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incorporated as the St. Louis Fur Company, and after many vicissitudes finally reorganized as the Missouri Fur Company, the members of the original organization being Benjamin Wilkinson, Pierre Choteau, Sr., Manuel Lisa, Auguste Choteau, Jr., Reuben Lewis, William Clark, Sylvester Labadie, Pierre Menard, William Morrison, Andrew Henry and Dennis Fitzhugh. William Clark, then known as Gen. William Clark, was agent of the company at St. Louis.

THE RETURN OF THE MANDAN CHIEF

In 1807, with Pierre Choteau in command of a trading party numbering seventy-two men, an attempt was made to return the Mandan Chief Shahaka, who had accompanied Lewis and Clark on their return to Washington, together with his wife and child, and the wife and child of his interpreter Rene Jessaume. Lewis and Clark had agreed on behalf of the United States to guarantee the safe return of the party to the Mandan villages.

The chief was under the escort of Ensign Nathaniel Prior, who had been a sergeant with the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

When they reached the Arikara villages they were attacked by these Indians on account of the Mandan chief, but Choteau had anticipated treachery, and was prepared for it. After an hour's fighting he was able to withdraw with a loss of three killed and seven wounded, one mortally. Three of Prior's party were wounded, including the interpreter of the chief. The Indians followed the party, and continued the attack from along shore as they proceeded down the river, until the Choteau party singled out a chief whom they recognized and shot him, when the Indians retired.

The Indians had met with heavy loss, but to what extent was never known. Shahaka having returned in safety to St. Louis, awaited an escort, and the first contract made by the reorganized St. Louis Fur Company, thereafter to be known as the Missouri Fur Company, was for the return of the Mandan chief to his tribe. In the contract the Missouri Fur Company agreed to engage 125 men, of whom 40 must be Americans and expert riflemen, for the purpose of escort. They were to receive $7,000 for the Indian's safe return. The party consisting of 150 men left St. Louis in the spring of 1809, Pierre Choteau in command, arriving at the Mandan villages September 24, 1809, the chief laden with presents. He had been entertained by President Jefferson at his country seat of Monticello and had been honored and feted from the time he reached St. Louis until his return, but his account of his experiences not being believed, he fell into disrepute, and was finally killed by the Sioux in one of the attacks by that tribe on the Mandan villages.

In 1807 Manuel Lisa, the first and most noted upper Missouri River Indian trader, passed through the Arikara villages, where he had a trading post, visiting them, in detail, with entire safety, immediately preceding the attack of that year upon Pierre Choteau's party.

(The several maps illustrating the early explorations, the Louisiana Purchase, and the extension of boundaries of the United States, were prepared for the General Land Office, Washington, D. C., and are used by courtesy of that office.)

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CHAPTER VI

"WHEN WILD IN WOODS THE NOBLE SAVAGE RAN”

THE EXPEDITION OF LIEUT. Z. M. PIKE-TREATY WITH THE SIOUX-ON THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI-THE CHIPPEWAS SMOKE THE PIPE OF WABASHA-SUBSTITUTING THE AMERICAN FOR BRITISH FLAGS AND MEDALS-GAME-THE WINTER CANTONMENT HOSPITALITY OF THE TRADERS ALEXANDER HENRY'S VISIT TO THE MANDAN VILLAGES-IDEAL INDIAN HOMES-SOCIAL LIFE AMONG THE INDIANS.

"I am as free as nature first made man,
Ere the base laws of servitude began,
When wild in woods the noble savage ran."

-Dryden's Conquest of Granada.

CONDITIONS ON THE FRONTIER IN 1805

In 1805 Spain still held dominion over the country west of the Missouri River, although she had already ceded her possessions to France, and from France they had passed to the United States, which had entered upon the exploration of the country. Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark had spent a winter in what is now North Dakota, at Fort Mandan. They had traced the Missouri to its source, locating the Cannonball, Heart, Knife, White Earth and Yellowstone rivers, and had given the world the first reliable information relative to the plains of Dakota, then popularly supposed to be in the heart of the great American desert. They reported a land abounding in game of all kinds, peopled by a brave and intelligent native population.

Pembina was already on the maps of the period, together with the Pembina, Park, Turtle, Goose, Sheyenne and James rivers, Devils Lake and Lake Traverse. The Minnesota River was then known as St. Peter's and at its mouth was located Fort St. Anthony. There was no St. Paul and Minneapolis in Minnesota, and in California no San Francisco. Chicago in Illinois, and St. Louis, then in Louisiana Territory, were frontier villages of little importance. There was no occupation. of the great West for development, save the lead mines near Dubuque, no wagon roads, aside from trails, and no means of communication, excepting by canoe and pony. There had been some early exploration by the French and by the Spanish, but until the expedition of Lewis and Clark, but little was known of this vast country, towards which the center of population of the United States. is rapidly shifting.

PIKE'S EXPEDITION

The object of Pike's expedition was to select sites for military posts on the Mississippi River; to survey its waters to the source of that stream; to acquaint the traders with the change of ownership of the country and investigate their alleged unlawful conduct in the sale of goods without the payment of duties imposed, and to endeavor to bring about peace between the Sioux and the Chippewas and enlist their friendship on behalf of the United States. The roster of Lieutenant Pike's party was as follows:

First Lieutenant Zebulon M. Pike, First Regiment U. S. Infantry, commanding; Sergeant Henry Kennerman; Corporals Samuel Bradley and William E. Meek; Privates John Boley, Peter Branden, John Brown, Jacob Carter, Thomas Daugherty, William Gordon, Solomon Huddleston, Jeremiah Jackson, Hugh Menaugh, Theodore Miller, John Montgomery, David Owings, Alexander Ray, Patrick Smith, John Sparks, Freegift Stoule and David Whelpley, in all one officer, one sergeant, two corporals and seventeen men. His interpreters were Joseph Renville and Pierre Rosseau.

They left camp, near St. Louis, August 5, 1805; their means of transportation being one keel-boat seventy feet long. On their arrival at Prairie du Chien September 4th, where they spent several days, they were saluted by the Indians with a volley of musketry, and it is claimed that some of the Indians who were under the influence of liquor, tried to see how close they could shoot without hitting the boat. Lieutenant Pike informed them of the object of his expedition, especially as to the matter of peace with the Chippewas.

On September 23, 1805, he negotiated a treaty with the Sioux-represented by Little Crow (grandfather of Little Crow, leader in the Minnesota massacre in 1862), and Way Ago Enogee-for a tract of land nine miles square at the mouth of the River St. Croix, also a tract of land extending from below the confluence of the Mississippi and St. Peter's rivers up the Mississippi to include the Falls of St. Anthony, embracing nine miles on each side of the river, for the sum of $2,000. Congress confirmed this treaty April 16, 1808, but there is no record that it was proclaimed by the President. It is scarcely necessary to add that it embraced the land on which Fort Snelling and the cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis now stand.

When Lieutenant Pike arrived at the headwaters of the Mississippi, he was treated with great cordiality and courtesy by the traders and their employees. Coming one night to a sugar camp he was given his choice of beaver, swan, elk or deer for supper, and though sugar and flour were worth 50 cents per pound, and salt $1, there was no stint in the supply.

Among the traders he met were Joseph Rolette and associates at Prairie du Chien, Murdoch Cameron at Lake Pepin, Jean Baptiste Faribault and Joseph Renville on the Minnesota, Robert Dickson on the Mississippi and Cuthbert Grant and Hugh McGillis in the Red Lake country.

The traders were naturally pro-British and were controlled by British influences. Cuthbert Grant was still flying the British flag, but explained to Lieutenant Pike that it was owned by an Indian and he was not responsible for it.

Flatmouth, one of the Red Lake band, and Tahmahah, a Sioux, became great friends of Lieutenant Pike. Flatmouth rendered him great service, and Tahma

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