Lewis and Clark Informational Bulletins at Miller Landing Park

 In a couple different locations at the Miller Landing Park there is information about Lewis and Clark.  The plaques are sponsored by Back to the River Inc., Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, City of Omaha, and Papio-Missouri River Natural Resources District.

Time for Hunting Buffalo
Among the people living in this area that Lewis and Clark hoped to meet were the Omaha Indians ("Umo"ho"" in native spelling).  But the villages were empty when the Expedition searched for them.  It was August and the Omaha were away on the annual buffalo hunt.  Originally part of a larger tribe that lived in the eastern United States in the 1500s, The Omaha Tribe gradually migrated west, settling in this region by the 1750s.  In their native language "Umo"ho" means "against the current."  Before Lewis and Clark visited here, The Omaha had frequent contact with French and Spanish traders,  They exchanged hides and pelts of buffalo, raccoon, deer and beaver for manufactured goods that Europeans offered: firearms, face paint, cloth and copper, tin and iron kettles and utensils.  White trappers also married into the tribe.  Two members of the Expedition, Pierre Cruatte and Francois LaBiche, were children of Omaha women who married French trappers.  Four years before Lewis and Clark's journey, a smallpox epidemic killed 400 Omaha, including the legendary chief Blackbird.  The Expedition visited Blackbird's grave on a bluff overlooking the Missouri and explored an Omaha village, Tonwongthon Tonga, near present-day Homer, Nebraska

First Formal Exchange
The Lewis and Clark Expedition's first meeting with Indians west of the Mississippi River happened ten miles north of here, in 1804.  The Indians they met were members of the Oto and Missouri tribes.  Oto and Missouri tribal stories tell that their peope listened politely to Lewis and Clark's speeches.  Tribal members also re-tell stories about the magnifying glass that Lewis and Clark used to start a fire.  
An air rifle fired by Lewis made a strong impression.  Firearms were nothing new to the Oto and Missouri.  For generations, they had been exchanging beaver pelts and buffalo hides for the rifles of the French traders.  Lewis' air rifle was as powerful as any firearm they had seen, but it didn't use gunpowder and was nearly silent when fired.  None of the Oto or Missouri spoke English, although some spoke French.  Lewis spoke English, so his speech was translated from English to French, and from French to the Oto and Missouri languages.  For Indians in this part of the country, white people had been part of the landscape for many years.  But Lewis and Clark were the first representatives of the United States government to meet with the tribes of this region.

We Wish to be Neighborly
When President Thomas Jefferson commissioned Mderiwether Lewis and William Clark to journey up the Missouri River, he gave them a long list of questions.  Many of the questions had to do with learning about the Indian Tribes.  Jefferson said that he wanted to know "the names of the Indian tribes and their numbers, their language and traditions, their food and clothing, and peculiarities in their laws and customs."The Expedition traveled through 50 different Indian nations and met with all of the tribes they could find.  At these meetings, Lewis told the Indians that President Jefferson was their "only great father" and that Americans were replacing the europeans as trading partners.  Their first meeting was with the Oto and Missouri Indians near present Fort Calhoun, Nebraska.  Gifts were exchanged.  White men shared pork and corn meal with the Indians, who in return shared watermelon with their visitors.  This was the first test of Lewis and Clark's skill as official United States diplomats.  On August 2, 1804, William Clark wrote of this first meeting with the Oto and Missouri Indians.  "We spoke, shook hands, and gave them some tobacco and provisions.  We informed them we were glad to see them and would speak to them tomorrow."

Wanted: Men to Labor
"Several gentleman's sons have applied to accompany us, but as they are not accustomed to labor, I am cautious in giving them any encouragement," Clark wrote to Lewis in 1803.  But this journey had no place for "gentleman's sons."  Instead Lewis and Clark carefully selectd a crew of soldiers and civilians, each chosen for his abilities as blacksmith, carpenter, hunter, tracker, boatman, woodcutter, gunsmith, or a combination of these.  The youngest was 17 and the oldest was 35.  York, who was Clark's slave, was of African descent.  Three men hired as guides and interpreters were part Indian and part French.
Several months into the journey, Sacagawes, a young Shoshone woman, and her French husband joined the Expedition at a Mandan village in present dat North Dakota.  She returned to her village on the way back.  Their child also came on the journey and was the youngest member of the Expedition,  At journey's end, the men who were hired by Lewis and Clark, and remained with the Expedition from the Mandan village to the Pacific Ocean and back, were paid a few hundred dollars and received land to farm.  Seaman, the only four-legged member of the Corps of Discovery, was Meriwether Lewis' dog.  Seaman was the Newfoundland breed, know for its size, strength and swimming ability.  He was a valued member of the Expedition, helping to hunt for wild game.

Hiring Local Experts
Before setting out on the Expedition, Lewis and Clark studied the maps and journals of French and Spanish traders and explorers.  They also interviewed fur traaders who had spent time in Indian villages along the river.  The trappers told Lewis and Clark about the tribes they could meet, where they might meet them, and which were most likely to welcome a group of white strangers.  Lewis and Clark knew they would meed to talk to the Indians.  But neither Lewis nor Clark spoke any of the Indian languages or French, a language some Indians spoke.  For help in communicating, Lewis and Clark relied on three members of the crew who were of both Indian and French descent, Pierre  Cruzatte, Francois LaBiche and George Droulliard.  Cruzatte and LaBiche were also familiar with the river and had experience trading with Indian tribes.  Cruzatte, whose mother was a member of the Omaha trive and whose father was French, spoke his mother's language and knew sign language as well.  LaBiche, also a son of an Omaha Indian woman and a French father, spoke several Indian languages and French.  Droulliard, who was half Shawnee, was valued because of his talents as a guide and tracker, and his skill in using sign language.  By hiring local experts like Cruzatte, LaBiche and Droulliard, Lewis and Clark made it more likely that the Expedition would succeed.

Fatigue and Danger
When Meriwether Lewis invited William Clark to join him in the "fatigues and dangers" of an excursion up the Missouri River, Clark responded, "I will cheerfully join you."  During months of preparing for the journey, the two leaders took great care to select a crew of men who were familiar with the hardships of outdoor life.  Stifling summer heat, swarming mosquitoes and days spent waste-deep in the muddy river challenged the men's morale, health and strength.  The men suffered sore feet, sunstroke, insect and snake bites, skin infections, stomach aches, and, according to Clark, "violent headake."  Oilcloth helped keep their gear dry, but crew members' diaries told of many days spent waiting for their soggy belongings to dry out before the Expedition could move forward.  Clark wrote about "doctoring" crew members' aches and pains.  One crew member, Sgt. Charles Floyd, became ill during the weeks the crew traveled in this area.  Sgt. Floyd died, probably from appendicitis, and was buried near present-day Sioux City, Iowa.  But as Clark wrote, "It is worthey of observation to mention that our party has been much healthier on the Voyage than parties of the same number is in any other Situation."  When the wind was right, sails pushed the keelboat against the current about 20 miles a day.  And on stretches of river without sandbars and [} trees, oarsmen could move the keelboat at a steady pace.  But if the river was shallow, members of the Expedition used ropes and [] strenfth to tow a 13-ton boat and 12 tons of cargo upriver.  Using bear fat for mospuito repessent and choosing campsites where there was a breeze offered some relief from swarms of mosquitoes.  One Expedition member reported eating a moutful of mosquitoes for every mouthful of food.