The Engagés

As used in the fur trade, the term engagé was a broad term meaning a hired hand or employee. This is described by Duflot de Mofras who made these observations while at the Hudson’s Bay outpost at Fort Vancouver 1840–42:

The name of “engagé” is applied without distinction to all the personnel of the Company, to the working blacksmiths, to the coopers, to the trappers of beaver, to the hunters, to the ferrymen and even to the farmers. Only the sailors on the ships are not included in that category.^[1]Eugene Duflot Mofras, L’Orégon (1846) translated in Foxcurran, Robert, Bouchard, Michel Bouchard, and Sébastien Malette. Songs Upon the Rivers: The Buried History of the French-Speaking … Continue reading

Many Lewis and Clark fans, and some historians, use the term engagé to refer to the boatman who worked for the expedition between St. Louis and Fort Mandan. Specific information on these boatmen can be found on this site in The St. Charles Boatmen, by Jo Ann Brown-Trogdon and La Liberté. From his 1810–1811 tour of the Louisiana Territory, H. M. Brackenridge described the “boatmen” living in the Ste. Genevieve-St. Louis-St. Charles area—the area where most of the French boatmen lived before and after the expedition. He portrays a feeling of pride from those who worked as “engagees, or boatmen:”

A number of the young men for some time, embraced the employment of boatmen, which was by no, means considered degrading; on the contrary, it was desirable for a young man to have it to say, that he had made a voyage in this capacity: and they appeared proud of the occupation, in which they certainly are not surpassed by any people in dexterity. It is highly pleasing to see them exerting themselves, and giving encouragement to each other, by their cheering songs—”^[2]H. M. Brackenridge, Views of Louisiana Together with a Journal of a Voyage up the Missouri River, in 1811. (Pittsburgh: Cramer, Spear and Richbaum, 1814), 136.

Brackenridge also describes an appearance of the French in the St. Louis quarter that remains consistent with the way engages have been interpreted visually ever since:

In their persons, they are well formed, of an agreeable pleasant countenance; indicating cheerfulness and serenity. Their dress was formerly extremely simple; the men wore a blanket coat, of coarse cloth or coating, with a cape behind, which could be drawn over the head; from which circumstance it was called a capote. They wore a blue handkerchief on their heads: but no hats, or shoes, or stockings; moccasins, or the Indian sandals, were used by both sexes . . . . We still see a few of both sexes in their ancient habiliments; capots [sic] moccasins, blue handkerchiefs on the head, a pipe in the mouth, and the hair tied up in a long queue.^[3]Ibid., 137.

Whether they be boatmen, interpreters, traders, privates in the U.S. Army, diplomats, or cultural guides, the contribution of the French men already living in the Illinois and Louisiana region was “mission critical.”

This list, from Document 27 of Clark’s Field Notes, is supplementary to, but not identical with, the one in the Detachment Orders of 26 May 1804, and thus adds to the uncertainty about the exact number and names of the engagés who were assigned to the red pirogue, which therefore was sometimes called “the French pirogue” by the journalists. Baptiste Deschamps was the “patron,” or boss—skipper in this context—of the French pirogue’s crew.^[4]Moulton, Journals, 2:347, 349n.

Transcript:

The names of the french

Inglishees [Engagés] or Hirelens [Hirelings]

in pirogue:

1 Battist de Shone [Deschamps] Patrⁿ

*2 Joseph Le bartee [La Liberté?]

3 Lasoness [Baptiste La Jeunesse]

4 Paul Preemau

5 Chalo [Charles Hebert?]

6 E. Cann [Alexander Carson?]

7 Roie [Peter Roi]

8 Charlo Cougee [unknown]

In the large boat [the barge]

*J: Le bartee [Liberte?]

bow men:

Pieter Crousatt [Pierre Cruzatte] half indian

William La Biece [Labiche] Mallat

3 Serg^ts & 23 men for the Boat

George Drewyer. Hunter & 4 horses

1 Corporal & 4 Privates in a Pirogue to be Sent Back from Plate river

Mr. Dueron [Dorion] interptr for the Sues

Capt. Lewis my Self & York

in all 46 men, July 4^th

4 horses & a Dog

The French and Indian Members

Much like Clark, Swagerty compiles a list of French and also includes Indians who contributed to the expedition, namely, Sacagawea and her infant son Jean Baptiste Charbonneau:^[5]The table is from William R. Swagerty, The Indianization of Lewis and Clark (Norman, Oklahoma, The Arthur H. Clark Company, 2012), 1:106. The author’s original row order has been changed here … Continue reading