We do not know when the first white man entered the Missouri River, but it is probably between 1700 and 1705.  Accounts of 1699 and 1705 are doubtful and not worthy of our trust.  There can be no question; however, that about 1705 the lower part of the Missouri was explored by the French as far up as the mouth of the Kansas River, also known as the “Kaw River.”

As early as 1700 it was reported that there were not less than one-hundred trappers domiciled among the different tribes along the Missouri River.  They were our earliest pioneers to settle along the river northwest of St. Louis, now long since extinct.  He was a French-Canadian, probably mixed race, and in his habits was blended the innocent simplicity of the fun-loving Frenchman, and the traditional traits of the Indian.

Born in the woods, he was accustomed from childhood to the hardships and exposure of a wild life in the wilderness, and was a skillful hunter and trapper.  His free-and-easy going manners, peaceable disposition and vivacity, qualified him for association with the Native American.  He adopted their customs and married into the tribe.

During the entire 1700s the navigation of the Missouri River was confined to the wooded canoe, and its commerce – such as it was – was limited to the primitive fur-trade.  It is not probable that these early trappers ascended the river higher than the mouth of the Platte River.

Perhaps there was not in the world a more difficult stream to navigate than the Missouri River.  The greatest difficulty encountered in navigating the river was the constant changes in the shifting of the channel.  When the channel of the river changed it left a sandbar, which soon became overgrown with willows and young cottonwoods.  The most dangerous localities on the river were the bends, and it was in them that most of the accidents occurred to the steamboats.

Pierre Chouteau, founder of Fort Pierre, began to take occasional trips up the river to the leading trading posts which had been established into Montana.  His first trip was the most important for him.  This was made in 1831 when the Yellowstone was the first steamboat to come up the Missouri River beyond Omaha.

Chouteau was always willing to try out new ideas.  He knew how important the steamboat was and wished to try it out on the upper Missouri.  The Yellowstone was especially built for this purpose.  It reached what is now Fort Pierre on June 19, 1831.  On its return trip to St. Louis, the boat carried a cargo of buffalo robes, furs, and ten thousand pounds of buffalo tongues.  The following year, the Yellowstone made its second trip, this time going as far as Fort Union at the mouth of the Yellowstone River in the western part of North Dakota.

Those early traders who were responsible for bringing the steamboat up the Missouri River knew the impact it would have on the delivery of needed supplies; however, they had no idea or considered the impact on those who had never seen or heard such a monster on the river before.

The steamboat carried consternation into many an Indian village, where the inhabitants had never seen or heard of a steamboat.  It was a long time before they would become accustomed to them.  At first they were regarded as a living monster that would devour everything in its path and the natives could hardly be induced to remain near the place where a boat was tied up.

To be blunt, the situation was not helped by what those on the steamboat did as they neared the next village or fort.  George Catlin, American lawyer, painter, author, and traveler who came to South Dakota in 1832 described the effect upon the Native Americans by the sight of the first steamer on the Missouri:

“If anything did ever literally astonish and astound the natives, it was the appearance of our steamer, puffing and blowing, and rushing by their villages which were on the banks of the river.  These . . . people, for the distance of two thousand miles, had never before seen or heard of a steamboat, and in some places they seemed at a loss to know what to do, or how to act.”

“We had on board,” Catlin continued, “one twelve pounder cannon and three or four eight pounder swivels, which we were taking up to arm the Fur Company’s fort at the mouth of the Yellowstone; and at the approach to every village they were all discharged several times in rapid succession, which threw the inhabitants into utter confusion and amazement – some of them laid their faces to the ground and cried to the Great Spirit – some shot their horses and dogs and sacrificed them to appease the Great Spirit, whom they conceived was offended – some deserted their villages and ran to the top of the bluff, some miles distant; and others, in some places, as the boat landed in front of their villages, came with great caution and peeped over the bank of the river to see the fate of their chiefs, whose duty it was (from the nature of their office) to approach us, whether friends or foes, and to go on board.”

The Mandans called the steamboat the “big thunder canoe.”  Others called it the “big medicine canoe with eyes.”  It was “medicine” or “mystery,” because they could not understand it and it had to have eyes for it saw its own way and always took the deep water in the middle of the channel.

They had no idea of the steamboat being steered by the man in the glass house at the top of the boat!

 

 

Author Clarence Shoemaker, originally published in the Gregory Times-Advocate on April 24, 2024