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Summer 2008

Review of Lewis and Clark Through Indian Eyes: Nine Indian Writers on the Legacy of the Expedition Edited by Alvin M. Josephy Jr. with Marc Jaffe and Lewis and Clark and the Indian Country: The Native American Perspective Edited by Frederick E. Hoxie and Jay T. Nelson

Robert J. Miller Lewis and Clark Law School

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Miller, Robert J., "Review of Lewis and Clark Through Indian Eyes: Nine Indian Writers on the Legacy of the Expedition Edited by Alvin M. Josephy Jr. with Marc Jaffe and Lewis and Clark and the Indian Country: The Native American Perspective Edited by Frederick E. Hoxie and Jay T. Nelson" (2008). Great Plains Quarterly. 1376. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/1376

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. REVIEW ESSAY

Lewis and Clark Through Indian Eyes: Nine Indian Writers on the Legacy of the Expedition. Edited by Alvin M. Josephy Jr. with Marc Jaffe. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. xviii + 196 pp. Map, photo­ graphs, illustrations. $25.00 cloth, $14.00 paper.

Lewis and Clark and the Indian Country: The Native American Perspective. Edited by Frederick E. Hoxie and Jay T. Nelson. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2007. 366 pages. Maps, notes, index. $70.00 cloth, $24.95 paper.

LEWIS AND CLARK: GONE; AMERICAN INDIANS: STILL HERE

History never embraces more than a small part of reality. -Fran~ois de La Rochefoucauld

The Meriwether Lewis and William Clark Thomas Jefferson intended and promised expedition is a well-known part of the history Congress that the Corps of Discovery would and lore of the United States. Its recent two­ open the West to American commerce and hundred-year anniversary from 2003 to 2006 begin the United States' diplomatic and com­ added greatly to popular interest in the expe­ mercial relations with the Indian Nations in dition and to academic writing on Lewis and the Louisiana Territory and as far as the mouth Clark. of the Columbia River. For those geopolitical Often asked during the bicentennial com­ reasons alone, I think the expedition is more memorations was the question of the expe­ crucial to American history and expansion dition's actual importance. In fact, there has than some may assume today. always been debate about the significance of In any event, a long-standing gap in the Lewis and Clark in American history and to Lewis and Clark story has been an American the ultimate expansion of the United States Indian perspective. The vast majority of across the continent. In earlier times, the American histories barely relate the impact explorers were idealized as American heroes. of Lewis and Clark and the resulting Manifest More recently, their importance and reputa­ Destiny on Indian lives and cultures. The tion have been diminished, perhaps too much. bicentennial, however, gave Indian Nations What is clear, at least to me, is that the expedi­ and people a golden opportunity to tell their tion was a critical episode in America's opening side of history. And Indians and tribes did just and legally claiming the West. The individual that. personalities, however, were less important. As one would expect, Indian Nations Never mind whether it was the Lewis and focused on their own stories about the explor­ Hooke expedition (Lewis had arranged for ers, their own histories, and the issues and Lieutenant Moses Hooke to accompany him problems they face today. The Lewis and Clark if Clark refused, Stephen Ambrose tells us anniversary was not something Indians cared in Undaunted Courage [1996], 99, 135), or to "celebrate" but offered an opportune occa­ the Smith and Jones expedition-President sion for highlighting the sobering historical

231 232 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 2008 facts regarding those explorers as the forerun­ In 2001, Hoxie held a meeting with four ners of a tidal wave of American exploration, American Indian consultants to consider settlement, and Manifest Destiny. an exhibition on Lewis and Clark's relation­ I applaud the fact that more than fifty ship with Indians (9-10). But the consultants American Indian Nations and countless wanted to discuss the issues of language, tribal Indian people participated in the bicenten­ museums and cultural centers, sacred lands and nial, speaking at Lewis and Clark events and environmental issues, and tribal histories they publishing their own histories and stories. were involved with, not Hoxie's draft agenda The two books reviewed here are excellent (10-11). The Native consultants "talked about examples of individual Indians advancing the everything but Lewis and Clark," contend­ important goal of creating Indian scholar­ ing that "Lewis and Clark began the process ship. Two other examples that came out of the that led to this situation"-the issues the Lewis and Clark anniversary are the Salish­ consultants worked on every day and wanted Pend d'Oreille Culture Committee and Elders to examine (11). Thus, an eye-opening con­ Cultural Advisory Council, Confederated nection was made: in discussing contemporary Salish and Kootenai Tribes' The Salish People tribal and Indian issues, Indian people were and the Lewis and Clark Expedition (Lincoln: addressing "Lewis and Clark," "American University of Nebraska Press, 2005) and this Manifest Destiny," and resultant modern-day reviewer's Native America, Discovered and history. An entirely new exhibit and book Conquered: Thomas Jefferson, Lewis and Clark, emerged. and Manifest Destiny (Westport, CT: Praeger, The volume's table of contents duplicates 2006). All four of these books add valuable the Newberry Library exhibit this collaboration tribal and Indian insights into the history, law, engendered (13). Hence, we get to "read" the and indigenous viewpoints 'of Lewis and Clark exhibit. The book's four parts show the themes and American history. and approaches to examining the expedition: This new scholarship continues the attempts "The Indian Country" (life, ceremonies, gifts, by tribes and Indians to place their oral societies, diplomacy, and pre-Lewis and Clark cultures, traditions, and histories into the trade; "Crossing the Indian Country" (the accepted mainstream of historical, anthro­ expedition and Americans in Louisiana and pological, and sociological writings. Tribes the Oregon country); "A New Nation Comes and Indians have to do this to have their to the Indian Country" (maps, fur traders, set­ viewpoints and histories considered by the tlers, and Manifest Destiny); and "The Indian majority society. I am not arguing that this Country Today" (the issues Indians and tribes is an inherent good, or the only way to bring currently face). attention to Indian concerns; but I do believe The book closes with the Native consultants' this to be a necessary evolution in the dissem­ views on what the Lewis and Clark expedition ination of indigenous knowledge and history, and bicentennial have meant for American and an excellent way to bring wider attention Indians. Darrell Robes Kipp (Blackfeet), Otis to Indian histories and views. Half Moon (Nez Perce), Frederick Baker In Lewis and Clark and the Indian Country: (Mandan/Hidatsa), Pat Courtney Gold (Wasco), The Native American Perspective, editors and Marjorie Waheneka (Umatilla) eloquently Frederick Hoxie and Jay Nelson give voice to tell the Native side of the story (332-41). The countless tribes and Indians both in the modern editors deepen this dimension by printing day and through tribal legends. Interestingly, tribal stories, legends, and histories in each the Native viewpoint changed entirely the section. Although I sometimes found it difficult project these editors first envisioned and ulti­ to follow who was relating the various tribal mately led to a four-month exhibit, all sorts of legends, this is a minor complaint for a book related events, and this book. that presents these powerful voices of Native REVIEW ESSAY 233 peoples. In fact, maybe my problem is that to say something profound about tribal life and mainstream majoritarian historical writings connections to Native homelands. Ultimately, are what I am mostly familiar with, and I need her own raft trip on the Missouri River forced to get more attuned to indigenous histories. her to think that Meriwether Lewis must have Lewis and Clark Through Indian Eyes is an known the true effect his voyage would have essential anthology written by nine Indian on Indians, the "death and destruction" he authors. Editors Alvin M. Josephy Jr. and was bringing, and that he was the spearhead of Marc Jaffe gave them one complex question to Manifest Destiny (47). answer: "What impact, good or bad, immediate Newspaperman Mark Trahant (Shoshone­ or long-range, did the Indians experience from Bannock) makes acute observations about the the Lewis and Clark expedition?" (xviii). Most myopic and ethnocentric viewpoints of Lewis of the authors did not address that question and Clark, while also recounting his tribal and directly, but wrote what was important to them family histories. He points out how Lewis could and their people. They wrote about Lewis and only see and write about the "poverty" of the Clark "through Indian eyes." But approaching Lemhi Shoshone while ignoring the contra­ Lewis and Clark through a circuitous route and dictory facts of the four hundred "fine" horses through family and tribal histories is perhaps they possessed, the trade goods, and "the most an indigenous way to study and explain his­ elegant piece of Indian dress [Lewis] ever saw" tory, and thus this book is written exactly as it (55). Lewis and Clark also overlooked the dem­ should have been. ocratic forms of government that most Indian For example, Vine Deloria Jr. (Standing tribes employed (55-60). This ethnocentric Rock Sioux) discusses what he sees as three viewpoint of Indians and their governments main topics of the Lewis and Clark journals: persists into the present. Frenchmen, bears, and sandbars. Deloria Bill Yellowtail (Crow) concentrates on demythologizes the American saga of Lewis Indian economic issues, arguing that indi­ and Clark by pointing out that Frenchmen vidual entrepreneurship has always been the (and English and Spanish) had preceded the Native American way of life and that Indian explorers everywhere they travelled (6-7). And tribes have to promote this kind of activity Deloria sees the French as being more in tune again if they are to address effectively the with tribal life and the ecological health of the poverty and social problems present on most West than the Americans (8-11). Lewis and reservations today (75-78, 80-83). In a whim­ Clark "had little respect for Indians or their sical comment, he thanks William Clark for institutions [and] tended to see Indians as contributing fifty horses to the economy of the scheming to do them evil ..." (13). Deloria also Yellowstone region, which apparently Crow sees deep meaning in the problems the expedi­ Indians "liberated" (71). tion had with grizzly bears, as if "the bears [had] Roberta Conner (Umatilla, Cayuse, and foreseen the coming chaos on the plains repre­ Nez Perce) observes that the Lewis and Clark sented by the presence of the expedition ..." expedition was a two-week period in the thou­ (16). Sandbars, and nature itself, were other sands of years of history of the Columbia River obstacles that the expedition and Americans Plateau tribes (87-88). Yet the expedition also in general have had lots of problems overcom­ represented the beginning of the American ing (18-22). invasion of the region, the almost total dispos­ In "What We See," Debra Magpie Earling session of the tribes, and what she calls "the (Salish and Kootenai) addresses a multitude unsettling of the West" (119). She also explains of issues, only a few of which touch on Lewis how Lewis and Clark were American agents of and Clark. She intermingles Salish stories, cer­ empire and used the rituals and principles of emonies (38-39), prophecies of the coming of the Doctrine of Discovery to claim the Pacific white men (29), and tribal and family histories Northwest for the United States (105-12). 234 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 2008

Manifest Destiny notwithstanding, she empha­ Fort Clatsop to the Clatsop Chief Coboway, sizes that Indian tribes and peoples survived, and despite the tribes having signed the Treaty are getting stronger, and will continue to be of Tansy Point in Oregon in 1851 (166-68). here for thousands of years more. They and their citizens have perhaps suffered Gerard Baker (Mandan-Hidatsa), the even more at the hands of the United States National Park Service Superintendent at Mount and Manifest Destiny than most federally Rushmore, tells the history of Sakakawea, recognized tribes. This prayer, this ceremony, whose tribal affiliation and background remain powerfully drives home the importance of both a puzzle. Most books and Shoshone people claim tribal and family histories to Indian people as she was Lemhi Shoshone and had been captured survival tools. by the Hidatsa and lived with them in what is Pulitzer Prize-winning author N. Scott now North Dakota. She then married Toussaint Momaday (Kiowa) closes the book with a poem Charbonneau and accompanied the Lewis and that sees the Lewis and Clark expedition as a Clark expedition when they hired Charbonneau vision quest, a quest for all Americans, an "epic as an interpreter. Baker recounts, though, the odyssey of the nation's mind and imagination" Hidatsa history of her birth, upbringing, and (192). For Indians and all other Americans, death as a Hidatsa woman, her capture by the "nothing would be the same ever again" (192). Shoshone, and her escape back to her Hidatsa Perhaps, then, these authors did answer the people (126-29). Believing we will probably editors' charge: while Lewis and Clark and never know her exact history, Baker emphasizes their fellow travelers may be individually unim­ that she was well respected by Lewis and Clark portant in the grand scheme of things, the and played a crucial role in the expedition "Lewis and Clark Expedition" was far-reaching (135). in American and Indian history: opening the Nez Perce and national tribal leader Allen West to American settlement, beginning the Pinkham Sr. writes of Ni Mii Puu (Nez Perce) onslaught of Manifest Destiny, and setting history, prophecies, and legends, some of which in motion events and issues that continue to foretold the coming of the white man and affect American Indians and their govern­ involved Lewis and Clark (140, 145-46, 151-54). ments adversely today. He tells of the wide-ranging travels of Ni Mii Most North Americans have much reme­ Puu people to many regions of North America dial learning to do concerning the histories (147-48) and recounts the story of Watxuuwiis and contemporary realities of Indian Nations and her advice that swayed the Nez Perce from and Native peoples. These two books offer an killing Lewis and Clark (156). excellent way to begin that process by viewing Roberta Basch (Puyallup and Coeur D'Alene) the Lewis and Clark expedition in its widest and Richard Basch (Clatsop Nehalem) write implications "through Indian eyes." a prayer about a family ceremony held in the lands of the Clatsop and Nehalem peoples. ROBERT J. MILLER These tribes are not federally recognized to Lewis and Clark Law School this day, despite Lewis and Clark having given Portland, Oregon