In which Moominmama learns about the Lakota and their testy first meeting with Lewis & Clark...

This week, Moominmama paid a visit to the spot above where the Bad River meets the Missouri River. To the right, on an island now part of the town of Fort Pierre, Lewis & Clark had their first meeting with the Lakota in the fall of 1804. 

Everyone walked away in one piece, but that didn't mean they were happy. William Clark named the next island he came to: Bad Humoured Island and described the Lakota in his journal as "the vilest miscreants of the savage race." 

By all accounts, the Great Plains nomads living west of the Missouri River, had seen few white people at that time. But the Lakota had a reputation as a powerful tribe, and Lewis & Clark were directed to make contact to let them know their lands were now under the purview of United States and President Thomas Jefferson.

Since no one spoke the other's language, it's unclear what got communicated. There was, however, a tense moment when several Lakota warriors were invited to tour the keelboat and did not want to release it. 

Some Lakota have said it appeared Lewis & Clark were trying to take hostages to guarantee their safe passage. Lewis & Clark thought the Lakota wanted more of their goods and supplies. This painting, part of a display at a memorial plaque on the island, attempts to picture the first meeting.

Whatever the cause, Lewis & Clark's men raised their rifles against the Lakota, and it took the Lakota chief to defuse the situation. Lakota author Joseph M. Marshall III said it might not have ended so well if the Lakota had actually understood what Lewis & Clark were saying!

The new state of affairs, however, would soon become clear. White incursions into Lakota territory increased despite Jefferson's initial idea that the land would serve as a way to get rid of the Indian problem in the east. In treaty after treaty, Lakota and others tribes living on the Plains were stripped of their lands. The Oregon trail brought thousands of settlers crossing over. Word of gold in the Black Hills brought thousands of prospectors to Lakota lands considered sacred. 

At the Akta Lakota Center in Chamberlain, Moominmama learned the story of how the Lakota were guided from the underworld by a wolf and brought forth in the Black Hills. This has made the theft of the Black Hills by whites a continuing source of ill will.

Add to that, the construction of the Bozeman trail with its new government forts; the railroad that divided the plains; the sacred buffalo "Tatanka" killed wholesale by white hunters for their hides -- killing done with the explicit goal of robbing the Lakota of their culture and livelihood. 

The Lakota, along with their allies, the Cheyenne, would fight hard for many decades to preserve their way of life -- handing U.S. forces an embarrassing defeat at the Battle of Little Bighorn in Montana in 1876.

But bit by bit, with dubious new treaties, the fiercely independent Lakota were forced to rely on government payments and supplies. Their tipis, traditionally covered in buffalo hide (bison, technically), had to be made of canvas, like this one pictured. Lakota were forced onto ever-smaller reservations, pushed to take up farming. Acts of rebellion were harshly punished.

This would culminate in the Wounded Knee Massacre in December of 1890, where the U.S. cavalry would use artillery to respond when shots broke out as a group of Lakota, flying a white flag, were being moved within the Pine Ridge Reservation by military forces.

Moominmama saw several different figures in terms of the death toll, but at least a couple hundred Lakota women and children were killed along with their warriors as the exploding shells rained down. The South Dakota Cultural Heritage Center has this roughly 10-inch shell on display next to a pair of beaded moccasins taken from Wounded Knee.

Today, Lakota territory, negotiated in 1851 to include the Black Hills and lands roughly the size of Spain, has been whittled down to a handful of reservations including Pine Ridge, Standing Rock and Rosebud reservations as well as the Crow Creek Hunkpati Oyate reservation, where some of the Mdewakanton landed after being forced out of Minnesota. This land, in turn, had been taken from the Arikara and Mandan tribes after their numbers were decimated by disease.

But the taking of native lands would actually continue into the modern day. I am camping right next to the Crow Creek reservation, along the Missouri River south of Pierre. Moominmama was confused because historically, the Missouri River was described as muddy and shallow -- Lewis & Clark were pulled upriver by their men on foot, wading through the river much of the time.

Where I camp, the river is deep and wide, and it turns out that's because of all the dams that were installed in the 1950s and 1960s, turning the Missouri River into a chain of lakes. It is so wide and deep, I cannot kayak on the water once the South Dakota wind whips up the waves, which it does often!.

To turn the river here into one of a string of lakes required flooding more than 9,000 acres of the Crow Creek reservation and placing the dam itself in the reservation town of Fort Thompson. The flooding cost the tribe rich bottomland where wildlife,  plants and even trees stood. A third of their members had to move to homes in the arid uplands. 

Upriver, in some shallower sections, you can still see these driftwood-like tree tops poking above the water. But despite the flooding, many birds and wildlife still live along the shores, including a family of ferrets that I initially mistook for otter.

It was only when one of the little guys fell into the water and couldn't get out fast enough that I was forced to reconsider!  

Meanwhile, an anxious sibling watched from above.  When I floated close enough to see the mama's face, I finally realized these guys were ferrets. And it was a joy to watch them frolic!

Next week, I'll trade the Missouri River for the Yellowstone River in Montana. I'll remain in Lakota territory and hope to learn more about the Battle of Little Bighorn as well as see some prehistoric cave art while I'm there.