The 9th of October 1804 found the Corps of Discovery encamped near the Arikara villages on the Missouri, prevented by weather from holding the formal council they had hoped to convene. Four narrators left entries for the day — Patrick Gass, John Ordway, Joseph Whitehouse, and William Clark — and their parallel accounts illuminate both shared observations and striking differences in what each man considered worth recording.
A Shared Frame: Wind, Delay, and the Two Frenchmen
All four journalists agree on the day’s central facts: weather prevented the council, and Frenchmen were resident among the Arikara. Ordway notes simply that “it being so cold & windy that they did not assemble to counsel,” while Whitehouse calls it “a Stormy day” during which “we delayed here all day in order to counsel with this nation.” Clark’s field entry corroborates this with characteristic detail:
a windey night Some rain, and the wind Continued So high & cold We could not Speck in Council with the Indians, we gave them Some Tobacco and informed them we would Speek tomorrow
Gass and Whitehouse both flag the presence of two Frenchmen at the village. Gass is the more precise, distinguishing their roles: “one to trade and the other to interpret.” Whitehouse offers only that “their is 2 frenchmen lives with the natives.” Clark, meanwhile, names the trader specifically — “Mr Taboe, a trader from St. Louis” (Pierre-Antoine Tabeau) — a level of specificity absent from the enlisted men’s entries and suggestive of his role as the captain conducting diplomatic business.
What Only Clark Records: Bull-Boats and York
The most striking divergence between Clark’s account and those of the sergeants and privates lies in two extended observations he alone preserves. The first is ethnographic: the Arikara bull-boats. Clark describes them with evident fascination:
Many Canoes of a Single Buffalow Skin made in the form of a Bowl Carrying generally 3 and Sometimes 5 & 6 men, those Canoes, ride the highest Waves
He returns to the subject in his recopied entry, noting that he saw “Several Canoos made of a Single buffalow Skin with 2 & 3 Thre Squars Cross the river to day in Waves as high as I ever Saw them on this river.” That neither Gass, Ordway, nor Whitehouse mentions these distinctive craft is remarkable — they were plainly visible to the entire party. The omission may reflect the enlisted journalists’ tendency to record what the captains directed or what bore on camp duties; Clark’s interest in Plains material culture was characteristically more capacious.
The second observation belongs to one of the more frequently cited episodes of the expedition: the Arikara reaction to York, Clark’s enslaved manservant. Clark writes:
the Indians much asstonished at my Black Servent and Call him the big medison, this nation never Saw a black man before
His recopied version expands the moment, noting that York “did not lose the oppertunity of his powers Strength &c.” — a glimpse of York’s own performance and agency in the encounter. None of the other three narrators records this episode for the 9th, though it would have been impossible to miss. The silence underscores how thoroughly York’s presence is filtered through Clark’s pen alone.
Register and Length
The entries also differ markedly in length and register. Ordway’s is the most clipped, closing with the formulaic “nothing further particular” — a phrase he often deploys when camp routine dominates. Whitehouse’s brief entry leans on stock impressions: the Arikara “all appear to us verry friendly,” echoing Gass’s nearly identical “used very kindly and friendly.” Whether Whitehouse drew on Gass or both men drew on common camp talk is unclear, but the parallel phrasing recurs frequently between their journals during the early autumn of 1804.
Clark, by contrast, produces two versions of the day — a field entry and a recopied codex entry — and closes with an unusually personal note: “I have a Slite Plurise this evening Verry Cold.” He also lists the names of the three principal chiefs (Kakawissassa, Pocasse, and Piaheto), preparing the documentary ground for the council that would finally take place the following day. Where his subordinates close the day’s record with weather and friendliness, Clark closes it with names, ailments, and the tools of diplomacy.
