Introduction: A Nation in the Journals’ Shadow
The Omaha — written variously as Mahar, Maha, Mahas, and Mahaha in the journals — occupy a peculiar place in the Lewis & Clark record. Though the Corps of Discovery spent nearly two weeks in August 1804 camped near the ruins of the principal Omaha village in present-day northeastern Nebraska, they never met the nation in council. The Omaha were absent — away on the buffalo hunt — and what the captains learned of them came largely through the grave of their dead chief, the testimony of traders, and the Sioux and Oto neighbors who had filled the vacuum left by smallpox. The Omaha thus appear in the journals as a haunting presence: a nation reduced, dispersed, and frequently named in connection with the wars and prisoners of other peoples.
First Mentions: Traders from Above the Mahar Nation
The Omaha enter the record almost immediately as a geographic and commercial reference point on the lower Missouri. On June 8, 1804, William Clark recorded meeting traders descending the river:
“met 3 men on a Caussee from R Dis Soux, above The Mahar Nation loaded with fur.”
John Ordway repeated the same encounter two days later (June 10, 1804), noting the men came “from the River of the Sioux above the Mahar Nation.” The Omaha country was already, in the Corps’ mental map, the threshold between the lower Missouri trade and the more dangerous upper river.
The expedition itself contained an Omaha presence in the person of Pierre Cruzatte, the boatman of mixed French and Omaha descent. Clark on June 21, 1804 referred to him as
“our bow man Peter Crousat a half Mahar Indian”
who scouted water for the boat at a difficult passage. Cruzatte’s heritage made him a critical interpreter and waterman throughout the journey.
Approaching Omaha Country: The Maha River
By July, the expedition entered the Omaha homeland proper. On July 12, 1804, Ordway recorded that hunters “went up the Mahas River this River is about 80 yds wide and navigable for pearogues Some distance up.” By July 22, Ordway noted they had crossed near the Platte, into territory long associated with Omaha hunting. On July 27, the party camped on what Ordway noted was “the site of Omaha” — though the Omaha themselves were nowhere to be found.
Black Bird’s Grave: August 11, 1804
The most striking encounter the Corps had with the Omaha was not with living people but with the grave of their late chief. Sergeant Charles Floyd, in one of his final journal entries before his death, wrote on August 11, 1804:
“passed a high Bluff whare the Kinge of the Mahas Died about 4 yeares ago the Hill on which he is berred is about 300 feet High the nathion Goes 2 or 3 times a year to Cryes over him Capt Lewis and Clark went up on the Hill to See the Grave thay histed a flage on his Grave as noner [an honor] for him which will pleas the Indianes, passed the mouth of a Creek on the South Side Called Waie Con Di Peeche or the Grait Sperit is Bad whare this Chief died and about 300 Hundred of his men with the Small pox this Chiefs name was the Black Bird.”
Clark’s own record of the same day elaborated:
“we landed at the foot of the hill on which Black Bird The late King of the mahar who Died 4 years ago & 400 of his nation with the Small pox was buried and went up and fixed a white flag bound with Blue white & read on the Grave which was about 12 foot Base & circueller, on the top of a Penical about 300 foot above the water of the river.”
The Bad Spirit Creek (“Wau-Con di peche”) was so named, Clark noted, because “on this Creek the Mahars had the Small pox 4 years ago.” The grave-mound, the flag, and the creek of the bad spirit form one of the most evocative scenes in the early journals.
The Empty Village: August 13–14, 1804
On August 13, 1804, Floyd recorded:
“we aRived at the Mahas village about 2 oclock P m Sent Som of ouer men to Se if aney of the natives was at Home thay Returnd found none of them at Home.”
Patrick Gass corroborated: “A sergeant and one man were sent to the village, who did not return this day.”
Floyd’s entry the next day (August 14) provides the fullest single account of Omaha life as the Corps understood it:
“thes Indians has not Live at the town Sence the Smallpoks was so bad abut 4 years ago thay Burnt thare town and onley live about it in the winter and in the Spring Go all of them in the praries after the Buflow and dos not Return untill the fall to meet the french traders thay Rase no Corn nor aney thing excep Som times thay Rase Som Corn and then the Ottoe nation Comes and Cuts it Down while thay are in the praries.”
Clark’s own assessment that day is among the most somber passages in his journal:
“The Situation of this Village, now in ruins Siround by enunbl. hosts of grave the ravages of the Small Pox (4 years ago) they follow the Buf. and tend no Corn… the ravages of the Small Pox (which Swept off 400 men & women & Children in perpoposion) has reduced this Nation not exceeding 300 men and left them to the insults of their weaker neighbours which before was glad to be on friendly turms with them.”
Clark added the disturbing detail that during the epidemic the Omaha “Carried ther franzey to verry extroadinary length, not only of burning their Village, but they put their wives & Children to Death” — a passage suggesting either despair or an attempt to spare loved ones the disease.
Fishing on Maha Creek: August 15, 1804
Clark and ten men, joined by Sergeant Floyd, spent August 15, 1804 fishing on a beaver-dammed creek near the abandoned village. Floyd wrote that they “Caut 300 and 17 fish of Difernt Coindes,” while Clark counted 318. Patrick Gass recorded a later catch of 709 fish, including 167 large pike. The expedition’s rest at the empty Omaha village became, ironically, one of the most provisioned camps of the lower Missouri leg.
The Diplomatic Failure: Council with the Otos, August 18–19
The captains had hoped to broker peace between the Omaha and their neighbors. On August 7, 1804, Clark dispatched men to the Oto village with instructions for chiefs to meet at the Omaha village so “we would make a peace between them & the Mahar and Souex.” When the Oto chiefs arrived on August 18, Ordway noted they came “for the purpose of treating with the Mahas,” but the Omaha never materialized. The council on August 19, 1804, recorded by Clark in detail, addressed the Otos and Missouris alone. The intended Omaha peace remained unmade.
The Petite Arche Story: August 26, 1804
Above the main village, Clark recorded on August 26, 1804 the location of a smaller settlement:
“a Chief of the Maha nataton displeased with the Conduct of Black bird the main Chief came to this place and built a Town which was called by his name Petite Arch (or Little Bow) this Town was at the foot of a Hill in a handsom Plain fronting the river and Contained about 100 huts & 200 men, the remains of this tribe Since the Death of Petite arch has joined the remaining part of the nation.”
An Omaha Encounter at Last: August 27, 1804
The Corps’ only direct contact with an Omaha came almost as they were leaving Omaha country. Patrick Gass on August 27, 1804 recorded:
“an Indian of the Mahas nation, who lives with the Sioux came to us here, at the mouth of the Sacque river.”
Clark added that “one Maha boy informed us his nation was gorn to make a peace with the Pania’s.” This boy, living among the Sioux, was the only living Omaha the journals record meeting in person during the outbound voyage.
Omaha Captives Among the Teton Sioux and Arikara
The Omaha reappear in the journals as captives. On September 26, 1804, Clark visited Teton Sioux lodges and recorded:
“I walked on Shore, and Saw Several Mahar Womin & Boys in a lodge & was told they were Prisones laterly taken in a battle in which they killed a number & took 48 prisoners I advised the Chiefs to make peace with that nation and give up the Prisoners.”
Gass recorded the same captivity on September 27:
“About 15 days ago they had had a battle with the Mahas, of whom they killed 75 men and took 25 women prisoners, whom they have now with them.”
(Gass’s later transcript on November 27 repeats this detail.)
At the Arikara villages on October 12, 1804, Clark heard that the Arikara also blamed Sioux conflict for stoking war: the chief asked the captains “to take a Chief of their nation and make a good peace with the Mandan for them, that they Knew that they were the Cause of the war by Killing the 2 Mandan Chiefs.” The Omaha were named throughout the upper river as a people warred upon.
The Tomahawk of Sergeant Floyd
A small but moving thread runs from Omaha country to the Columbia and back. The pipe-tomahawk that Sergeant Floyd carried — Floyd died August 20, 1804, just days after fishing in Omaha country — was lost or stolen on the return journey. On June 1, 1806, Lewis and Clark sent Drewyer in search of two tomahawks among the Nez Perce, one being “the private property of the late Serjt. Floyd.” On June 2, 1806, Clark recorded its recovery:
“the one which had been Stolen we prized most as it was the private property of the late Serjt. Floyd and I was desireous of returning it.”
Floyd, who had written one of the fullest journal accounts of the Omaha and Black Bird’s grave, had his memorial tomahawk recovered on the return.
Conclusion: A Nation Glimpsed Through Loss
The Omaha appear in the Lewis & Clark journals not as a people fully met but as a people remembered, mourned, and sought after. The captains saw their burned town, climbed Black Bird’s grave, fished their creek, met their captives in Sioux and Arikara lodges, and traveled with one of their sons in Pierre Cruzatte. The single Omaha individual the journals describe directly is a boy living with the Sioux. The Omaha record in these journals is, more than almost any other tribal record, a record of absence — of what smallpox had done four years before the Corps arrived, and of the diplomatic peace the captains hoped, but failed, to make.
