Rainy Lake House

by Theodore Catton

  While Long’s marriage into the successful Dewees family of Germantown and Philadelphia carried a certain cachet with well-to-do citizens of the city, that was not his avowed reason for marrying Martha Hodgkis. Marriages in the United States in the early nineteenth century were founded on romantic love. When Stephen and Martha made their wedding vows, they did so with the understanding that they had each come to that moment through their own volition. The marriage compact was their own, not something arranged between their respective families. They were probably a little self-conscious knowing that it had not always been so—that in early colonial times marriages were typically based on considerations of property or inheritance. By 1819, arranged marriages were virtually nonexistent and romantic courtship had become the norm. While each partner’s economic assets and prospects surely counted for something in a couple’s decision to marry, most husbands and wives justified their commitment to one another on the basis of love or affection.9

  The change in marriage pattern had manifested during the ferment of the American Revolution. The generation of Americans who reached adulthood in the Revolutionary era—Long’s parents’ generation—regarded traditional arranged marriages as authoritarian, the more so because property ownership vested in the husband. Finding such a heavy imbalance of power between husband and wife to be repugnant, couples sought to redefine marriage as a partnership between equals. Indeed, they aimed to free themselves from the patriarchal relationship in the same way that the colonies freed themselves from the authoritarian rule of the king. They developed a new ideal for marriage that historians have called “companionate marriage.” Although men and women were not equals under the law, companionate marriage aimed to resolve that tension by allotting the husband and wife separate spheres of influence. Husbands held sway in all matters outside the home (work, politics, civic affairs), and wives exercised their superior judgment in matters relating to the household and family. The trend toward companionate marriage reached full force in the early national period, when Stephen and Martha married, and they became exemplars of the companionate marriage couple, for instance, studiously taking turns in choosing names for their children.10

  How did Stephen Long’s sentiments on marriage affect his response to the domestic affairs of the white Indian, John Tanner, when the two met at Rainy Lake House? According to the account Tanner gave of his life, Long initially took him “for one of those worthless white men who remain in the Indian country from indolence, and for the sake of marrying squaws.”11 Whether or not this harsh statement is accepted at face value, there are a few hints in Long’s own writings that would indicate he took a disparaging view toward interracial marriages between white traders and Indian women. If that was his prejudice, he was hardly unusual among white Americans of his day.

  Whites were struck by the fact that Indian marriage forms differed markedly from the companionate ideal, or “Christian marriage,” as it was then known. Among Indian peoples the nuclear family of husband, wife, and children was usually subsumed in the larger social unit of the extended family or clan. Children in such families might address all of their birth-mother’s sisters as “mother” or all of their birth-father’s brothers as “father.” Furthermore, Indian children made no distinction between siblings and cousins—all were considered “brothers” and “sisters.” Some Indian cultures were patrilineal and some were matrilineal, meaning that clan and lineage might be reckoned through the male or female line. Marriage partners had to come from outside of the clan. By the time of Long’s western explorations, ethnographers had only begun to decipher the many complex systems of kinship found among Indian tribes, so a large part of what they observed was unintelligible to them. The cultural norms that Long and his contemporaries tended to focus on were the relations between Indian husband and wife. Yet even that bond could appear quite foreign. While monogamous marriages were the prevailing form in many tribes, polygamous marriages were not uncommon, and in no tribe did one form exist to the exclusion of the other. Moreover, all Indian tribes showed a liberality toward divorce and remarriage that white observers found exotic. All of these differences contributed to white Americans’ perceptions that Indian peoples were a “savage” race.12

  Even more troubling for whites was how Indian cultures exhibited an entirely different division of labor between the sexes. In an Indian marriage, the husband was the hunter and the wife was the agriculturalist. Indian men saw agriculture as women’s work, so they had little interest in emulating white men who worked on their farms all day. Moreover, in many Indian cultures the women owned all of the material wealth including fields, gardens, dwellings, and even the village itself, making Indian men all the more averse to becoming freehold farmers like white men. Government officials and missionaries took note of these profound cultural differences. Intent on assimilating Indians into American society through a process of individual land allotment, they found that Indians must first be taught the virtues of monogamous Christian marriage. Only then, they thought, would Indians accept the American model of the single-family farm as a social and economic unit.13

  To these observers’ dismay, white traders who lived among the Indians were seldom themselves exemplars of monogamous Christian marriage. On the contrary, traders were apt to adopt Indian marriage customs. Often they took Indian wives to improve their standing with the local tribe. Then, furthering their own economic self-interest, they might take additional wives in other tribes as often as they changed locations. Modern research has shown that a significant number of marriages between Indian women and white men in the fur trade were both monogamous and enduring, but the government officials’ and missionaries’ view of these marriages was quite the opposite.14 White men who took Indian wives were called “squaw men,” with the term “squaw” usually being a pejorative that meant whore or concubine. One missionary wrote disparagingly of white men on the frontier who lived with half a dozen Indian wives. Secretary of War Calhoun was troubled by his perception that Indians learned practically everything they knew about whites’ morals from traders. “From this source,” he sniffed, “they have learned nothing but the most libidinous and abandoned licentiousness.”15

  Calhoun commissioned a Protestant missionary, the Reverend Jedediah Morse, to investigate the “moral condition” of Indians living near the white settlements and advise how to reform the Indian trade. Morse’s idea was to establish a “mission family” or “education family” adjacent to every licensed trading house. These education families would consist of husband, wife, and children, and they would model a Christian marriage for their Indian neighbors. Morse thought the good example set by the education families would especially impress Indian women, whom he saw as universally in a “degraded state.” Under the influence of the education families, Indians would soon give up polygamy, which was not only an affront to God but an obstacle to Indian advancement. “Let in the light on the Indians and the abolition of the practice will follow,” he predicted.16

  Long would use that same metaphorical language of light and dark, good and evil, and civilization and savagery to describe the Indian tribes he encountered on his expedition to the Rocky Mountains in 1820. The “shade of barbarism” found among those tribes tended to “exclude the light of civilization,” he would observe in his official report, adding that the Indians’ ways were not “equally dark and malignant in all cases.”17 This dismal view of Indians reflected the common attitudes of Long’s white contemporaries and doubtless stemmed in part from his own rootedness in a conventional, white, middle-class marriage.

  25

  Up the Missouri

  In the weeks leading up to and immediately following his wedding day, Long was furiously busy with preparations for the expedition. Besides working on the design of his steamboat and overseeing its construction, he was assembling supplies, forming his boat crew and military escort, recruiting the scientific members of the party, and corresponding with Calhoun and various officers in charge of the military ar
m of the combined expedition. The Yellowstone expedition, as it was now called by the nation’s press, was the most ambitious operation the army had ever undertaken in peacetime. It had the triple aim of establishing army posts on the upper Missouri, experimenting with steamboat technology, and expanding scientific knowledge about the West. Long’s arm of the expedition was to be the first army exploration in the Trans-Mississippi West with trained scientists on board.1

  Long saw the expedition up the Missouri as a springboard to a comprehensive scientific survey of the region that would stretch over a number of years and would entail multiple trips. The steamboat would carry the party up and down the main stem of the Missouri and its major tributaries, returning to St. Louis for more supplies between trips. He himself would return to Washington and Philadelphia from time to time. With this grand view in mind, he aimed to recruit scientists who would commit to the project for three to five years. Initially he thought they might serve without regular salary, volunteering their time in exchange for the privilege of having all their travel expenses paid by the government. Only after the first of the year did he receive authorization to nominate civilian scientists for a handful of paid commissions. In the meantime, he turned to the American Philosophical Society for advice on likely candidates. One of his early picks, a New York physician and amateur geologist by the name of John Torrey, backed out because of uncertainty over the terms of compensation. Finally, in February and March, the issue of pay was cleared up and the roster of scientists began to take shape.2

  A total of five civilians were commissioned. Dr. William Baldwin was to serve as botanist as well as physician and surgeon for the expedition. One of the most eminent American scientists of the day, he had been schooled in medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, practiced medicine for some years in Wilmington, Delaware, and then moved to Savannah, Georgia, where he sought a warm climate to improve his health. Despite his health problems, he thought he could survive the rigors of the expedition.

  Thomas Say was the expedition’s zoologist. The owner of a Philadelphia apothecary, possessing little formal education, Say had distinguished himself as the founder of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. He had recently published the first volume of his three-part tome, American Entomology.

  The position of geologist vacated by Torrey was assigned to Augustus E. Jessup. An amateur scientist like Torrey, he was a wealthy Philadelphia merchant who had made his name in the scientific community through his membership in the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences.

  Titian Ramsay Peale was to serve as assistant naturalist to the first three men, collecting, preparing, drawing, and maintaining specimens. He was the youngest son of Charles Willson Peale, the Philadelphia portrait painter and museum curator.

  Finally, there was Samuel Seymour, a Philadelphia painter and engraver, whose task was to provide the expedition with sketches of the more dramatic landscapes through which it passed and to make portraits of Indian chiefs and scenes of Indian life.3

  Besides the five civilians, the expedition included Lieutenant James Duncan Graham and Cadet William Henry Swift, topographical engineers who were to assist Long in taking astronomical readings and making surveys, and Major Thomas Biddle, Jr., who was assigned to keep the official journal of the expedition. Benjamin O’Fallon, US Indian agent, was to join them in Missouri. Filling out the expedition was a military escort of eight privates and one sergeant, and a six-man crew for the steamboat.4

  Calhoun wrote to the American Philosophical Society for advice on the scientists’ instructions. The Society responded by appointing a committee to develop a list of topics for inquiry. Long’s new in-law, Dr. William P. Dewees, was on the committee. The committee’s “Suggestions for Inquiries by the Scientific Members of the expedition to the Yellowstone river” ranged across many topics relating to Indian life—including such specific questions as whether Indians practiced circumcision and what were the customs attending menstruation, pregnancy, and childbirth. It recommended two essential texts that the expedition members should pack along: Jonathan Carver’s Travels through the Interior Parts of North America and Benjamin S. Barton’s New Views of the Origins of the Tribes and Nations of America. It also presented Long with a copy of the first volume of the Society’s Transactions and an unpublished dictionary of the Osage language. To these items, Calhoun added former president Jefferson’s instructions to the Lewis and Clark expedition.5

  The army did its part to draw public attention to the endeavor. It had special uniforms designed for the expedition members, and it commissioned artist Charles Willson Peale to paint individual portraits of the commander and the five civilians seated in their smart new uniforms. Long was first to sit for Peale, and when the artist had finished with him Baldwin went next. Baldwin was surprised how much time was devoted to this exercise when there was so much else to be done; he had to sit for the artist for nearly twelve hours. While Baldwin sat, Peale confided to him that Long had not been an easy subject—always fidgeting and impatient. On Long’s last session with the artist, shortly after his wedding day, he was drowsy from lack of sleep and explained that his wife had been ill. Baldwin thought the drowsiness showed in Long’s portrait, which he described to a friend as “defective—particularly about the eyes.”6

  Toward the end of March, the members of the expedition began to gather in Pittsburgh, where Long’s steamboat, the Western Engineer, was undergoing trial runs and final adjustments. Measuring seventy-five feet long and thirteen feet across the beam (almost twice the size originally envisioned), the craft drew thirty inches of water fully loaded, much more than hoped. Its paddlewheel was placed in the stern to give the paddles maximum protection from damage by snags and floating debris. Its engine featured a cam cutoff, a device of Long’s own invention, which increased the amount of steam compression by cutting off the steam’s flow into the cylinder before each stroke was completed. This innovation was soon adopted in other steamboat designs.7

  The boat’s superstructure had another unusual feature. The bow was in the form of a serpent’s head, its long neck jutting forward menacingly. It looked like the bow of a Viking ship but with an added touch of the new industrial age: with the aid of an exhaust pipe below deck the serpent’s head could be made to belch black engine smoke from its mouth. One newspaper correspondent, observing a demonstration of the steamboat in action, tried to imagine for his readers how the noise and exhaust would awe the Indians. “Neither wind or human hands are seen to help her; and, to the eye of ignorance, the illusion is complete, that a monster of the deep carries her on his back, smoking with fatigue, and lashing the waves with violent exertion.”8 Just in case the serpent’s head failed to intimidate the Indians, the Western Engineer carried five small cannon on deck, three mounted on wheeled carriages and two on swivels.9

  The expedition members left Pittsburgh on May 5, 1819, following a month’s delay as various bugs were worked out of the Western Engineer. Problems with the steamboat were to dog them all the way. Descending the Ohio River, they had to make frequent stops for engine repairs, and on one stormy night a severe gust of wind toppled the mast. Below deck, the quarters proved to be leaky and damp. The men could not keep their clothes dry, and Baldwin’s fragile health began to fail. In Cincinnati, they halted for six days for repairs and then another three days for Baldwin to get well enough to continue downstream. Twice the boat took the wrong river channel and ran aground on sandbars. When they reached the Mississippi and turned upstream, the steamboat made slower progress than expected even against the rather languid current. It was June 9 when the expedition at last reached St. Louis, and the Western Engineer had not yet been tested against the much stronger current of the Missouri.10

  If these problems and delays were not disappointing enough, Long now learned that the military arm of the expedition was experiencing even greater transportation difficulties. The previous December the army had contracted with James Johnson of Kentucky to furnish at least three and
perhaps as many as five steamboats in the spring for transporting men and supplies from Pittsburgh to the Missouri. Like the Western Engineer, Johnson’s steamboats suffered numerous delays in getting from Pittsburgh to St. Louis. Worse yet, there were just two operable steamboats. A third boat had been impounded and the fourth and fifth never got out of the shipyard. Johnson’s problems were not so much technological as financial. He was caught in the sharp economic downturn known to history as the Panic of 1819. As the national economy faltered and credit became scarce, Johnson came up short of funds. By June he was heatedly demanding advances on his government contract on one hand while fighting off bank creditors on the other. When the first of Johnson’s steamboats arrived at Fort Belle Fontaine laden with supplies, he would not allow its cargo to be offloaded for inspection by the Quartermaster’s Department, as he feared that the Bank of Missouri would try to seize the goods and hold them against his debt. This standoff was still unresolved when Long arrived in St. Louis on the Western Engineer. Given the mounting difficulties over the use of steamboats, Colonel Henry Atkinson, the expedition commander, informed Long that he would resort to keelboats and proceed with the troops only as far as Council Bluffs that year—far short of the Yellowstone. Long had no choice but to adjust his plans accordingly, since the two separate arms of the expedition were supposed to be coordinated.11

  The Western Engineer left St. Louis on June 21 and began its tortuous ascent of the Missouri. The effect of the current was even greater than Long had anticipated. In places the strong current brought the chugging steamboat almost to a standstill. Every bend in the river was an obstacle: the outside current was apt to be too strong, while on the inside the boat might run aground on shoals and snags concealed beneath the surface of the roiling, muddy waters. The great volumes of mud carried by the stream clogged the boilers and played havoc with the joints and cylinders of the engine. It was necessary to stop about every fifteen hours to cleanse the boilers and readjust the engine valves. At each stop the soldiers went ashore to replenish the supply of wood fuel. Felling trees, chopping them into cords, and loading the cords in the steamboat took much time and, as the wood was unseasoned, it did not burn efficiently. Still, despite these adversities, Long believed the steamboat offered distinct advantages over the alternative. Steamboats were considerably safer than keelboats, which were exposed to the hazardous tangles of driftwood floating down the river, and as pilots gained experience with the river there would be many fewer delays caused by running aground.12