Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West

by Stephen E. Ambrose

That evening, Lewis wrote in his journal, “This man possesses more integrety, firmness, inteligence and perspicuety of mind than any indian I have met with in this quarter, and I think with a little management he may be made a usefull agent in furthering the views of our government.” A remarkable sentence. In the first half, Lewis obviously was speaking from the heart. Clearly he enjoyed being with and greatly respected Black Cat. Yet, in the second half of the sentence, he blandly discusses his plans to manage and manipulate his friend for the benefit of the United States. A further problem is this: what were the views of the Americans? On the one hand, peace. Lewis and Clark always preached peace to the Indians, giving them what the Americans thought of as overwhelmingly powerful reasons to avoid war. On the other hand, the Americans were arms merchants. As James Ronda puts it, “Typical of this dilemma was the request from a war chief who came to purchase an axe and obtain permission to attack Sioux and Arikara warriors. For the proper price in corn the axe was handed over but the request to use it was denied.” The Hidatsa chief must have wondered what sort of man would sell arms to a warrior and then tell him not to engage the enemy.10