Plains Folk: Captain Lewis speech poses a mystery
By TOM ISERN
© Plains Folk
This is a mystery: how a signed, handwritten speech given by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to the Yankton Indians near present-day Yankton, S.D., in 1804, ended up in the hands of Otoe Indians in Oklahoma two centuries later. Here it is, though — I'm looking at a gorgeous copy of it sent to me by my old friend Tim Zwink, of the Oklahoma Historical Society.
A previous column described how Otoe descendants of Nee Swar Unja, Big Ax, had presented to the historical society the certificate of friendship signed over to their ancestor by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. Unknown is how this other document, of Yankton origin, came into the hands of the Otoes.
In late August 1804, the Corps of Discovery, in its ascent of the Missouri River, had arrived in the South Dakota-Nebraska border area. Lewis had his men fire the prairie to invite Indians in the area for a council. His party was welcomed on Aug. 29 by the Yankton with the gift of "a Fat Dog" of which the men "partook hartily and thought it good and well flavored," according to Clark.
A council convened that day under an oak tree and a newly erected staff flying the stars and stripes. This was on Calumet Hill, in present Nebraska, the site named for the council pipe the participants shared. Today this bluff on the south side of the river is the site of a Lewis & Clark Visitor Center established by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The visitors passed out gifts and peace medals. Lewis gave a lengthy speech to the Indians. The next day the Yankton chiefs Shaking Hand (or Hand Shake), White Crane, and Half Man replied, and, we now know, Lewis and Clark presented Shaking Hand with the signed copy of Lewis' speech. The purpose of such a presentation is unclear, but the amazing survival and eventual emergence of the document serve the purpose of enlightening us as to the rhetoric of that encounter on Calumet Bluff in 1804. The words are similar to those we may read in published papers of the expedition, but somehow to view them as originally penned makes them more compelling and provocative.
Every paragraph of the speech begins with the address, "Children." Lewis informs the Indians that the authority of the French and Spanish is ended, that "the Great Chief of the Seventeen Great Nations of America has become your only father; he is the only friend to whom you can now look for protection."
The United States, its captain says, are great. They are a power "whose cities are as numerous as the stars of the heavens, and whose people, like the grass of the plains, cover with their cultivated fields and wigwams, the wide extended country" from the Mississippi to the Atlantic.
The great father sends instructions to the Indians of "the line of conduct they must pursue." He wishes his "children on the troubled waters" of the Missouri to "live in peace with all the white men," "neither wage war against your neighbors the red men," and "injure not the persons of any traders who may come among you."
The great father, too, is to be feared, for "one false step" could "bring upon you the displeasure of your great father who could destroy you and your nation as the fire destroys and consumes the grass of the plains." Do what the great father says, though, and traders will bring more and better goods than you have ever known.
Next to the signatures of Clark and Lewis at the bottom of the 11-page document are remnants of red wax, where someone has removed the blue ribbons the captains customarily sealed onto their documents.
