intruders in their territories.
Louis, they stopped again at the Mandan and Hidatsa villages. There Sacagawea and her family ended their journey. Historians have debated the events of Sacagawea's life after the journey's end. Although opinions differ, it is generally believed that she died at Fort Manuel Lisa near present-day Kenel, South Dakota.
Was the Blackfeet tribe friendly to Lewis and Clark?
In the summer of 1806, Lewis and three other men had separated from the rest of the expedition to explore the area around the Marias River. When they first encountered the young Blackfeet, relations had been friendly and the Indians had shared a campfire with the explorers.
She was married by age sixteen, and we do not know how much choice she had in the matter. Her husband, Toussaint Charbonneau, was thirty years older than her and had another wife, named Otter Woman. Sacagawea had a baby at age sixteen, and her son had a French name, like his father.
It was her Hidatsa captors who gave her the name Sacagawea, which means “Bird Woman.” The warriors brought Sacagawea to a Hidatsa-Mandan settlement in present-day North Dakota. About a year later, when Sacagawea was only 13 years old, her captors forced her to marry French trapper Toussaint Charbonneau.
While Lewis admired Sacagawea's poise in crisis, caring for her during a serious illness happened to fall to Clark. That seemed to initiate a special friendship between Clark and the Charbonneau family—one with lifelong consequences for Jean Baptiste.
Inside, Sacagawea, just sixteen years old, was giving birth to her first child. The baby's father, Toussaint Charbonneau, had lived in a Hidatsa town for years. Sacagawea was one of his two wives.
