Chapter Three

Chapter Three – Lewis and Clark Senior Style
Pierre, South Dakota

The morning of July 2^nd we packed the car, not a minor task, and Russ complained that our load seemed to be increasing not decreasing.  Traveling to Rapid City we turned East onto Interstate 90 to take us back to the Lewis and Clark trail along the Missouri.  On the way we took exit 116 to visit a deactivated Minuteman missile silo.  Russ had read about the U.S. Parks exhibit, and though it wasn’t officially on his bucket list, he wanted to see it.  Both of us did.  (Forty-eight years ago, when Russ was a cocky young engineer and I was a poorly paid clerk, we met at Boeing where we worked on the Minuteman Training Project.)

Only one other car had stopped at the exhibit isolated within a chain link fence in the middle of a South Dakota farmer’s field.  A glass dome covered the exhibit, and we looked down at the unarmed head of the missile sunk into the silo.  A young U.S. Parks employee was stationed at the silo to answer visitors’ questions.  Russ had some pertinent inquiries, and the young man seemed impressed that Russ had worked on the Minuteman project.  I explained to the young man that the most worthwhile thing Russ did while working at Boeing was to meet me.  The young man laughed suitably.

Minuteman Missile Exhibit

 

By mid-afternoon, we were once again traveling North along the Missouri in the wake of Lewis and Clark’s trail.  Before dinner we arrived in Pierre, the capital of South Dakota.  Russ had made reservations at the very nice Clubhouse Hotel and Suites next to the Pierre Convention Center, and we took a walk before dinner.  Gambling is legal in South Dakota and we passed the combination Subway Sandwich Shop and Casino and the combination Car Wash and Casino.  These were visuals difficult for us Texans to grasp.  Adjoining the hotel was the RedRossa Italian Restaurant, which is, of course, the Red-Red Italian Restaurant.  The ciabatta bread and caprese salad were delicious, and we continued to be impressed with the quality of small-town restaurants in South Dakota.

Pierre was a significant stop for us, because it was here that Lewis and Clark had their first meeting with the Teton Sioux in late September, 1804, and they nearly had a major battle with the Sioux Indians that Jefferson had especially asked them to placate.  The problems were due, in part, to misunderstandings caused by the captains not having a decent interpreter.   The captains had chosen a camp site where the Bad River flows into the Missouri.  Some braves had stolen the horse of one of the expedition’s hunters and when the captains met with three Sioux chiefs, they demanded the return of the horse.  The chiefs refused.  Lewis tried to give his standard Indian Speech, but with the lack of an adequate interpreter, he cut it short.  He distributed the peace medals and American flag, but one of the chief’s, a particularly cantankerous fellow,  let them know that the Sioux wanted more in the way of gifts if the captains expected to continue down the river.

The captains managed to calm the situation and invited the three chiefs and three of their soldiers aboard the keel boat and gave them each a half dram of whiskey.  The cantankerous chief feigned drunkeness and became down right belligerent.  The chiefs and Indian soldiers appeared to want to go aboard one of the two smaller pirogues.  Clark took a few men with him and reluctantly escorted them aboard the smaller vessel.  The belligerent chief’s attitude became personally insulting to Clark (Clark doesn’t explain how the chief conveyed his contempt, since he didn’t speak English.)  In any case by now Lewis had his men armed and ready for combat on the keel boat, and they were ready to light the fuse on the keel boat’s mounted swivel gun which could disperse a scatter blast of 30 rounds.  

Two hundred warriors were on shore, many with their bows drawn point blank at Clark and his men.  Clark had endured enough of the belligerent chief’s insults, drew his sword and demanded that the chiefs and their soldiers get off the pirogue.  There was a lot of confusion with one of the Indian soldiers clutching the mast and several others trying to pull at the pirogue’s mooring chain.  Both sides were ready to do battle when the head chief, named Black Buffalo, grabbed the chain from the braves and shouted at his warriors to back off.  For the next two days the Corps would make a short distance each day, engage in a few more meetings with the chiefs, but eventually the captains moved on leaving the Sioux leaders very unhappy with the series of powwows.  Relations between the Sioux and the Corps were the opposite of what Jefferson had requested.

Today, despite being the capitol of South Dakota, Pierre has a small population of 13,800.  After driving a few blocks in any direction, Russ and I found ourselves deep into the country side.  The city is located on a lake formed out of the Missouri river.  The sight actually looks much like it probably did in Lewis and Clark’s time, and we were able to walk around an island in the middle of the lake where Lewis and Clark had camped after their altercation with the Sioux.  We also drove over the bridge to the site where Lewis and Clark had their confrontation with the chiefs.  And, of course, we took Russ’ picture.

 

Site of Lewis and Clark Confrontation with Sioux

 In the afternoon we visited the Cultural Heritage Center, which was one of the best museums of cultural history I had ever seen.  First of all it was in a beautiful building designed into the side of a hill, much like the sod houses of the earliest settlers to South Dakota.  The exhibits start with the native populations, move on to Lewis and Clark, then early settlement and cover statehood and the major American wars.  It was a real wow.