540 - Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center 2

Among President Thomas Jefferson’s instructions for Lewis and Clark, he emphasized creating intertribal peace and trade contracts. To cultivate peaceful relations and fruitful diplomacy with native peoples, Lewis and Clark exchanged gifts with new tribes at each ceremonial meeting. The act of reciprocal gift giving symbolized their concern for one another. Neglecting to give gifts meant failure to brighten the chain of friendship. As historian James Ronda once said, “to venture up the Missouri without a carefully selected store of goods was to challenge foolishly the river gods.”

Early in 1803, Meriwether Lewis noted that close to $700 was to be set aside for gifts and trade goods during the expedition. He placed blue glass beads at the top of his list of most sought after objects. Second were brass buttons, which fur traders told him were more valued than anything except beads. Red handled knives, axes, tomahawks, moccasin awls, and camp kettles rounded out his catalog of high priorities.

As the fall days of 1804 grew colder and shorter, the Lewis and Clark Expedition struggled toward the Mandan and Hidatsa villages, also known as the keystone of the Upper Missouri region. The American explorers were the latest in a long series of traders and travelers making the journey to the earthlodge villages along the Missouri. The Mandan and Hidatsa communities were the center of the Northern Plains trade, attracting Native Americans and Euro American merchants over vast distances. At trading times, especially during the late summer and early fall, the villages were crowded with Crows, Assiniboines, Cheyenne, Kiawah, Arapahos, and after the mid-1800s, with Euro Americans representing various trading companies and St. Louis interests.

That winter, Lewis and Clark had ample opportunities to use their expedition's diplomatic skills and expand cultural boundaries. The the Native communities and the expedition members bonded through mutual trading. William Clark wrote on December 31, 1804, "...a number of Mandan Indians are here every day, our blacksmith mending their axes, hoes, etc., for which the women bring corn for payment."