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Updated: June 6, 2025
The Mandans seem to have much declined in numbers during the century that followed this visit of La Verendrye. Yet when Prince Maximilian visited the Mandans in 1833, he found only two villages, containing jointly two hundred and forty warriors and a total population of about a thousand souls.
I have seen and taken part in many matches between frontiersmen and the Sioux, Cheyennes, Grosventres, and Mandans, and the Indians were beaten in almost every one. On the other hand the Indians will stand fatigue, hunger, and privation better, but they seem more susceptible to cold. See Parkman's "Conspiracy of Pontiac"; also "Montcalm and Wolfe."
The poor wretches, who had no animal food and scarcely anything but a few fish, had been almost starved, and received this new luxury with great thankfulness. Out of compliment to the chief, we gave him a few dried squashes, which we had brought from the Mandans, and he declared it was the best food he had ever tasted except sugar, a small lump of which he had received from his sister Sacajawea.
The expedition of Lewis and Clark ascended the Missouri and passed over the mountains to the Columbia River which was followed to the coast. The first winter, from late in October, 1804, to early in April, 1805, was spent in a fort which was constructed in the village of the Mandans, near the location of the present city of Mandan in North Dakota.
After an absence of a few days, François de La Vérendrye returned from the village which he had visited. He had been warmly welcomed. He reported that the village was much larger than the one his father was living in, and that it was fortified in the same way. He had tried to question the Mandans of this village, but could make nothing out of their answers.
Deciding to winter here, they built huts and a stockade, calling the camp Fort Mandan. The Mandans were used to white men, as the village had been visited often by traders from both north and south. Although the Indians gave them no trouble, the explorers suffered greatly from cold and hunger, game being scarce and poor in the winter season.
Tabbo & Gravoline, at the Ricares Village, to interseid in proventing Hostilities, and if they Could not effect those measures to Send & informe us of what was going on, Stateing to the Indians the part we intend to take if the Rickores & Seauex did not follow our Derections and be at peace with the nations which we had addopted- We made Some fiew Small presents to those Shar ha's and also Some to the Mandans & at 3 oClock they all Departed well pleased, haveing Seen many Curisossties, which we Showed them-. river rise one inch
Far placed among those which inhabit the vast region of the north-west, and quite beyond the reach of any influence from the whites, he found a small tribe living in a fortified village, where they cultivated the arts of manufacture, realized comforts and luxuries, and had attained to a remarkable refinement of manners, insomuch as to be generally called the polite and friendly Mandans.
Arriving at the village of the Mandans, of which Black Cat was the chief, a council was called, and the chiefs of the expedition endeavored to persuade some of the leading men of the tribe to accompany them to Washington to see "the Great Father."
Daily the water fell, and every inch of fall increased the difficulty of traveling. We were now passing through the country of the Mandans, Gros Ventres, and Ricarees, the country through which old Hugh Glass crawled his hundred miles with only hate to sustain him.
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