First Encounter on the Upper Missouri
By the time the Corps of Discovery reached the earth-lodge towns near present-day Washburn, North Dakota, in late October 1804, the Mandan and their Hidatsa (Minetarre, “Big Bellies”) neighbors had been a fixed point on Lewis and Clark’s mental map for months. French and British traders had spoken of them; Evans had mapped abandoned villages downstream. As the editorial summary for October 26, 1804 records, the Corps arrived at “a complex of five earth-lodge villages” comprising “one of the great trade centers of the Northern Plains, home to approximately 4,500 people.”
Clark’s first council came swiftly. On October 24, 1804, near an island formed when the river had cut through a point seven years earlier, he recorded the meeting between the expedition’s Arikara emissary and the Mandan leadership:
we wer visited by the grand Chief of the mandans a 2d Chief and Some other, who wer Camped on the Island, those Chief met our Ricarra Chief with great Corduallity, & Smoked together
The diplomatic theater that followed — councils, the bestowal of medals, and the identification of headmen for each village — occupied the last days of October. On October 30, Clark put a flag and a medal on the neck of “the Big White,” later known as Sheheke, principal chief of the lower village.
Building Fort Mandan
The expedition built its winter quarters across the river from the villages, naming the post in honor of its hosts. Patrick Gass, as the editorial entry for November 2, 1804 notes, recorded that they “named our fort, Fort Mandan, in honour of our friendly neighbours.” Clark’s own log on November 5 describes raising “the 2 range of Huts the timber large and heavy all to Carry on Hand Sticks,” while observing a Mandan hunting camp nearby that had taken “100 Goat” by driving them into a brush pen. By November 20, 1804, the captains had moved into their huts.
The Mandans were constant visitors. On December 31, 1804, Clark observed: “a Number of indians here every Day our blckSmitth mending their axes hoes &c. &c. for which the Squars bring Corn for payment.” The exchange of iron tools for Mandan corn became a lifeline. So did Mandan firewood economy: on November 9, 1804, Clark noted that “The Mandans Graze their horses in the day on Grass, and at night give them a Stick of Cotton wood to eate, Horses Dogs & people all pass the night in the Same Lodge or round House, Covd. with earth with a fire in the middle.”
A Nation Reduced by Smallpox and War
The Mandans the Corps met were the survivors of catastrophe. Clark’s interpreter related a tribal history on November 12, 1804:
the Mandan nation as they old men Say Came out of a Small lake where they had Gardins, maney years ago they lived in Several Villages on the Missourie low down, the Smallpox destroyed the greater part of the nation and reduced them to one large Village and Some Small ones… the Sioux and other Indians waged war, and killed a great maney, and they moved up the Missourie
Clark personally examined the ruins of the older settlements. On October 22, 1804, he passed “the upper of the 6 Villages the Mandans occupied about 25 years ago this village was entirely cut off by the Sioux & one of the others nearly, the Small Pox distroyed great Numbers.” On October 20, the Arikara chief Too ne pointed out further ancestral village sites along the bluffs.
Diplomacy, Sioux Threats, and the Limits of American Power
Throughout the winter the captains tried to position themselves as peace-makers between the Mandans and their enemies. On November 30, 1804, when a war party struck a Mandan hunting group, killed one man and took nine horses, Clark mustered 23 men and crossed to the village offering to “assist in Chastiseing the enimies of my Dutifull Children.” The chiefs declined an immediate winter campaign but were visibly impressed. On December 2, the captains sent flags, tobacco, and written speeches downriver in an attempt to mediate Sioux–Arikara–Mandan relations.
Mandan suspicions of American intent ran in the opposite direction as well. On November 27, 1804, Clark noted that the Hidatsas “were allarmed at the tales told them by the Mandans Viz: that we intended to join the Seaux to Cut off them in the Course of the winter.” Lewis personally walked to the upper villages to refute the rumor. Competing influence from British traders — Mr. La Rock and McKenzie of the North West Company — complicated the captains’ work all winter.
Personalities: Black Cat, Big White, and the Little Crow
Several Mandan men recur by name. The Black Cat, principal chief of the upper village (Roop-tar-he), drew Lewis’s strongest praise. On February 8, 1805, Lewis wrote:
this man possesses more integrety, firmness, inteligence and perspicuety of mind than any indian I have met with in this quarter, and I think with a little management he may be made a usefull agent in furthering the views of our government.
The Big White (Sheheke) of the lower village made a particular impression for personal generosity. On November 12, 1804, Clark recorded that “the Big White princapal Chief of the lower Village of the Mandans Came Down, he packd about 100 W. of fine meet on his Squar for us.” The editorial summary for October 26 emphasizes Sheheke’s cartographic contribution: he shared “detailed maps and geographic knowledge of the upper Missouri country.” The Little Crow, second chief of the lower village, was a frequent and reliable visitor through the winter (Clark, January 4 and January 16, 1805).
Mandan Material Culture and Beliefs
Clark recorded ethnographic details with a curiosity unusual in his journals. On December 6, 1804, he described a visitor’s outfit: “a par mockersons of Buffalow Skin Pr. Legins of Goat Skin & a Buffalow robe, 14 ring of Brass on his fingers, this metel the Mandans ar verry fond of.” On December 22, 1804, he obtained two bighorn sheep horns the Mandans called “Ar-Sar-ta.” On February 21, 1805, the Big White and Big Man told Clark of a sacred medicine stone consulted three days’ march to the southwest:
They have great confidence in this Stone and Say that it informs them of every thing which is to happen, & visit it every Spring & Sometimes in the Summer… the next morning return to the Stone, and find marks white & raised on the Stone representing the piece or war which they are to meet with
The Mandan subsistence cycle is captured in Clark’s January 13, 1805 observation that “about 1/2 the Mandan nation passed this to day to hunt on the river below… Their Corn & Beans &c they Keep for the Summer, and as a reserve in Case of an attack from the Soues.” The Mandans also harvested drowned buffalo from breaking spring ice (Clark, March 28, 1805).
Departure and Lasting Influence
The expedition made its hunting and trading economy more or less indistinguishable from the Mandans’ through the spring. On February 15, 1805, when a Sioux raiding party attacked the Corps’ meat hunters, Clark recorded that the Sioux even “Burnt all my meat & Born home.” Lewis pursued them with a mixed party of soldiers and Mandan warriors.
By April 7, 1805 — the day Lewis penned his famous reflection comparing his “little fleet” to those of Columbus and Cook — the Mandans had reshaped the expedition’s plans. Through Charbonneau, the captains had hired Sacagawea, whose son Jean Baptiste was born at Fort Mandan on February 11, 1805. The captains carried Mandan-derived geographic information, Mandan corn, and a Mandan-Hidatsa understanding of the route to the Shining Mountains. Clark explicitly described the map he completed at Fort Clatsop as running “from Fort Mandan to this place” (Lewis, February 14, 1806), and as late as June 30, 1805, Lewis measured time itself by Fort Mandan: “nearly three months have now elapsed since we left Fort Mandan and not yet reached the Rocky Mountains.”
On April 8, 1805, the day after departure, Lewis took final leave of Black Cat: “I walked on shore, and visited the black Cat, took leave of him after smoking a pipe as is their custom.” Beyond that morning the Mandans appear in the journals only as a memory and a reference point — the place and people against which the unknown country ahead was to be measured.
Note on Sources
The Mandan record in the journals is overwhelmingly Clark’s, supplemented by Lewis (especially February–April 1805 and reflective passages later in the journey), with editorial summaries supplying context drawn partly from Patrick Gass. The journals do not preserve Mandan voices directly, only as filtered through interpreters; many Mandan names appear in Clark’s variable phonetic spelling.
