Heard of, traded past, not visited
The expedition did not call at an Osage town. Clark still writes the nation into the first weeks on the Missouri as a people at war, a source of fur canoes, and a name on the land.
On 17 May 1804, still near St. Charles, Indians in camp told him “the Saukees had lately Crossed to war against the Osage Nation.” On 5 June he guessed that a scouting party of about ten was “on their way to war against the Osages nation probably they are the Saukees.” On 17 June he recorded a crossing used by war parties against the Osage from “the Saukees, Aiaouez, & Souix.”
Fur, not councils, brought Osage goods onto the river. On 27 May 1804 two rafts came to: “one from the Paunees, the other from Grand Osage, they informed nothing of Consequence.”
On 15 June Clark paused for village history: after war with the Sauk, “the Little Osage & a fiew of the Missoures moved & built a village 5 ms near the Grand Osage,” while other Missouris took protection under the Otoe on the Platte. That is remembered geography, written from the boat, not a visit to those lodges.
Osage River, Little Osage village island, and the later 17 September 1806 “Island of the little Osage Village” are place-names the navigators already used. The empty-tag stub that once stood here skipped all of this.
