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William Clark |
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Meriwether Lewis |
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Black Moccasin |
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Detail of otter pouch |
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Peace Medal |
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Charles Willson Peale |
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A Woman of Nootka Sound |
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Detail of "Sally Bag" |
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Original Peale label |
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Drawing of
pipes |
By Rubie S. Watson and Castle McLaughlin
On May 22, 1804, Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and members of the Corps of North West Discovery left St. Louis for what was to become an arduous journey to the Pacific Ocean. They went in search of a water passage that they believed would link the eastern coast of the fledgling American republic to the shores of the Pacific Ocean. In a written communication to Lewis on June 20, 1803, President Thomas Jefferson set forth the primary goals of the Corps: "The object of your mission is to explore the Missouri river, & such principal streams of it, as, by it's course and communication with the waters of the Pacific ocean...may offer the most direct & practicable water communication across this continent for the purposes of commerce." Although commerce was central to the expedition, Jefferson had in mind something more than an exploratory trade mission. The expedition was to be a quest for both commercial advantage and scientific knowledge.
During their two year expedition, Lewis and Clark collected, described, packed and sent east plant, animal, and mineral specimens. They made maps, charted hazardous terrain, and described Indian languages. Implements, food, clothing, and housing were studied. Objects of Indian manufacture were obtained from the tribes along their route. Jefferson cautioned Lewis and Clark to "treat [the Indians] in the most friendly and conciliatory manner which their own conduct will admit" and further urged them to invite Indian leaders to visit him in Washington. Lewis and Clark complied with this request. While they were still in the field, a delegation of invited chiefs representing 11 Indian nations toured Philadelphia, Washington, and Boston. Later, the Mandan leader Sheheke (Big White) and trader Rene Jusseaume, along with their families, returned east with the Corps of Discovery, arriving in Washington during December, 1806. These parties were among the first Indian delegations from the Plains area to visit the nation's capitol.
At least three large shipments of objects collected during the expedition and several smaller ones were packed and sent to Jefferson via St. Louis. Specimens were painstakingly gathered, described, and preserved for their journey east. Many ethnographic objects were included in these shipments. Hide clothing, woven hats, buffalo robes, calumets, feather badges, baskets, bows and arrows, and ornaments, like the natural history specimens, were carefully prepared and loaded on horses, boats, and human backs to make the journey to the nation's capitol.
Throughout their expedition but especially during their first winter at Fort Mandan (in present-day North Dakota), Lewis and Clark wrote in some detail about the Indians they met. Following Jefferson's instructions, they made vocabulary lists (fourteen in total, unfortunately no longer extant); described, sketched, and in some cases obtained objects from their hosts; spent hours discussing and directly questioning Indian leaders about tribal political organization and inter-tribal relations; and made direct observations of everything from important rituals to food preparation.
Throughout their journals one finds many entries describing the material cultures of the tribes located along their route. For example, Lewis wrote in some detail about the battle-axes he saw among the Mandan, and Clark described a variety of Indian implements. Sketches of infant cradles and careful observations of the protocol of meetings with tribal leaders appear throughout their journals. Clark was fascinated by the importance of tobacco in these meetings. Ceremonial smoking, proper seating, and formal placing of buffalo robes around the shoulders of honored guests were central to tribal diplomacy, Clark wrote.
The exchange of gifts was also a central ritual in intercultural diplomacy. During formal diplomatic encounters, Lewis and Clark presented tribal leaders with peace medals, wampum, military clothing, and American flags. In return, chiefs and leading men gave the expedition leaders customary diplomatic gifts, such as pipes, robes, and military regalia. Members of the Lewis and Clark party also exchanged gifts and traded with Indian peoples in more informal contexts, offering English cloth, tobacco, metal tools and glass beads for horses, food, moccasins, robes, and services such as horse care. On a number of occasions, Lewis and Clark even commissioned Indian women to make clothing and hats for themselves and crew members. Exchange was crucial to the success of the expedition, enabling the Lewis and Clark party to obtain necessities such as food and horses and to meet Jefferson's charge that they establish political relations with western tribes.
Many of the objects Lewis and Clark acquired during their expedition were directly transferred to Jefferson in Washington, D.C. or to Charles Willson Peale in Philadelphia, whose museum, often described as the oldest public museum in the United States, served as a national repository before the creation of the Smithsonian Institution. Jefferson transferred some of the expedition materials to the Peale museum, retaining others at his home, Monticello. At Monticello, artifacts from the Corps of Discovery were displayed in Jefferson's "Indian Hall," along with other objects given to or collected by Jefferson. After Jefferson's death, more of these objects may have been transferred to Peale. In 1828 the C.J. Hutter family donated a number of ethnographic objects to the Peale Museum that were collected by Lt. George C. Hutter while he was stationed with the Sixth Infantry in St. Louis. Several of those early Plains objects also survive today in the Peabody Museum Collections.
During 1849-50, the descendants of Charles Willson Peale sold a portion of their ethnographic collection to P. T. Barnum and Moses Kimball. Barnum and Kimball divided the collection and each installed their purchase in their own museums. Fires in Philadelphia and New York destroyed Barnum's museums, and in 1899 a fire damaged Kimball's Boston Museum. Members of the Kimball family gave Charles Willoughby, then Assistant Director of Harvard's Peabody Museum, first pick of the Boston Museum's ethnographic collection. Willoughby chose 1400 objects that were transferred directly to the Peabody. Among these were, according to Willoughby (1905), "several" Native American objects attributed to Lewis and Clark.
Recent research at the Peabody Museum has identified some sixty objects from the Boston Museum accession that may be linked to the Lewis and Clark expedition. These include six objects that are firmly associated with the expedition, six that were donated to Peale by Hutter, five that were probably collected by either Lewis and Clark or Hutter, and many others that may have been obtained by the Corps, but now lack documentation. These pieces are both rare and extremely important, as few other ethnographic materials from the expedition have survived. They provide valuable evidence of the material culture of many Native American tribal groups. They also provide a tremendously valuable lens from which to investigate the history of early ethnographic collecting, display, and museum building in the United States.
In anticipation of the impending Lewis and Clark Bicentennial, the Peabody Museum initiated new research on the history and formal properties of these materials. The complete result of that research will be presented in a forthcoming book, Arts of Diplomacy: Lewis and Clark's Indian Collection, and in an exhibit that the Peabody will stage throughout 2003-2005.