By CHRIS KAHN - Associated Press
01/12/2003
HARLOTTESVILLE, Va.—Before plunging his keelboat into the Missouri River and heading for Indian country, Meriwether Lewis sent his mother a letter, telling her not to worry.
"My rout(e) will be altogether through tribes of Indians who are perfectly friendly to the United States," he wrote.
Lewis and William Clark did receive help from many tribes as they made their way to the Pacific, handing out bronze medals to chiefs along the way as symbols of brotherhood. In the massive American migration that followed the expedition 200 years ago, however, many of those tribes lost their land.
Still, with few exceptions, Indian groups are choosing not to protest the Lewis and Clark bicentennial the way many did during Christopher Columbus' 500th anniversary in 1992. Tribes along the expedition route have been actively planning the three-year national commemoration that begins Saturday at Thomas Jefferson's home, Monticello.
It is time, Indian organizers said, to tell the Lewis and Clark story from the other side.
"This wasn't some unsettled place before they got here," said Amy Mossett, a Mandan and Hidatsa who leads the commemoration's group of 30 Indian advisers. "It was our home. We were farmers. We were traders. We had our own ceremonies."
Before 1803, the United States knew little about the great uncharted West other than rumors from beaver trappers and small-time explorers. Some believed it was home to woolly mammoths and blue-eyed, Welsh-speaking Indians.
Jefferson ordered the expedition not only to seek a river passage across the continent, which didn't exist, but also to gather information about the people en route.
"It very much was an intelligence mission," said Gary Moulton, a University of Nebraska professor and editor of the expedition's journals. "They were asking Indians how many fighting troops they had, who their friends were, and their enemies."
But the information Lewis and Clark brought back in their journals only scratched the surface of Indian culture, Mossett said. During the next three years, the bicentennial's Circle of Tribal Advisors will retell the story.
There will be descriptions of life along the Plains before Lewis and Clark got there and renamed the rivers. People will discuss what happened to groups like the Nez Perce, who were hustled off their native soil 50 years later, then lost much of their remaining land when gold was discovered there.
"People need to realize we never left this place. We're not museum pieces," said Justin Gould, a Nez Perce Indian working with the Tribal Advisors.
Lewis and Clark's party included hunters from the hills of Kentucky, French boatmen, and York, Clark's slave. But Indians were represented, too.
George Drouillard, the Corps' main interpreter and best woodsman, was half Shawnee and half French. He knew several languages of the lower Mississippi, and he could converse with the complex sign language that was the lingua franca on the Plains.
And, of course, there was Sacagawea, the young Shoshone woman who carried her infant son on her back.
Communicating with tribes could be a test of patience. With the Shoshone, Lewis and Clark would relay messages through four people: speaking first in English to Drouillard, who would translate to French for Sacagawea's husband, Toussaint Charbonneau, who would then relay the message in the Hidatsa language to Sacagawea, who would then deliver the message in Shoshone.
The National Council of the Lewis & Clark Bicentennial sought Indian guidance from the beginning. "There isn't just one story here," said Council President Robert Archibald.
Among some Indian groups, there was the initial reluctance to work with the federal government, then differences about how to treat the past.
Some tribes "are still healing," said Dark Rain Thom, a Shawnee with the Remnant Band of Ohio and a member of the Tribal Advisors. "We are still dismayed at what went on, but we're not consumed with anger."
Rod Ariwite, chairman of the Lemhi Shoshone, who claim Sacagawea as a descendant, said his tribe of about 400 has been forgotten. He disengaged his tribe from the others when he realized the Tribal Advisors were not going to push for federal recognition for the Lemhi Shoshones, who are based in Idaho.
"It's like they're having a party for the bicentennial, and we haven't been invited," Ariwite said.
Thom said every tribe has been invited to the commemoration, and about 30 are expected for the Monticello event. Some are building interpretive centers that will cater to tourists who follow the trail. And there is talk of creating a permanent organization of Lewis and Clark tribes.
"We see this as an opportunity to create lasting legacies," Mossett said.