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Updated: June 29, 2025
We passed a spot where, six years ago, the Shoshonees had suffered a very severe defeat from the Minnetarees; and late in the evening we reached the upper part of the cove, where the creek enters the mountains. The part of the cove on the northeast side of the creek has lately been burned, most probably as a signal on some occasion.
When Lewis and Clark came upon them, they formed only a trifling souvenir of their past grandeur; they had then but two poor villages at this remote site, where they lived in a precarious hand-to-mouth fashion, having no allies but a small force of Minnetarees near by.
These were Mandans, Annahaways, and Minnetarees, tribes living peacefully in the same region of country. The principal Mandan chief was Black Cat; White Buffalo Robe Unfolded represented the Annahaways, and the Minnetaree chief was Black Moccasin. This last-named chief could not come to the council, but was represented by Caltahcota, or Cherry on a Bush.
The Minnetarees, however, pursued and attacked them, killed four men, as many women, and a number of boys; and made prisoners of four other boys and all the females, of whom Sacajawea was one.
After much diplomacy and underhand scheming, one of the Mandan chiefs, Big White, agreed to go to Washington with the expedition. But none of the Minnetarees could be prevailed upon to leave their tribe, even for a journey to the Great Father, of whose power and might so much had been told them. The journal, narrating this fact, says further:
On the 11th of August, 1805, Captain Lewis came in sight of the first Indian encountered since leaving the country of the Minnetarees, far back on the Missouri. The journal of that date says: "On examining him with the glass Captain Lewis saw that he was of a different nation from any Indians we had hitherto met.
It covered about fifty-four acres of land. The Mandans and Minnetarees of the Upper Missouri constructed a timber-framed house, superior in design and in mechanical execution to those of the Indians north of New Mexico. In 1862 I saw the remains of the old Mandan village shortly after its abandonment by the Arickarees, its last occupants.
On the second day they arrived at the principal village of the Minnetarees, where they were received with cordial welcome by their old friends. The explorers fired their blunderbuss several times by way of salute, and the Indian chiefs expressed their satisfaction at the safe return of the white men.
This meant that the solemn treaties of peace concluded at Fort Mandan amongst the several Indian tribes, under the auspices of the expedition, had been broken. The news was displeasing, but probably not wholly unexpected. August 14th, two days after the reunion of the two parties, they came again to the home of their acquaintances, the Mandans and the Minnetarees.
Beyond some great falls in the Missouri there was a gate, by which the Shoshonis came out of the mountains to hunt the buffalo on the plains. It was there that she had been captured by the Minnetarees. Would the Snakes be friendly to the white men? Yes, unless they were frightened by the white men. Would she like to go back to her own people? Yes! Yes!
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