Empire of Shadows; The Epic Story of Yellowstone

8/3/2019 Empire of Shadows; The Epic Story of Yellowstone

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. Copyright 2012 by George Black. All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States o America. For inormation, address

St. Martins Press, 175 Fifh Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

Library o Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Black, George, 1949

Empire o shadows: the epic story o Yellowstone / George Black.1st ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical reerences.

ISBN 978-0-312-38319-0 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-4299-8974-9 (e-book)

1. Yellowstone National ParkHistory. 2. Yellowstone National ParkDiscovery

and exploration. I. itle.

F722.B53 2012

978.7'52dc23 2011041351

First Edition: March 2012

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1


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hey had soldiered together, and they were nominally co-

captains o the Corps o Discovery, but Meriwether Lewis and

William Clark could hardly have been more contrasting per-

sonalities. Te redheaded Clark was the elder by our years.

He was an experienced rontiersman and Indian ghter, with a talent or

mapmaking and navigation, a natural command o men, and an open,

genial character. Lewis was a child o privilege, scion o one o the rst

amilies o Virginia, and personal secretary to the president, whom he re-

garded as a virtual ather gure. But there was an awkward ormality

about Lewis, and he had a martial temper. Above all he was a manic

depressive, veering wildly rom limitless excitement to dark eelings o

impotence and ailure that would eventually lead him to suicide. Te epi-

sodes o euphoria sometimes made him reckless, and on the homeward

leg o the journey, in the summer o 1806, he made a critical misjudg-

ment, ignoring the warnings o people to whom he should have paid close

attention.

In the matter o their contact with Indians, Jeffersons instructions to

Lewis and Clark1 had been detailed and explicit. Te president wrote,Te commerce which may be carried on with the people inhabiting the

line you will pursue, renders a knoledge o these people important.

{1 }

A KNOLEDGE OF THESE PEOPLE

18051806


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14 G E O R G E B L A C K

What that meant in practice was that Lewis and Clark were to acquaint

themselves with the names and numbers o the tribes they encountered;

their languages, occupations, and peculiarities o law and custom; theircharacteristic diseases and remedies; how they dressed and what they ate;

the extent o each tribes territory; and the state o intertribal relations.

Jefferson continued, Considering the interest which every nation has in

extending & strengthening the authority o reason & justice among the

people around them, it will be useul to acquire what knowledge you can

o the state o morality, religion & inormation among them, as it may

better enable those who endeavor to civilize & instruct them.

Te president was clear that violence was to be avoided wherever pos-

sible: In all your intercourse with the natives treat them in the most

riendly & conciliatory manner which their own conduct will admit. I

the explorers ran into an overwhelming display o hostile orce, they

should retreat. Tis was a matter o simple pragmatism. Engagement

would risk, at the very least, loss o the data collected by the expedition,

while turning back to give a ull reporting o the number and disposition

o hostiles would allow uture explorers to return with the proper amount

o hardware.

Tis is not to say that Lewis and Clark went ill-equipped. On the con-

trary, they carried the largest arsenal that had ever been seen west o the

Missouri. Te threat o violence was implicit in the act o exploration,

and certainly in Jeffersons intent to civilize. Te Corps o Discovery was

a military expedition, under military discipline. Te explorers were un-

invited guests in an unknown land, and any tribe they encountered was

assumed to be hostile until proven otherwise. o a belligerent tribe seek-

ing dominance over its neighbors, what greater temptation than the ries,

powder horns, bullet molds, gunsmiths tools, knives, and tomahawks

that Lewis had commissioned rom the United States arsenal at Harpers

Ferry? Te basic truth about weaponry is that it is an enticement to vio-

lence as well as a saeguard against it. Or put another way, Lewis and Clark,

and many subsequent explorations o the West, proved Chekhovs rstiron law o theater: Hang a pistol on the wall in the rst act, and it is sure

to be red beore the nal curtain.


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E M P I R E O F S H A D O W S 15

Miraculously, however, it took more than two years or the point to be

proved. In the meantime, there were incidents and near-incidents. As the

expedition labored upstream on the Missouri in September 1804, a groupo eton Sioux chies, afer downing a glass or two, or three, o whiskey

on the explorers keelboat, expressed their dissatisaction with Lewiss

gifs o peace medals, coats, and hats, and reused to be put ashore with-

out more, while warriors milled around on the bank with their bows

strung. Lewis ordered the boats swivel gun loaded with musket balls and

held a lighted taper over the use until they dispersed. Tree days later,

there was a second, similar episode, this time because a gif o tobacco

was considered insultingly meager. But on both occasions the offended

chies backed down, the warriors put away their arrows, and the use o

the swivel gun remained unlit.2

Lewiss temper almost got the better o him nineteen months later, as

the party headed back up the Columbia rom the Pacic and spent several

days in the country o the Chinooks. Te captain had mixed eelings

about these people. On one hand he was disdainul o their general

demeanor (low and ill-shaped . . . badly clad and illy made). On the

other, he had to acknowledge that they were peaceable sorts (the greatest

harmoney appears to exist among them). But the Chinooks were invet-

erate petty thieves, and that drove Lewis to distraction. Tey stole an ax;

they stole a lump o lead; they tried to steal a tomahawk rom Private

John Colter, who was not a man to trie with; they stole Lewiss black

dog, Seaman, which almost pushed him over the edge. It was not clear

whether the thieves intended to eat the dog, as many tribes did.

One o the Chinook chies apologized. He tried to explain the prob-

lem o tribal authority; there were limits to the discipline a chie could

impose, and there was not much he could do i a ew hotheaded young

men yielded to temptation. Lewis had to understand that the village as a

whole wanted peace. But Lewis didnt really understand, and ew whites

would. Friendly and/or powerless chies, and young warriors who saw

thef and violence as a display o valor and a source o prestige: Tis wouldbe a running theme or the rest o the century and the root o one violent

conrontation afer another.


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As i to underline the chies point, the thieving continued. oma-

hawks and knives went missing in the night. Lewis threatened beatings. A

saddle disappeared, and a buffalo robe. Ten he caught a man red-handed,as he tried to liberate an iron socket rom a discarded canoe pole. He ew

into a rage and told the village that I would shoot the rst o them that

attempted to steal an article rom us. He went beyond this to the threat o

collective punishment, inorming the Chinooks that I had it in my power

at that moment to kill them all and set re to their houses. But then he

summoned all his sel-control, no doubt contemplating the political con-

sequences o acting out his threat, and the Corps o Discovery moved on

toward the territory o a tribe about whom Lewis elt differently.3

Lewis and his companions got on well with many o the tribes, to be

air. As Clark noted in his journal, A cuirous custom . . . is to give hand-

some squars to those whom they wish to show more acknowledgments to.

Te men o the corps, he reported in March 1805, were generally healthy

except Venerials Complaints which is verry Common amongst the natives

and the men Catch it rom them.4

Te explorers had a mutual love affair with the Mandans, whose amia-

ble welcome made their villages a avored stopover or generations o Euro-

pean and American adventurers on the upper Missouri. Lewis liked the

Arikara, too, and the Clatsops. He ound the Wallawallas the most hospi-

table, honest, and sincere people that we have met with in our voyage.5Te

Flatheads were riendly. Te Shoshone were rank, communicative, air in

dealing, generous with the little they possess, extreemly honest, and by no

means beggarly.6And o course there was Sacagawea, hersel a Shoshone,

reed rom slavery among the Hidatsa.

But no tribe stood in quite such high regard as the Nez Perce. Tere is

disagreement about how the tribe acquired its odd name. Some o them

appear to have indeed pierced their noses and ornamented them with den-

talium shells, which they acquired in trade with the tribes o the Pacic

Coast. Other authorities say the name is a mistranslation o sign language.

Te Plains tribes indicated the Nez Perce by passing the index nger overthe nose with a slashing motion; this was a sign o bravery, denoting people

who did not inch even i an arrow came that close.


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Lewis and Clark also attested to this bravery, but they spoke too o the

gentleness o the Nez Perce men, as well as the intelligence and attractive-

ness o the women. Te explorers ound the Nez Perce to be proud, digni-ed, reserved, slow to anger, attentive to personal cleanliness. Teir language

contained no proanity. Tey were orators, who settled their disputes by a

prolonged search or consensus. Te tribe was amous or its horse breeding

and its horsemanship.

Tere were perhaps our thousand Nez Perce when the Corps o Dis-

covery encountered them, divided into a number o small, autonomous

bands. Te men hunted and shed or salmon and cutthroat trout; the

women gathered berries and dug camas roots, which they pounded into

our or bread that gave Lewis chronic gas and diarrhea. Buffalo were

gone rom the plateau country west o the Rockies by the time the expedi-

tion arrived, so the Nez Perce crossed the mountains each summer to

hunt the great herds on the plains o what is now Montana. It is this

knowledge o the high passes that explains the tribes warm relationship

with Lewis and Clark. Te Nez Perce knew the way across the Continental

Divide, and they knew the dangers that lurked on the other side. Captain

Lewis took their advice on the rst count, and ignored it on the second.

Te most daunting moment o the outward journey occurred in Sep-

tember 1805 when the captains contemplated the sheer granite wall o

the Bitterroots. Te most terrible mountains I ever beheld, remarked

Sergeant Patrick Gass.7 Te Columbia River and the Pacic Ocean lay

somewhere on the ar side. Tey bought some resh horses rom a riendly

band o Flatheads. With the help o the expeditions translator, George

Drouillard (Drewyer, or the most part, in Lewiss journals, or sometimes

Drulyard), son o a French-Canadian ather and a Shawnee mother,

Lewis constructed a summary Flathead vocabulary. Te tribe spoke in a

guttural ashion that led Lewis to think they might be the descendants o

Prince Madoc and a wandering band o Welshmen. Jefferson subscribed

to the theory that such a tribe was out there, somewhere in the Western

wilds.Te Corps o Discovery had better horses now, but the emince Di-

cuelt Knobs remained to be conquered. On Lolo Creek, at a campground


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they called ravelers Rest, a group o hunters went out to supplement the

partys dwindling rations as it prepared or the crossing. John Colter,

the soldier who would later withhold his tomahawk rom the larcenousChinooks, brought back three Indians who said they lived on the other

side o the mountains. Tey were Nez Perce, and they indicated a trail

across the divide that would take the explorers to their villages in six

days. It took eleven in reality, and they were the worst days o the whole

trip, beset by snowdrifs, hailstorms, dysentery, allen timber, the eating

o a colt when the rest o the ood ran out, and the loss o Clarks writing

desk when a packhorse ell orty eet down a precipice.

Te elderly chie o the Nez Perce villages was wisted Hair, a Chear-

ull man with apparent Siencerity. He offered hospitality, traded ood or

trinkets, knives, and tobacco, and allowed the men to lie up or more

than a week while Clark treated their intestinal troubles with salt pills

and other emetics. Clark wrote that his modest doctoring abilities raised

my reputation and gives those nativs an exolted oppinion o my skill as a

phisician. Most important, the Nez Perce made no move to relieve the

ailing and vulnerable explorers o their weapons, despite having no more

than a couple o deective ries with which to deend themselves against

hostile tribes.

In early May 1806, Lewis and Clark were back rom the western sea,

and as they prepared to recross the Bitterroots the riendship between the

whites and the Nez Perce was cemented. It would endure or more than

hal a century until it was nally betrayed by settlers, soldiers, and the

lust or gold.

While the Nez Perce had declined the opportunity to steal the explor-

ers guns, they had no objection to being armed as part o a larger geopo-

litical compact. Lewis laid this out in the stump speech he gave to all the

tribes, sweetened by the medals and the ags and the trade trinkets. Te

Nez Perce would accept an American-dominated system o trading posts

and agree to live in peace with their neighbors; in exchange they would

be given a guarantee o security, with guns and ammunition to protectthemselves. Te Nez Perce pointed out only one aw with this scheme,

but it was a serious one. Te Blackeet would never stand or it.


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Violent resistance was built into that tribes creation myth, and they

were well supplied with weapons rom traders in the British possessions

to the north. When Napi, Old Man, was done with ashioning the prai-ries, the mountains, and the orests, he marked the ground and told the

Blackeet, Tis is your land. It is ull o animals and other things which

I have given you. Let no other people come into it. When others cross the

line, take your bows and arrows, your lances and your battle axes, and

keep them out. I they remain, trouble will come.8

The Corps o Discoverys second crossing o the mountains was no

easier than the rst. By early June the captains were eager to be on

the move, but the Nez Perce pointed up at the peaks, observing that the

winter snowall had been prodigious, and counseled a ew more weeks o

patience. Clark was inclined to heed their advice. I Shudder with the ex-

pectation with great dicuelties in passing these Mountains, he wrote.9

Lewis was having none o it; he pronounced this a delightull season or

travelling and decided they should proceed without a guide. He was wrong

on both counts. Te snow turned out to be feen eet deep, and there was

no grass or the horses. For the rst time in two years the explorers were

orced to retrace their steps. Lewis sent Drouillard back to the Nez Perce

villages or help and the captains cooled their heels in camp or a week.

Clark seems to have ound a silver lining in the great dicuelties o the

crossing, since a child with reddish hair, who later became a amiliar g-

ure to Montana settlers, was born about nine months later, the outcome o

Clarks dalliance with a Nez Perce woman.

Eventually Drouillard returned with three young men who agreed to

see them saely across. Te plan was or the expedition to split into two

groups when it got back to ravelers Rest, the rst time it had ever risked

such a step, and to reassemble about six weeks later at the conuence o

the Yellowstone and the Missouri. Clark would take one group and head

down the Yellowstone. Lewis, with the rest o the party, would ollow theNez Perce trail along the Blackoot River and into the buffalo country.

Once they reached the Great Falls o the Missouri, the Lewis party would


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2 0 G E O R G E B L A C K

subdivide again. One group would stay on the big river to dig up a large

cache o supplies the explorers had lef there the previous year and pre-

pare or Clarks portage around the alls. Lewis, with hal a dozen volun-teers, would explore at every hazard the Marias River, which entered

the Missouri rom the northwest. Lewis named it or his cousin, Maria

Wood. Originally, then, it was Marias River, but the apostrophe ell away

with time.

Clarks route was longer than Lewiss but easier, and he made steady,

uneventul progress, up the Bitterroot and over the divide, across the

broad, lovely valley o the upper Big Hole with the Beaverhead peaks to his

right, until he ound himsel back at Camp Fortunate, where Sacagawea

had been ecstatically reunited with her ellow Shoshone the previous sum-

mer. From there, northeast along the Jefferson River to the Tree Forks,

and thence eastward across the ertile valley o the Gallatin, through a

twisting gap in the mountains that would later be called the Bozeman

Pass, until he nally struck the Yellowstone near the site o the present-

day town o Livingston, where the river makes a big ninety degree turn to

the east.

It seems strange that a man with Clarks instincts would disregard three

separate opportunities to explore the sources o the Madison, the Gallatin,

and the Yellowstone itsel. Strange stories were already in circulation about

the spectacular landscapes and bizarre natural phenomena in the high

country where the three rivers had their origins. Fur traders in St. Louis

had heard tales o spouts o boiling water in the area as early as 1803.10

Clark wrote in his journal that the Yellowstone had a considerable all

high in the mountains, but then crossed out the reerence with an enig-

matic no. At the big bend, the river emerges rom the corridor o Paradise

Valley as a broad, leisurely riffl e, anked by the peaks o the Absarokas and

the Gallatin Range. It offers no particular deterrent at that point to the ex-

plorer. Early in the trip, the Hidatsa had told Lewis and Clark that the Yel-

lowstone was navigable almost to its source, which was roughly accurate,

give or take fy miles. So was Clark tempted? Apparently not. His journalnotes only that, Te Roche [the Roche Jaune, that is, or Yellow Stone]

passes out o a high rugid mountain covered with snow.


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E M P I R E O F S H A D O W S 2 1

It is irresistible to speculate about what might have happened i Lewis

and Clark had lef St. Louis a couple o years later than they did. Tat

would have given them time to be apprised o a curious report that wassubmitted to Jefferson in October 1805 by General James Wilkinson, the

admirable trumpeter, military governor o Louisiana erritory. In this

the general inormed the president that he had a Savage delineation on a

Buffaloe Pelt, o the Missouri & its South Western Branches. . . . among

things a little incredible, a volcano is distinctly described on Yellow Stone

River.11Jefferson, afer all, had particularly ordered the captains, as part

o their inventory o Louisianas geological and mineral resources, to be

alert to any signs o volcanic activity. Te temptation to pursue such a

antastic story would surely have been powerul.

Tree years afer the Corps o Discovery returned home, William Clark

had collated even more ragments o inormation and hearsay about the

mysterious upper Yellowstone. In about 1809, he added to his notes, At

the head o this river the nativs give an account that there is requently

herd a loud noise, like Tunder, which makes the earth remble, they

State that they seldom go there because their children Cannot sleepand

Conceive it possessed o spirits, who were averse that men Should be near

them.12Merely a ootnote, but the rst recorded entry in a durable canard:

that Indians were driven by ear or superstition to avoid the upper Yellow-

stone.

In July 1806, however, no matter how strong the temptation, a ninety

degree diversion to the south simply did not gure in Clarks plans. Every-

thing was or eastward, to the rendezvous with Lewis, and home beore

winter.

Empire of Shadows; The Epic Story of Yellowstone

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