Introduction: A Nation Long Anticipated
Long before Lewis and Clark ever laid eyes on a Shoshone person, the nation loomed in the journals as an idea — a people somewhere west, holding horses, occupying the headwaters of the Missouri, and possessing the geographical knowledge that would determine whether the Corps of Discovery succeeded or failed. References to the “Snake Indians” (the common Anglo-American name for the Shoshone) appear from the earliest weeks of the journey through its final months. This synthesis draws only on the entries provided, and within those, the Shoshone appear in three principal phases: as a distant nation reported by other tribes; as the people of Sacagawea, encountered at last in August 1805; and as a referenced point of comparison throughout the return journey.
Early Reports: A Distant People in the Mountains
The first substantive reference comes from William Clark on October 29, 1804, at the Mandan villages, where the captains met an aging Hidatsa chief whose son was absent on a war party:
this Man has Given his power to his Son who is now on a war party against the Snake Indians who inhabit the Rockey Mountains
This entry establishes the early framework: the Shoshone were known to the captains primarily through the hostility of their Plains neighbors, particularly the Hidatsa (Minnetares), whose raids reached deep into the mountains. That same dynamic produced the expedition’s most consequential connection. On March 11, 1805, Clark recorded the captains’ decision to retain Toussaint Charbonneau as interpreter precisely because of his Shoshone wife:
our Menetarre interpeter, (whome we intended to take with his wife, as an interpeter through his wife to the Snake Indians of which nation She is)
Sacagawea’s identity as a Shoshone woman, captured as a child by the Hidatsa, was the strategic asset on which the expedition’s mountain crossing would hinge. By July 28, 1805, at the Three Forks, Lewis recorded that the camp lay
precisely on the spot that the Snake Indians were encamped at the time the Minnetares of the Knife river first came in sight of them five years since
— the very site of Sacagawea’s capture.
The Search: Up the Jefferson
Through July and August 1805, finding the Shoshone became the expedition’s overriding priority. On July 18, Clark explained his decision to push ahead overland with a small advance party:
I deturmined to go a head with a Small partey a few days and find the Snake Indians if possible
His feet bruised and blistered, Clark nevertheless pressed on, writing on July 22 that he had
deturmined to proceed on in pursute of the Snake Indians on tomorrow
. Lewis on July 24 noted his anxiety about possible falls or rapids ahead, tempered only by
the information of the Indian woman to the contrary who assures us that the river continues much as we see it.
Sacagawea’s testimony — drawn from her Shoshone childhood — was now functioning as advance reconnaissance. On August 9, with Clark laid up by a tumor on his ankle, Lewis took up the search himself, setting out with three men to
examine the river above, find a portage if possible, also the Snake Indians.
Contact: August 1805
Lewis’s August 13 entry describes the approach to the first Shoshone village across the Continental Divide, following an Indian road through broken country toward a valley clad with pine. By August 18, contact had been made and trade for horses had begun. Lewis noted with some satisfaction:
I soon obtained three very good horses for which I gave an uniform coat, a pair of legings, a few handkerchiefs, three knives and some other small articles the whole of which did not cost more than about 20$ in the U States. the Indians seemed quite as well pleased with their bargin as I was.
On August 20, Lewis cached supplies near the river, taking pains to conceal the operation from his Shoshone hosts — a revealing measure of the captains’ caution even in the midst of a successful alliance. Bartering continued on August 24, when Lewis acquired three more horses and a mule, the latter
a great acquisition
, using battle axes manufactured at Fort Mandan, knives, paint, and clothing as currency. By August 26, the corps had crossed to the western side of the Divide. Lewis recorded with feeling the moment the men
drank of the water and consoled themselves with the idea of having at length arrived at this long wished for point
, then halted at a spring near the Shoshone camp where one Shoshone woman had paused on the trail to give birth and rejoin the column shortly after.
The Shoshone as Reference and Comparison
After the corps moved on through Salish (Tushapaw / Eoote-lash-Schute) and Nez Perce (Chopunnish) country, the Shoshone receded as living counterparts but remained as a constant reference point in the journals. On September 5, 1805, Clark observed of the Salish that
the have but fiew ornaments and what they do were are Similar to the Snake Indians
. On September 10, Colter encountered three Salish hunters pursuing two Shoshone who had stolen 21 horses — a glimpse of the ongoing horse-raiding economy of the plateau in which the Shoshone were active participants. On October 9, Clark recorded a setback that may have reflected disquiet between the guides and the western nations:
our 2 Snake Indian guides left us without our knowledge
From Fort Clatsop, Clark drew comparisons across the continent. On February 2, 1806, describing a coastal gambling game, he wrote that it was
verry similar to one which the Sosone’s & Minatare’s are verry fond of and frequently play
. On March 19, in his ethnographic notes on the Clatsop and neighboring nations, the Shoshone served as a baseline for distinguishing physical features. On April 20, Lewis observed that the Eneshur and Skillute men wore
shirts of the same form with those of the Shoshone Chopunnish &c highly ornamented with porcupine quills
— placing the Shoshone within a wider material-culture region of the interior Northwest.
Sacagawea as Living Link
Throughout the return, Sacagawea’s Shoshone knowledge remained operational. On May 18, 1806, near Camp Chopunnish, Lewis wrote:
our indian woman was busily engaged today in laying in a store of the fennel roots for the Rocky mountains. these are called by the Shoshones year-pah.
On June 25, recrossing the Bitterroots, Clark noted that
the squaw Collected a parcel of roots of which the Shoshones Eat. it is a Small knob root a good deel in flavour and Consistency like the Jerusolem artichoke.
Her botanical knowledge, drawn from a Shoshone childhood, continued to feed the corps.
Final Sightings and Echoes
On July 4, 1806, descending Clark’s River, Clark observed sign of two unseen men:
I observed in the road the tracks of two men whome I prosume is of the Shoshone nation.
Three days later, when nine of his best horses vanished overnight, Clark suspected
that they might be stolen by Some Skulking Shoshones
— a striking shift in tone from the carefully cultivated alliance of the previous summer, and a reminder that the captains’ view of the Shoshone was always partly instrumental. On July 11, descending the Beaverhead, he passed
a high point of land on the left Side which the Shoshones call the beavers head
, the very landmark Sacagawea had used to confirm to the corps the previous summer that her people were near.
What the Record Does and Does Not Say
The entries provided here record the Shoshone almost entirely as the expedition encountered them: as suppliers of horses, as Sacagawea’s people, as a reference for cultural and material comparison, and occasionally as suspected horse thieves. The journals capture little of internal Shoshone politics beyond the captains’ immediate dealings, and the rich August 1805 council scenes referenced here are only partially represented in the sample provided. What does come through unmistakably is the centrality of the Shoshone to the entire venture: without their horses, their geographical counsel, and Sacagawea’s mediating presence, the crossing of the Rockies — and thus the expedition itself — would not have been possible.
