by Win Blevins
1830, APRIL 6: Joseph Smith founded the Church of Jesus Christ and the Latter Day Saints.
1830: The forced march of Eastern Indians to Indian territory in the West gained the name “The Trail of Tears.”
Eighteen Hundred Twenty-Nine
AUGUST, 1829: “I left you,” Baptiste smiled, “at the age of eighteen an innocent much in need of your tolerance for my transgressions. I return to you at twenty-four a widely traveled, modestly educated, modestly cultured innocent, much in need of your tolerance for my transgressions.”
It was nicely done, and Clark proposed yet another toast to Baptiste, which Pierre Chouteau, Jr., again seconded loudly.
It had been Clark’s idea, a small dinner party with two Chouteau couples, the Bertholds, along with Coco, Father Neil, and Prince Paul. Clark had also persuaded one of the local newspapers to mention in passing that Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau, half-breed protege of General William Clark, had returned to St. Louis after nearly six years in Europe. Baptiste was pleased, though he was aware that the homecoming celebrations were kept to a modest scale, and he knew why. He displayed his most gracious manners.
Mmes. Berthold and Chouteau and Coco were most curious after dinner about European society and fashions. Baptiste described, in circumspect terms, Princess Victoria, a lively young woman with whom he had passed a pleasant time, Charles X of France, to whom he had been presented only briefly, King William of Württemberg, the Marquesa du Breslin (he had not had the honor of meeting the Marquis), and other celebrated and high-born personages. He praised their beauty, their deportment, their qualities.
He offered as well something about his studies at the University, his devotion to music—he had brought back reams of sheet music which he would be pleased to lend them—and his reading, but they seemed only politely interested in that. Paul sat aside, somewhat to the ladies’ chagrin, and let Baptiste dominate the conversation. Baptiste was amused that they did not ask him whether he had met any attractive and suitable young ladies; he wickedly let a hint or two drop about his delight at European womanhood.
He was being generous because he could afford it: He had a plan.
On his arrival in New Orleans Baptiste had posted a letter to Harper & Brothers in New York:
New Orleans, July 17, 1829
Gentlemen:
I propose to write a book that will I believe be of uncommon, indeed unique interest. Since it concerns myself, I must give here a brief account of my own life:
I am a half-breed, son of a Shoshone woman Sacajawea and the French-Canadian interpreter and guide Toussaint Charbonneau; both, you may recall, are somewhat celebrated for their role in guiding the Lewis & Clark expedition across the Shining Mountains and to the Pacific Ocean. That I was carried as a papoose on my mother’s back on the journey has changed my life and brought about events that defy expectations and credibility; yet they are fact.
William Clark generously offered to have me educated in St. Louis and to treat me as his own son. From my fifth year, when I left the Minataree Indian tribe with which my parents and I lived on the upper Missouri River, until my eighteenth year, this General Clark generously and faithfully did. I was trained at some times by a Baptist minister and at others by a Catholic priest; my schooling included reading, writing, figures, world history, theology, belles lettres, and music, for which I showed a special aptitude. I also added to my native languages (French, Mandan, and Minataree) English and Latin. In two summers in Indian Territory, I was able to append some Sioux, Pawnee, Osage, and Mandan to my linguistic repertoire.
By good fortune, when I was employed in the fur trade on the lower Missouri in my eighteenth year and apparently gravitating into a career in the fur trade, I met Prince Paul of Württemberg, now Duke of that German principality: he was gathering botanical specimens for his collection and learning something of this continent for a book which he subsequently published in German. Being ambitious of greater things than guiding, interpreting, and trading in Indian Territory, I persuaded Prince Paul to retain my services and thereafter he took me with him to Europe. In Württemberg I lived for four years as Paul’s protege and virtually as a member of the royal family; I attended the University of Württemberg, which Shakespeare’s Hamlet attended, and added greatly to my knowledge; I deepened my study of musical history, theory, composition, and performance at the pianoforte; travelled widely in France, Spain, England, and North Africa, venturing to the Atlas Mountains and the impenetrable Sahara Desert. I am now returned with Paul to St. Louis at the age of twenty-four.
The success in this country and abroad of many romantic books and plays about Indians evidences the great popular interest in the native inhabitants of the North American continent. Yet these oeuvres are precisely Romantic; their representation of Indians is very fanciful indeed. As a member of both the white and red races, familiar with both cultures, and as a widely travelled and experienced observer, I believe that I can made a unique contribution to the knowledge of Indians, and to the attitudes that each race has toward the other. My experience, which is that of being regarded as an Indian in white society and as a white in Indian society, gives ground for observations that I believe to be original.
You may apply to General Clark at St. Louis and to Prince Paul (in care of General Clark) for an account of my character; and I have confidence that both of them might be persuaded to write notes of foreword for my book, which would add substantially to its interest.
In two months the Prince and I shall leave St. Louis for the upper Missouri and the Rocky Mountains; the Prince wishes to make more observations of Indian life; because of his generosity to me, I am obliged to accompany him on this journey which was the purpose of our taking leave of the continent of Europe; I shall take the occasion to reacquaint myself with the country and the people to which I was born. We shall return to St. Louis -next spring, at which time I plan to begin to transform the journals, which I have kept scrupulously since the age of sixteen, into a book. May I suggest the title An Indian Abroad, using abroad to mean not only “in foreign places” but “in alien places”?
I beg you to write me in care of General Clark about your interest in my undertaking.
Your humble servant, &c.,
Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau
AUGUST 7: Baptiste’s diary: “Coco remains in the situation in which I left her, but there is irony in that: She has been married; her husband, whom I never knew, took employment with American fur, went upriver for a single trip to learn something of the field end of the fur trade, and managed to get himself killed by an irate Sioux. Carelessness? Jealousy over a woman? It matters not. At 24, Coco was a widow and again living with her parents. Invited to dinner chez Berthold (a pleasant development, the result of my small celebrity), I rendered “Fur Elise” on the pianoforte, which is one of only three in the city. Coco pronounced it exquisite, and I believe Mme. Berthold was duly impressed. They were intrigued to hear more of Beethoven—his deafness, his virtuosity as pianist and violinist, and his titanic compositions, all of which they had only by vague report. Coco having been too impatient ever to learn to play, Mme. Berthold and I fumbled “our way through the slow movement of Beethoven’s E-Minor Symphony in the four-hand arrangement which I have brought. The reception much flattered the performance, and the entire evening was a grand success.”
AUGUST 9: “General Clark approves my scheme of writing a book, though the persuasion of Prince Paul added to my own was necessary to move him. He emphasizes that I must now make my own way in the world, and still talks much of my entering government service as an Indian agent. My further ideas of opening a shop to sell musical scores and musical instruments and to give music lessons he dismissed with the silence that with him means impatience. Nevertheless, he consents to write a foreword for my book. He also gave me a curious document, just published in The Western Review, that relates the life and violent death of Mike Fink. No one seems to know anything of Jim Beckwourth since he went with the Ashley men for the m
ountains some years ago. Winney is reported gone to New Orleans, doubtless a whore.”
Mike Fink: The Last of the Boatmen
In 1822, Mike and his two friends, Carpenter and Talbot, engaged in St. Louis with Henry and Ashley to go up the Missouri with them in the threefold capacity of boatmen, trappers and hunters. The first year a company of about sixty ascended as high as the mouth of the Yellow Stone river; where they built a fort for the purposes of trade and security. From this place, small detachments of men, ten or twelve in a company, were sent out to hunt and trap on the tributary streams of the Missouri and Yellow Stone. Mike and his two friends, and nine others were sent to the Muscle Shell river, a tributary of the Yellow Stone, when the winter set in. Mike and company returned to a place near the mouth of the Yellow Stone; and preferring to remain out of the fort, they dug a hole or cave in the bluff bank of the river for a winter house, in which they resided during the winter. This proved a warm and commodious habitation, protecting the inmates from winds and snow. Here Mike and his friend Carpenter quarrelled a deadly quarrel, the cause of which is not certainly known, but was thought to have been caused by a rivalry in the good graces of a squaw. The quarrel was smothered for the time by the interposition of mutual friends. On the return of spring, the party revisited the fort, where Mike and Carpenter, over a cup of whiskey, revived the recollection of their past quarrel; but made a treaty of peace which was to be solemnized by their usual trial of shooting the cup of whiskey from off each other’s head, as their custom was. This was at once the test of mutual reconciliation and renewed confidence. A question remained to be settled; who should have the first shot? To determine this, Mike proposed to “sky a copper” with Carpenter; that is, to throw up a copper. This was done, and Mike won the first shot. Carpenter seemed to be fully aware of Mike’s unforgiving temper and treacherous intent, for he declared that he was sure Mike would kill him. But Carpenter scorned life too much to purchase it by a breach of his solemn compact in refusing to stand the test. Accordingly, he prepared to die. He bequeathed his gun, shot pouch, and powder horn, his belt, pistols and wages to Talbot, in case he should be killed. They went to the fatal plain, and whilst Mike loaded his rifle and picked his flint, Carpenter filled his tin cup with whiskey to the brim, and without changing his features, he placed it on his devoted head as a target for Mike to shoot at. Mike levelled his rifle at the head of Carpenter, at the distance of sixty yards. After drawing a bead, he took down his rifle from his face, and smilingly said, “Hold your noodle steady, Carpenter, and don’t spill the whiskey, as I shall want some presently!” He again raised, cocked his piece, and in an instant Carpenter fell, and expired without a groan.—Mike’s ball had penetrated the forehead of Carpenter in the center, about an inch and a half above the eyes. He coolly set down his rifle, and applying the muzzle to his mouth blew the smoke out of the touch hole without saying a word—keeping his eye steadily on the fallen body of Carpenter. His first words were, “Carpenter! have you spilt the whiskey!” He was then told that he had killed Carpenter. “It is all an accident,” said Mike, “for I took as fair a bead on the black spot on the cup as I ever took on a squirrel’s eye. How did it happen!” He then cursed the gun, the powder, the bullet, and finally himself.
This catastrophe (in a country where the strong arm of the law cannot reach) passed off for an accident; and Mike was permitted to go at large under the belief that Carpenter’s death was the result of contingency. But Carpenter had a fast friend in Talbot, who only waited a fair opportunity to revenge his death. No opportunity offered for some months after, until one day, Mike in a fit of gasconading, declared to Talbot that he did kill Carpenter on purpose, and that he was glad of it. Talbot instantly drew from his belt a pistol (the same which had belonged to Carpenter), and shot Mike through the heart. Mike fell to the ground and expired without a word. Talbot, also, went unpunished, as nobody had authority, or inclination to call him on account. Truth was, Talbot was as ferocious and dangerous as the grizly bear of the prairies. About three months after, Talbot was present in the battle with the Aurickarees in which Col. Leavenworth commanded, where he displayed a coolness which would have done honor to a better man. He came out of the battle unharmed. About ten days after, he was drowned in the Titan river, in attempting to swim it. Thus ended “the last of the boatmen.”
AUGUST 12: Baptiste’s diary: “At breakfast Paul indicated that I must press forward with my St. Louis business so that our expedition upriver can begin; he has completed what preparations are needful, but can profitably spend more time conversing with General Clark about Indians and perusing Clark’s large collection of artifacts. I much impressed upon him that all my hopes rest on my book—otherwise I may end as only another buckskin-clad interpreter, scorned by civilized people—and that I wish to wait a while in anticipation of a reply from Harper & Brothers. He has given me until September 1. I have the $100 per month Paul will pay me for my services as an interpreter and guide, probably a sum of $900; and Gen. Clark has generously offered me $250 to carry certain papers to Fort Leavenworth, Fort Atkinson, and Fort Union. On my return, that much will I be able to count on for sustenance while setting down my story for the public.”
AUGUST 14: “Now le sauvage naïf has apparently gained the place of an acceptable young gentleman about town. Today I took Coco riding to see the convent below the islands of the Missouri, borrowing Gen. Clark’s handsome roan for myself. Mme. Berthold may not have been entirely pleased with Coco’s choice; but she is now a young widow and therefore of status where she may be neither directed nor chaperoned; and she could see no objection to her riding with her “old childhood friend.” Did Mme. Berthold know what transpired between us, she would he most displeased, volcanically displeased. For when Coco spread the cloth for our picnic luncheon, I gently untied the bow of her chapeau, unfastened her elegant white dress (which took so much time that she very nearly recovered her resistance), and in full daylight under the hot August sun, put it to her. As it happened, when I gave her my love, it was full of anger and therefore of energy. I have the distinct impression that she had never been loved quite so actively before. It seemed to surprise her, but from her reaction I can only judge that she wishes thus to be loved again and again. That causes me to regret that my time in St. Louis, on this occasion, is no longer than it is. A happy event, a happy day.”
The next morning Isaiah appeared at the hotel to summon Baptiste to see General Clark immediately.
Baptiste found Clark in the big Council Room with five Indians—chiefs, he guessed, from the elaborateness of their dress. Clark asked him to sit down. No one knew the chiefs’ languages, and maybe Baptiste could help out.
They were Flatheads and a Nez Percé, Clark explained. Ashley’s crew had directed them to St. Louis from the trappers’ rendezvous because they wanted to see the Red-Headed Chief. Clark did not remember any of them, but the Lewis and Clark expedition had camped with both tribes crossing the Rockies westward in 1805. And he’d be damned if he knew what they’d come for. General Clark was evidently a bit out of patience. Had they been a tribe of the Great Plains, any number of trappers, boatmen, and interpreters might have spoken their language. But this bunch was from Oregon.
Baptiste didn’t speak their languages either. He could do nothing but confirm for Clark that the ambiguous sign language conveyed what it seemed to convey, though with signs you could never be absolutely sure.
Right now the chiefs were again going through the ceremonial greetings and expression of deference and declarations of sincerity and friendly feeling that they had gone through yesterday. Clark had Baptiste flash back his similar declarations. Baptiste knew that there was no way to hurry an Indian through this.
Then came the first bit of substance. The chiefs promised for both their peoples, and all the tribes and bands of both peoples, their everlasting allegiance to the Red-Headed Chief. Clark explained to them through Baptiste about the greater White Father, the one in the great village on the Salt
-Water-Everywhere many sleeps to the east, the father who was chief of all the white men. This confused the chiefs. They had been told about another chief of all the white men who lived on the other side of the Salt-Water-Everywhere to the east. Clark cussed the Britishers—the Oregon question wasn’t yet settled—and had Baptiste tell them that the White Father he spoke of was their chief. They may not have understood, but they pledged their allegiance. They promised peace as long as the sun shone and the water flowed. They promised never to fight with their white brothers. They promised to befriend those of their white brothers who came into their country, to give them shelter, to feed them when they were hungry, to give them the skins of animals. They begged their white brothers to come to them.
Baptiste figured they were trying to get trade—must be needing guns, maybe to fend off the Blackfeet again. Clark had said the Blackfeet were well armed by the Hudson Bay Company, damn John Bull. And maybe these chiefs were wanting some big gifts to make them everlastingly friendly.
Clark, though, knew that was enough for the day. He summoned the chiefs to a meal, and asked Baptiste to come again the next morning. Hell, Baptiste thought, he still wants to initiate me into what he thinks is my natural career.
AUGUST 19: Baptiste’s diary: “I spent the morning again in finger converse with the chiefs and General Clark. The affair is outrageously stupid, and would try anyone’s patience. The afternoon more satisfactory: I sneaked into Coco’s room when everyone was out and dallied in bed with her. The enterprise, though, was taken at great risk to us both, and it would be unwise to repeat it.”
AUGUST 24: “Coco and I attended the dance chez Labbadie, and much enjoyed ourselves, to the unspoken consternation of everyone present. Our public demeanor, however, is impeccably impersonal. We had to part without touching.”
AUGUST 26: “Prince Paul sat in on one of our meetings with the chiefs. Afterwards I explained the entire affair to him, somewhat to his amusement. Coco and I managed to slip away this afternoon to ride, and ride, again.”
