[The Montana Professor 15.1, Fall 2004 <http://mtprof.msun.edu>]
Bob Saindon
Independent Scholar
Wolf Point MT
Even the best speakers of the Assiniboine language on the Fort Peck Reservation do not recognize the Lewis and Clark renditions of what are supposed to be the Assiniboine words./1/ This revelation lends credence to the judgment of the voyagers' linguistic abilities expressed by Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied, who came up the Missouri 29 years later (i.e., 1833):
These celebrated travelers [Lewis and Clark] passed the winter among the Mandans, and give many particulars respecting them, which on the whole, are correct; but their proper names and words from the Mandan and Manitaries [Hidatsa] languages are, in general, inaccurately understood and written.... Of this kind are many of the names mentioned by those travelers, which neither the Indians nor the Whites were able to understand.
It was from those two tribes that Lewis and Clark gathered most of their information during the five months they were at their fort near the Mandan villages--including their information about the Assiniboines.
Lewis and Clark identified three Assiniboine bands by name. However, it is difficult, at best, to understand whom they were identifying. If one stretches his imagination and makes some daring assumptions, the best he can say is that these "celebrated travelers" mixed up the information for the three bands they tried to identify. One thing is for certain, their informants did a very convincing job of portraying the Assiniboines as a threatening lot of ruthless rogues.
White men had met the Assiniboine Indians at least 165 years before the men of the Lewis and Clark expedition visited them./2/ There was, in fact, a good deal of information about this tribe available to Lewis and Clark before the 45-member party headed their three vessels up the Missouri river in the spring of 1804. Just how much they knew about the Assiniboines is unknown. However, while still at Wood River Camp (across from the mouth of the Missouri),/3/ they put together lists of items to be included in bales as presents for the various tribes they hoped to meet./4/ At that time they may have reviewed their information on each tribe.
In addition to any literature that may have referred to the Assiniboines, Lewis and Clark also had access to information from men in the Wood River area who had been in Canada and on the upper Missouri, and who were familiar with the Assiniboines. And so, unlike so many other claims of discovery attributed to those honored explorers, we cannot credit Lewis and Clark with "discovering" the Assiniboines.
Thomas Jefferson drew up a lengthy set of instructions for Lewis and Clark before he sent them out on what was to become one of history's most successful expeditions. Along their 4,000-mile trek they were to seek answers to an exhaustive list of questions, many of which dealt with the location, disposition, economy, custom, morals, language, religion, trading practices, etc., of each Indian tribe they were to encounter.
A vast expanse of the land these explorers were to cross was terra incognita--land unknown to the whites. There was no record that any white man had been up the Missouri farther than the Yellowstone River, and the ocean was 2,000 miles beyond that.
What is significant to us is that many white men had been in certain parts of the vast territory that was considered "the land of the Assiniboines" long before the arrival of Lewis and Clark. From the time the expedition reached the Little Missouri river in present central North Dakota until they were in present central Montana (a distance of 600 miles by their estimate), they were traveling along the southern border of Assiniboine country, and they knew it. Although the explorers did not actually meet the Assiniboines as they passed over that stretch of the Missouri, they did see recent signs of their presence, including signs of their association with the British fur companies of Canada.
In the bundle of gifts Lewis and Clark packed for the Assiniboines, there were specific gifts identified for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd chiefs; for the girls; "women of consideration"; children; and "Some Young Chiefs or Chiefs Sons."
At the end of the list the explorers added a set of items "for a 1st Chief." Perhaps at this time they learned that each Assiniboine band was autonomous, i.e., there was no grand chief of the Assiniboine nation; each band had its own 1st chief. Out of the many bands that existed, Lewis and Clark were to mention only five, and only three of those were identified by more than their geographic location. It appears that the officers visited with members of only one band.
The expedition arrived at the Mandan villages on October 27, 1804. It was 17 days later that they made their first (and perhaps only) contact with the Assiniboines. On that day (November 13) Captain Clark, in his creative style and phonetic simplicity, entered an account of the visit on both his Field Notes and his Journal. Information from those two sources plus information Clark added later has been somewhat edited and compiled below:
Lagree (his French name) Che Chanka a Chief & 7 Assiniboine men of note visited us at Fort Mandan. I Smoked with them and gave the Chief a Gold Cord, with a view to know him again/5/ & a Carrot of Tobacco to Smoke with his people. This chief leads one of 3 bands of Assns who rove in the Plains between the Missouri & Assn river./6/ The 3 consist of about 600 men./7/ They hunt in the Plains & winter and trade on the Ossiniboin River with the British Companies. They are Divided into several bands. They are descendants of the Sioux & Speak nearly their language. A bad disposed lot & Can raise about 1000 men in the 3 bands near this place. They come to the nations in this quarter to trade or (make presents) for horses, corn &c.
There are several renditions in the translation of Clark's writing of the chief's name: "Lagree Che Chank," "Che chark Lagru," and "Chechawk."
"La gru" is most likely French for "the crane," but the meaning of "che chank" is another matter. I have looked at Clark's Field Notes and am satisfied that his spelling is "Che chank Lagru." But I am amused with his journal spelling: "Lagru Che Chank." That could possibly have an interesting meaning: the best Assiniboine translation of che chank I could get would have it mean "want something." In other words, it is possible that Clark's introduction to this chief may have been "La Gru wants something," and Clark took the whole sentence to be the chief's name./8/
During their stay of over five months near the Mandan villages they had very little direct contact with the Assiniboines. They did, however, collect a good deal of negative information and very little positive information about the Assiniboine people. Were they duped by jealous tribes competing for the explorers' trade goods, or were they given accurate information?
It was Black Cat, a Mandan chief, who brought "Che Chank and 7 men of note" to meet with Clark on that cold, snowy November morning. In his Field Notes, Clark concludes that these people are "a bad disposed lot." Although he gives no reason for that conclusion, the negative feelings may have begun as early as October 25--two days before they arrived at the Mandan villages. At that time two unfavorable reports regarding some Assiniboines were received. The first report told about Sioux stealing horses from the Hidatsa, and on their way home they met with Assiniboines who in turn "killed them and took the horses." The second story was a rumor about a French free trader who had lived among the Mandans for 20 years and had been killed by the "Assiniboin Indians" on his return from the British trading posts in Canada./9/ These were the first Lewis and Clark Journal entries about the Assiniboines--not a very glamorous introduction. Whatever their reasons, Lewis and Clark maintained a negative attitude about these people even in reports after the expedition was completed.
Without appearing to be overly defensive of the Assiniboines, it needs to be pointed out that there seems to be no evidence that these explorers ever had any firsthand information to support a negative image. As mentioned earlier, for the most part their information about the Assiniboines was gathered from the Mandan and Hidatsa people--"our Dutiful Children," as Lewis and Clark referred to these farming tribes. (It was Jefferson's belief, and no doubt Lewis and Clark's, that "those who till the soil are the chosen people of God.")
It was primarily the Assiniboines' mastery at counting coups on the Mandan and Hidatsa horses that frustrated those "Dutiful Children" of the U.S. government. Lewis and Clark cast a myopic eye upon the practice and determined that counting coup against the "chosen people of God" was evil thievery. This moral judgment shows a misunderstanding of counting coup and helps us understand part of the reason for the negative view these explorers held of the Assiniboine people.
I told this nation [the Mandans] that we should be always willing and ready to defend them from the insults of any nation who would dare to come to doe them injury during the time we would remain in their neighborhood. (Clark--Nov. 30, 1804)
In addition to "stealing" their horses, the nomadic Assiniboines controlled the roads between the Mandan/Hidatsa trade center and the British fur companies in Canada. This was a frustration for the Mandans and Hidatsas as well as the British--who, by the way, also reported negatively about the Assiniboines.
It was, therefore, understandable that the Mandans and Hidatsas would want to monopolize the trade of the white men who came up the Missouri River, and to embrace their new White Father. It would be to their benefit if they could paint a distasteful picture of the Assiniboines. After all, the more pitiful they made themselves look, the more apt they were to draw on the sympathy of the whites. And it worked on Lewis and Clark.
You [Mandans] know your Selves that you are Compelled to put up with little insults from the Christinoes & Ossinaboins (or Stone Inds.) because if you go to war with those people, they will prevent the traders in the north from bringing you Guns Powder & Ball and by that means distress you very much, but when you will have Certain Suppliers from your Great American father of all those articles you will not Suffer any nation to insult you.... (Clark--Nov. 30, 1804)
There were, without question, "vicious and illy disposed" Assiniboines. It appears that Lewis and Clark may have attempted to identify that particular band when they wrote "Nakota Oseegah." They translated the name to mean "Girls," which was probably a reference to the Little Girls band, We ché appe nah. Lewis and Clark's nacota Oseegah/10/ would translate as the "Bad Assiniboine" band. This may have been a reference to Woa Seeja--Rattle Snake of Big Devils, probably referring to the Ean To Wah or Rock Band (Rock Warriors), a vicious band that occupied the area between the Mandan villages and the British fur posts.
Lewis and Clark identified a band as Manetopa and said it was the Canoe band. If that is the case, it would be Wahtopa (Canoe Paddlers). Or, with a stretch of the imagination, this may have been the Little Girls band if the mysterious name could possibly have meant "Walking After Water," since getting water was a task of the women and girls./11/
Lewis and Clark's "Mahtopanato," which they say means "Big Devils," could have been a corruption of Wahto Pah an Dato or the band known as Canoe Paddlers of the Prairie.
In short, the Lewis and Clark renditions of the band names are confusing--Nakota Ossegah may have meant Big Devils, rather than Little Girls band; Manetopa may have meant Little Girls band, rather than Canoe band; and Mahtopanato may have meant Canoe rather than Big Devils. In any case, Bad Nakota is an unlikely name for an Assiniboine band. It is perhaps a name given by some interpreter who was expressing his own feelings about the band rather than giving its true name.
The officers claimed to have taken a vocabulary of the Assiniboine language, but they do not identify their source, or even if the source was an Assiniboine. (Unfortunately, that vocabulary, along with 31 others they collected, has been lost since 1810.) The process of taking the Assiniboine vocabulary must have been somewhat awkward. It would have come to Lewis and Clark through a person who spoke English and French, who in turn got it from a person who spoke French and understood Assiniboine--or some other Indian language. There may have even been one more step involved. Since the words recorded by Lewis and Clark are not identifiable as Assiniboine words, it is possible that they were derived from an Indian informant who did not speak the Assiniboine language.
Besides "Lagru," there was one other Assiniboine chief whom Lewis and Clark identified as "Son of the Little Calf," and they said he was "Grand Chief of those tribes." Whoever this chief was, and however well respected he may have been, it is very doubtful that he was considered by the Assiniboines, generally, as the "grand chief" of their nation./12/ There is no record that Lewis and Clark actually visited with this man.
While at Fort Mandan, the explorers promised the Arikara that they would talk to the Assiniboines about being peaceful with them. If Lewis and Clark did talk to the Assiniboines about this, they must have been satisfied with the response they received because they left the Arikara with the impression that the matter had been settled. However, without the use of the pipe such promises were not necessarily looked upon as binding. The Captains had not been gone long on their journey to the ocean before the problems between certain Assiniboines and the Arikara were again raging.
It was a 29-member detachment of the United States Army and four civilians who set out from Fort Mandan on April 7. Three French hunters on their way to trap beaver on the Yellowstone river briefly joined them. Lewis wrote: "these people avail themselves of the protection which our numbers will enable us to give them against the Assiniboins who sometimes hunt on the Missouri."
About 85 miles above Fort Mandan, at the mouth of the Little Missouri River, they came upon numerous hunting lodges of the Assiniboines and Hidatsas on both sides of the Missouri and Little Missouri. They had recently been abandoned. Members of these two tribes had camped together at this place during the latter part of the winter. Lewis and Clark believed the Assiniboines were by this time near the "British Establishments" on the Assiniboine river.
A short distance further they came across more abandoned lodges. The Journal entry is worth quoting in full:
...in the bottom lands he [Clark] had met with several uninhabited Indian lodges built with the boughs of the Elm, and in the plains he met with remains of two large encampments of a recent date, which from the appearance of some hoops of small kegs, seen near them we concluded that they must have been the camps of the Assinniboins, as no other nation who visit this part of the Missouri ever indulge themselves with spirituous liquor. Of this article the Assinniboins are passionately fond, and we are informed that it forms their principal inducement to furnish the British establishments on the Assinniboin river with the dried and pounded meat and grease which they do. They also supply those establishments with a small quantity of fur, consisting principally of the large and small wolves and the small fox skins. These they barter for small kegs of rum which they generally transport to their camps at a distance from the establishments, where they revel with their friends and relations as long as they possess the means of intoxication, their women and children are equally indulged on those occasions and are all seen drunk together. So far is a state of intoxication from being a cause of reproach among them, that with the men, it is a matter of exultation that their skill and industry as hunters has enabled them to get drunk frequently. In their customs, habits and dispositions these people very much resemble the Sioux from whom they have descended. The principal inducement with the British fur companies, for continuing their establishments on the Assinniboin river, is the Buffalo meat and grease they procure from the Assinniboins, and Christanoes (Crees), by means of which, they are enabled to supply provision to their engages.
The Assinniboins have so recently left this neighborhood that the game is scarce and very shy.
Abandoned encampments continued to be common. On April 17, they wrote "saw the remains of Assinniboin encampments in every point of woodland on this day." On this same day they saw Indian tracks that were only about 24 hours old, and four rafts on the north bank of the river. Always bent on the negative when it came to the Assiniboines, Clark wrote: "Those [the tracks and rafts] I presume were Ossinniboins who had been on a war party against the Rocky Mountain Indians." The Journals also record many sightings along the river of the remains of Assiniboine ceremonies.
There can be little doubt that the Assiniboines were aware of Lewis and Clark's attitude toward them. And so it is not unreasonable to assume they would avoid the explorers. That could explain why Lewis and Clark reported many recent signs of the Assiniboines, but there seemed to be no Assiniboines around. That being the case, I found it interesting when one day I was told by an Assiniboine, without any previous discussion on the matter, that when Lewis and Clark came up the Missouri the Assiniboines who were still in the area moved away from the river. He said they retreated to Lookout Point, and from that very high elevation, several miles to the north, they observed the expedition on the Missouri River./13/
On the surface that may seem an unlikely story. However, from the time the expedition passed the Little Missouri in central North Dakota until they were at the Bitterroot Mountains southwest of present Dillon, Montana (a stretch of 1400 miles by their measurement), they saw live signs of Indians only once. And that one sighting was from atop Milk river bluff in present northeastern Montana. Clark turned his attention in the direction of Lookout Point, and Lewis reported: "CaptC. could not be certain but thought he saw the smoke and some Indian lodges at a considerable distance up Milk river." Lookout Point is on Porcupine creek, but at that time Lewis and Clark believed Porcupine, a northern branch, to be the main course of Milk river.
After seeing the possible smoke and lodges, and where the Assiniboines had taken the hair off an antelope hide, Lewis wrote: "we do not wish to see those gentlemen just now as we presume they would most probably be the Assinniboins and might be troublesome to us."
Twenty-one miles further up the Missouri they got a scare that compelled the officers to call for a presentation of arms. Lewis wrote:
We sent out several hunters to scower the country, to this we were induced not so much from the want of provision as to discover the Indians whom we have reasons to believe were in the neighborhood, from the circumstance of one of their dogs coming to us this morning shortly after we landed; we still believe ourselves in the country usually hunted by the Assinniboins, and as they are a vicious illy disposed nation we think it best to be on our guard, accordingly we inspected the arms an accoutrements [of] the party and found them all in good order. The hunters returned this evening having seen no tents or Indians nor any fresh signs of them." (Lewis--May 10, 1805)
It seems that Lewis and Clark did not handle the Assiniboine language well. And until the Assiniboine vocabulary they collected is found, their understanding of the Assiniboine language will remain a mystery. In any case, little can be understood with regard to the few Assiniboine words they recorded in their journals.
While crossing the Great Plains, these distinguished explorers seemed to be more sympathetic toward the farming Indians than toward the nomadic hunters. They had hoped to persuade all such tribes to take up the art of cultivating the soil.
Although they had very little firsthand information about the Assiniboine people, Lewis and Clark developed a fearful, negative attitude toward them, considering them "vicious and illy disposed" and calling them "rogues."
Their statement that the Assiniboine trade would not promise much economic value to the U.S. fur trade is somewhat contradicted by their statement that the pemmican the Assiniboines provided the British fur companies was essential to the British fur trade operation.
Lewis and Clark were influenced by an ethic that said mankind had domination over the earth and that the possession and accumulation of land and material goods was not only the right but also the duty of human beings. To them the Assiniboines were lazy and worthless because they did not possess land, cultivate the soil, and accumulate an abundance of unessential material goods. Furthermore, Lewis and Clark were disturbed by the fact that the Assiniboines would provide the British with only the number of furs that were necessary for the Assiniboines to meet their immediate needs (including rum, for some of them).
In fairness to Lewis and Clark, however, we must remind ourselves that these faithful, obedient American soldiers were sent on a mission to determine how to bring all Indian tribes under the dominion of their "Great White Father" in Washington, and to gather information that would lead to assimilating all the tribes into the white man's culture. Because of that mission, Lewis and Clark were forced to view and evaluate the Assiniboine people in terms that were unfair. Consequently, and understandably, they viewed them negatively.
The Assiniboine culture was far removed from that of the whites. Assimilation into the white man's culture would be a challenge for the U.S. government for several generations to come. Lewis and Clark were the first in a long line of American officials sent out to help determine ways of bringing about that cultural change.
It was on the Fort Peck Reservation in 1875 that the Assiniboines under Chief Red Stone finally gave in to the white man's persistence, and took up the plow. And so, what Lewis and Clark set out to do 70 years earlier finally became a reality--the Assiniboines became part of Thomas Jefferson's concept of the "chosen people of God."
Notes
In preparing this article I have given strange words and phrases to Assiniboine speakers asking them what they mean in the Assiniboine language. My interpreters have been very patient and have made honest attempts to derive an Assiniboine meaning from Lewis and Clark's renderings of what the explorers believed to be Assiniboine words. It was finally suggested that the words are not Assiniboine words, and that perhaps they are words from the language of the people who interpreted for Lewis and Clark.[Back]
The Jesuit missionaries met Assiniboines near Lake Napigon in Ontario, Canada, at least as early as 1640.[Back]
Wood River Camp was located on the Illinois side of the Mississippi river. The expedition spent the months of December 1803 to May 1804 at this camp disciplining recruits and making preparations for their 28-month journey to the Pacific ocean.[Back]
It is my assumption that the lists of items for the various bales were compiled while they were still at Wood River Camp since they include bales (i.e., bags, cases, and boxes) of presents for tribes both above and below the Mandans. There are nine bales listed for the tribes below the Mandans and six bales for the tribes above the Mandans. Since it is not until the fifth bale (for the tribes above the Mandans) that fishing equipment is listed, I assume that the first bale is intended for the Assiniboines, the second for the Crow, the third for the Atsina, the fourth for the Blackfeet and the fifth and sixth for the fishing Indians beyond the mountains (among which would be the Shoshone and Salish). Of course, this is pure speculation.[Back]
"...with a view to know him again." The purpose of this was so that the next time Clark saw a man wearing a gold chord, he would immediately recognize him as an important chief of the Assiniboines.[Back]
Alexander Henry, the Younger, on July 28, 1806, places the home of "old Crane" at Moose Mountain in Canada, which by location identifies Crane's band as the Little Girls band, rather than "Canoe" band as Lewis and Clark have it identified.[Back]
At some time prior to 1810 Clark learned that there were more than three bands of Assiniboines. The ethnographical data compiled by Lewis and Clark in 1804-1806 only lists three bands. In the official narrative of the expedition, for which Clark provided information as late as 1810, we find five bands mentioned. About the year 1808, Alexander Henry identified 11 bands of Assiniboines. (New Light on the Early History of the Greater Northwest, ed. Elliott Coues, 522-23.)[Back]
To throw out another theory on this chief's name (albeit a somewhat shaky theory), it could be argued with some conviction that this chief was Le Gros Francois. This was the name the French traders called Wah hé muzza (Iron Arrow Point). Le Gros Francois was a prominent Assiniboine chief of the Rock band who claimed to have met with Lewis and Clark on the Missouri river in 1805.
Although he was of the Rock band, his age, his claim to have met Lewis and Clark, his French name (le Gros Francois), and the fact that in the Sioux language "chank" (cnka) and "Wah hé" mean the same thing--flint (referring to an arrow point)--and that "chanka" also means "firesteel," leads one to speculate that Iron Arrow Point might have been the chief who met with Clark November 13, 1805, on the Missouri river at Fort Mandan.[Back]
I have never been conclusively satisfied that this French free trader, whom we know only as "Menard," was in fact killed by Assiniboines. It certainly is possible. However, the British fur companies were warring against each other at the time, and there is reason to believe there was at times bad blood between Menard and the clerk of the Hudson's Bay Company because of the clerk's belief that Menard was favoring the Northwest Company. Furthermore, the reports of his death are inconsistent. In any case, the Assiniboines would have been the best scapegoats for anybody who may have committed the murder.[Back]
Oseegah, I am told, means "bad," but is used in reference to food by the Assiniboines, not in reference to the disposition of people. The "g" would have a /j/ sound (Oseejah).[Back]
One of my interpreters said the word could mean "four walking," then added: "That's not an Assiniboine word, we don't talk that way." Another suggested: Manito Topa (Four Spirits)--not a known band.[Back]
Although there were band chiefs who were respected by many other bands, I have found no evidence that a grand chief, per se, ever existed for the Assiniboine nation. Such an honor would probably take an almost super human being. Some were recognized as chiefs because of their esteemed war record; others because of their exemplary life style, intelligence, and ability to make level-headed decisions; and still others because of their supernatural powers, or medicine. For any one person to be considered worthy of recognition for all these virtues is unlikely.
The honor of "grand chief" was probably most nearly held for the first time by Me' nah u hi'nah (He-Who-Holds-The-Knife), chief of the Wadopana, or Canoe Paddler band, some 25 years after the Lewis and Clark Expediton.
At the Fort Laramie Treaty Council of 1851, the U.S. government recognized Mau to weet ko, or Foolish Bear, of the We cheap pe nah or Little Girls band as the grand chief of the Assiniboines in the United States' territories. He was widely respected by his people, not because of his medicine or war record, but because of his intelligence and his ability to communicate effectively with the officials of the U.S. government. This must have been the beginning of a widely accepted chief with such limited (albeit important) qualifications.[Back]
As told by R. Oliver Archdale of Wolf Point, MT, December 10, 1992. Oliver is a member of the Red Bottom band which was formed from the Canoe Paddlers about 35 years after the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The Canoe Paddler band was one of three bands identified by Lewis and Clark. After the Fort Peck Reservation was formed in 1888, the Red Bottom people settled about 35 miles from Lookout Point.[Back]
In their statistical data of the Indians west of the Mississippi Lewis and Clark presented the following summary information about the Assiniboines:
Manetopa. Oseegah. Mahtopanato. Are the descendants of the Sioux,/14/ and partake of their turbulent and faithless disposition: they frequently plunder, and sometimes murder, their own traders. The name by which this nation is generally known was borrowed from the Chippeways, who cal them Assinniboan, which literally translated, is Stone Sioux, hence the name of the Stone Indians, by which they are sometimes called. The country in which they rove is almost entirely uncovered with timber; lies extremely level, and is but badly watered in many parts; the land, however, is tolerably fertile and unencumbered with stone./15/ They might be induced to trade at the river Yellow Stone; but I do not think that their trade promises much./16/ Their numbers continue about the same. These bands, like the Sioux, act entirely independent of each other, although they claim a national affinity and never make war on each other. The country inhabited by the Mahtopanato possesses rather more timber than the other parts of the country. They do not cultivate.
Notes
The belief that the Assiniboines descended form the Sioux seems to be based on a statement by one of the earliest whites to meet the Assiniboine people in the first half of the 1600s. Since that time the belief has been perpetuated among the whites who use the similarities in the Sioux and Assiniboine languages to support their contention. As late as the mid-1800s there were Assiniboines telling white men that they remembered when their people broke away from the Sioux. The Assiniboine historians I know state categorically that the break described in the early 1600s never actually took place the way the white man had recorded it.[Back]
Here Lewis and Clark are referring only to the roving bands of Assiniboines. There were other bands in timbered areas with a good deal of water.[Back]
In another place Lewis and Clark state that the Assiniboine and Cree were essential to the British fur trade because of the pemmican they provided for the isolated British posts. However, Lewis and Clark were not the only early whites who reported that the Assiniboines did not provide much in the way of furs.[Back]
[The Montana Professor 15.1, Fall 2004 <http://mtprof.msun.edu>]