Toward the end of October, the expedition reached the Mandan and Hidatsa earthlodge villages near where we are today. The Mandan people lived along the Missouri River, and the Hidatsa people lived nearby along the Knife River. The people of the earthlodge villages raised crops and engaged in trade. They welcomed all peaceful visitors. During the winter of 1804-1805, the Lewis & Clark expedition spent their time here. In this post we’ll see the replica of this fort and how the men lived over the cold, cold winter.
In the next couple of posts we’ll show you what we learned from North Dakota’s Interpretative Center about the expedition’s time living here and making friends with the local Natives. I can’t imagine how these men lived in this fort that was open to the sky; they were such hardy men.
With these words, Lewis and Clark called this chief “Big White” because he gave hope and promise that the Corps of Discovery would sustain itself through a long, cold winter that was coming.
Sheheke proved true to his word, as the expedition members were nourished by buffalo meat, corn, beans, and squash. Without the goodwill and hospitality of the Mandan and Hidatsa Indians, the members of the expedition may never have survived that first winter on the frontier.
The Captains, while anxious to proceed, were also contemplating their good fortune in residing among their American Indian hosts. Buffalo meat and hides were critical to the American Indians living here for a thousand years, and they proved immensely valuable to the Corps of Discovery. The men of the expedition were known to eat several pounds of buffalo meat a day, and every bunk in Fort Mandan was covered by a buffalo robe.
Most of the details about the fort came from our tour guide and the North Dakota research site.
On November 4, the men began to cut down cottonwood trees to use in building their winter home. The work went slowly because the large, heavy cottonwood timbers had to be carried to the building site [from the river]. The fort was three-sided with two rows of cabins placed at an angle and an 18-foot-high stockade around the perimeter. Lewis and Clark named this winter home “Fort Mandan.”
Fort Mandan was completed on December 24, and on Christmas Day 1804, the American flag was raised. This was the first time the nation’s flag had ever been displayed over what is now North Dakota.
The men occupied their unfinished buildings on November 16, and the two captains moved into theirs four days later.
Notice the cannon in the middle of the open area? It would certainly scare off anyone who wanted to attack the Corps members.
Each of these packages were put together specifically as a gift for each tribe Lewis and Clark thought they were going to meet. Remember we told you that the expedition wanted to meet a tribe but they were out hunting?
Here’s some more information I found on The Muzzle Loading Forum about these canisters that Lewis devised for this trip:
“Ever since I read the journals of Lewis and Clark as a young boy, I was taken by the cleverness of Lewis’s method of storing powder in a lead canister that used just enough lead to make bullets for all the powder in the can. Made of soldered lead, they were corrosion proof, water proof, and sealed with a cork dipped in sealing wax or pitch. By their account, the canisters held 4 pounds of powder and were made of 8 pounds of lead. Assuming they were shooting 0.560 cal balls (~264 grains each) in .58 cal weapons (on average), eight pounds of lead would make up about 212 round balls. With 4 pounds of powder (28,000 grains) in the can, that would leave them 132 grains of powder per shot (including prime).”
While at Fort Mandan, the blacksmiths were payed a considerable quantity of corn for their labor. The Mandan had never seen a blacksmith at work. They were surprised, Clark wrote, when John Shields started pumping the bellows at the forge. Shields began repairing the Indians’ hoes, axes, and kettles in return for corn. Within a month, almost everything had been repaired or sharpened, and it looked like the blacksmith shop would run out of business.
These weapons passed quickly through the Indian trade network (more about this when we go into the center). Just 14 months later, John Ordway reported seeing a Fort Mandan ax in a Nez Perce village some 900 miles west. (We’ll meet up with the Nez Perce Natives in a future post.
On February 1, Hidatsa war chief Seeing Snake ordered a battle ax to pay for the amount of corn that he was going to sell to the expedition men. But then he asked permission to use the ax in war against the Sioux and Arikara to avenge the death of a friend.
The captains were now confronted by the contradiction in their policy. As ambassadors of peace, they had to talk Seeing Snake out of using what the blacksmith had made for battle.
A burned-out sheet iron stove provided 4-inch square pieces of iron that the Natives could form into arrowhead points or manufactured into instruments for scraping and dressing hides. For each square of iron the blacksmiths could buy 7-8 gallons of corn.
In December 1804, the temperature dipped and snow began to fall. Despite waking to an unrelenting cold, the Corps of Discovery continued to work on the finishing touches of Fort Mandan, went hunting, and performed the never-ending job of gathering firewood.
The Captains continued their diplomatic, scientific, and map-making efforts. Natural history specimens were collected, documented, and packaged for shipment to President Jefferson. Lewis treated many cold-related ailments for the Corps members and their Native neighbors.
When forced indoors by the weather, this band of explorers and their Mandan and Hidasta neighbors bonded, formed lasting friendships, and cultivated trust that would eventually lead the Mandan Chief Sheheke-shote and his family down the Missouri in the Spring of 1806 and on to meet President Jefferson in Washington, D.C.
During the winter at Ford Mandan, the Corps became a more cohesive unit. Under the competent leadership of Lewis and Clark and anticipation of the mission ahead, the winter at Fort Mandan produced a “perfect harmony.”
To this fort came many visitors, among them Toussaint Charbonneau and [his wife] Sakakawea. The captains passed the winter by learning as much as possible about the Missouri River tribes and the country that lay before them.
So where was Fort Mandan when the expedition was here?
Next we’ll learn about the Native tribes that helped the Louis & Clark expedition stay alive over the winter of 1804-1805.
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