The Discovery Corps and the Native Americans

The web resource I was most interested in was Lewis and Clark’s interaction with the Native Americans. In short, the resource details the journey of the expedition of Discovery Corps and their first encounter with Native Americans. Before encountering them face to face, they had their own idea of what “Indians” were. Once their interaction occurred, it was a completely different from their original thoughts. They learned that there were over 50 tribes and each tribe had their own culture and customs. For every first encounter with various tribes along the expedition, Lewis and Clark along with the Discovery Corps had a ritual for them. The resource then went on to describe the interactions between Lewis and Clark and the different tribes. What surprised me the most is learning about the rituals they would do for the Native Americans upon meeting them. In these rituals, the captain leaders would explain to them that their land now belongs to the United States and that President Jefferson was their new great father. They would also give them a peace medal with Jefferson’s face on one side and two hands clasping on the other along with other goods. I personally thought that this was disrespectful and distasteful. I like to think of rituals as something that go along with good things. But in this instance, it was more like a distraction. It was like a saying “Hey we’re taking your land and there’s nothing you can do about it but here’s to show our appreciation.” 

Another encounter that I learned about and found interesting was their encounter with Arkaras Indians. Despite how I feel about their rituals, I was shocked to learn that they stayed with the tribe for five days. To me, this makes it seem as if they were interested in getting to know the tribe and their way of life. The relationship between the Corps and Arkaras were generally warm and the tribe became interested in their guests when the topic of trade came about. A few other tribes were open to the Americans as well such as Yankton Siuox tribe and the Shoshone Indians. I also enjoyed reading about the encounter with the Blackfeet Indians. This encounter went a little differently than the Arkaras because the Blackfeet tribe had reservations about the Corps. They than began to feel that the American plans proposed a threat to the tribe and felt that giving them armed weapons would only weaken the power. In attempts to steal the guns from the Americans as they slept, this led to one of the first bloodshed wars between the Americans and the Indians. The common themes that I found among each of these stories were trade negotiations and the Native Americans obtaining weapons.