Arts / L&C Artists / Karl Bodmer

Karl Bodmer

Swiss artist Karl Bodmer, was employed by Prince Maximillian von Wied (1809-1893) to accompany him on a journey to the upper Missouri River. By virtue of the timing of the 1832 trip, his drawings—and the paintings and engravings derived from them—have also become associated with the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

 

Pages with Bodmer’s Artwork

    March 13, 1804

    Clear and cold

    Winter Camp at Wood River, IL The weather diary reports that today is cold and clear, but little else is recorded. Sgt. Ordway commands the soldiers at camp, and Clark and Lewis are working between Cahokia and St. Louis.

    Illustrating the Great Fall

    At the Falls of the Missouri

    by

    After Lewis’s preliminary sketch, later artists and photographers contributed to the visual documentation of the “sublimely grand” waterfall including Barralet, Gustavus Sohon, A. E. Mathews, and F. Jay Haynes.

    The Blackfeet Confederacy

    Short tempers and long knives

    by

    Next to grizzly bears and Mother Nature, the most feared enemy of American fur trappers traveling along the upper Missouri River were the Niitsítapi or Blackfeet, the “Original People” or “Prairie People.” Was that Lewis’s fault?

    The White Cliffs

    by

    Under cloudy skies on the morning of 31 May 1805, the expedition “proceeded at an early hour,” and roped their flotilla of six cottonwood dugout canoes and two big pirogues into one of the most famous riverscapes on the Missouri.

    January 11, 1805

    A war medicine dance

    Fort Mandan, ND Chiefs Posecopsahe (Black Cat) and The Coal visit the fort and spend the night. At Mitutanka village, several soldiers witness a war medicine dance.

    Indian Presentation Flags

    What kind of flag did they give out?

    by

    Several vexillologists have speculated that Lewis and Clark might have carried some “Indian presentation flags” with seventeen stripes, plus the Great Seal in the canton with seventeen stars either surrounding the eagle or inside the Glory.

    August 30, 1804

    Yankton council and dance

    Yankton, SD The captains spend all morning preparing for a council, and then have the Yankton Sioux representatives brought over from across the river. Clark learns about the Akicita Society.

    The Grand Tower

    Demons

    by

    In 1673 French explorers Père Marquette and Louis Joliet listened to local Indians’ warnings about this place and erected a cross atop the ninety-foot-high rock to disempower the demons said to be lurking in the treacherous whirlpool at its base.

    August 31, 1804

    Yankton speeches

    Yankton, SD In the morning, the council with the Yankton Sioux continues. Several Sioux give speeches, and Clark and Ordway take notes. Dorion is assigned a diplomatic mission and leaves with the Yanktons.

    November 30, 1804

    A military reprisal

    Fort Mandan, ND Responding to news of a deadly Sioux and Arikara attack on Mandan and Axaxawi Hidatsa hunters, Clark leads a military force to Mitutanka to gather warriors and pursue the Sioux. His intentions are appreciated, but he is convinced to abandon the plan.

    March 11, 1805

    Charbonneau's corruption

    Fort Mandan, ND The captains accuse Toussaint Charbonneau of acting in the interests of local >fur traders and give him an ultimatum.

    The Barge

    Barge, keelboat, or just 'the boat'?

    by

    Meriwether Lewis listed a “Keeled Boat” in his pre-expedition shopping list, but after he finally got it, he and the other journalists of the Corps of Discovery simply called it “the boat” (190 times) or, less often, “the barge” (32 times).

    June 6, 1806

    Still no guides

    Clark travels to Broken Arm’s village to repeat a diplomatic speech and ask for guides. He is given two peace pipes—one for him and the other for the Shoshones. Lewis describes the western tanager.

    May 5, 1805

    Wolves and grizzlies

    As the boats move 17 miles up the Missouri, they stop to repair the white pirogue’s rudder. Clark tells of difficulty with a “turrible looking” grizzly bear. Camp is near present Wolf Point, Montana.

    August 19, 1806

    Jusseaume's leather lodge

    Huff, ND The day is “dark, windy & cold,” and the waves are too high to paddle safely. Prior to departing late in the afternoon, the hunters have a good day. At the evening camp ten miles down the river, interpreter René Jusseaume gives Clark a leather lodge.

    Assessing the Legacy of Lewis and Clark

    by

    The author proposes a few metaphors for the Lewis and Clark story, not in any definitive way, but merely to help us all think about the legacy of the expedition.

    January 23, 1805

    Making sleds

    Fort Mandan, ND The men awake to four inches of fresh snow and go about their ‘common’ day. Sleds are made and traded for Indian beans and corn.

    November 27, 1804

    Mandan deceptions

    Fort Mandan, ND Lewis returns with two Hidatsa chiefs, and the captains learn that the Mandans and one fur trader have been telling lies to the Hidatsas to keep them away from the fort. In Philadelphia, an eccentric botanists asks why no trained botanists is on the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

    March 17, 1804

    Questions about Indian war tactics

    Wood River Camp, IL Spring-like weather is recorded as the captains work in St. Louis and Cahokia. During this time, Clark records questions about war tactics to ask the Indians they will soon meet.

    April 22, 1804

    Our Missouria Indian

    The captains are working in St. Louis with Pierre Chouteau‘s Osage delegation. An undated note says the captains have decided not to bring along a Missouria Indian that has been with them this past winter.

    August 14, 1806

    Among old friends

    Knife River Villages, ND Early in the day, the expedition greets their old friends at the complex of Hidatsa and Mandan villages at the Knife River. They meet with various chiefs, and Clark invites them to travel with the expedition to Washington City.

    January 25, 1805

    Assiniboine traders

    Fort Mandan, ND The captains send an interpreter and one man to a Hidatsa village to talk with a band of Assiniboines who are there to trade.

    January 13, 1805

    Large Mandan hunting party

    Fort Mandan, ND Clark estimates that half the Mandan population has formed a large hunting party and are heading down the river. Charbonneau tells Clark why Hidatsa Chief Le Borgne has kept his distance.

    February 16, 1805

    Scorched earth

    Fort Mandan, ND Lewis and his men continue their pursuit of a Sioux war party and come to an old Mandan village where the hunter’s cache of meat that has been pillaged and two lodges set afire.

    American Elk

    Wapati

    by

    One of the animals recorded by Lewis and Clark—and which became one of the staples of their mostly carnivorous diet—was the wapiti, or American elk (Cervus elaphus).

    August 10, 1804

    First survivor

    Below Blackbird Hill, NE The boats sail 22½ miles up the Missouri River and encamps within view of Blackbird Hill. Lewis collects the earliest plant specimen that survives today, field horsetail.

    October 12, 1804

    More Arikara diplomacy

    Shaw Creek Rec. Area, SD The morning is spent parleying and trading with the Arikaras. At 1 pm, with the sounding horn and fiddle playing, the expedition heads up the Missouri River.

    January 16, 1805

    Hidatsa-Mandan jealousies

    Fort Mandan, ND Warm weather melts the snow on the Fort Mandan roofs as the captains attempt to smooth over a spat between the Hidatsas and Mandans and broker peace between Seeing Snake and the Shoshone.

    Fur Trade after the Expedition

    by

    The Louisiana Purchase and the lure of its beaver population led to a veritable flood of traders and trappers moving toward the Upper Missouri and the Northern Rocky Mountains and the slow abandonment of the overland trade in the United States by Canadian and British interests.

    August 15, 1806

    Broken promises of peace

    Knife River Villages, ND The captains here of several broken promises of peace among tribes they had worked with on the outward journey. Colter asks to leave the expedition so that he can go back west with two fur trappers.

    Chief Blackbird

    Late Omaha chief

    by

    The two captains and ten of the enlisted men climbed the hill to visit the grave of one of the most notorious and controversial leaders of the Omaha Nation, whose name was Washinga Sahba—Blackbird.

    September 24, 1804

    Smoking with Buffalo Medicine

    Indians scattered about a large river bottom

    Pierre, SD As the boats continue towards the Lakota Sioux villages, Colter’s horse is stolen. A promise is made to return the horse and to meet with the captains tomorrow.

    April 20, 1805

    An Assiniboine grave

    Below present Williston, North Dakota, hard winds prevent the boats from making more than seven miles up the Missouri. Lewis walks on shore and observes a partially fallen Assiniboine scaffold grave.

    April 14, 1805

    Bear Den Creek

    Bear Den Creek, ND Passing sage-covered hills, the expedition makes fourteen miles up the Missouri River. They notice prairie dogs, elk, buffalo and two empty Assiniboine camps.

    John Robinson

    (ca. 1780–unknown), Corporal

    This man is perhaps the most mysterious of the expedition’s mystery men. Journal entries indicate he may have left the expedition on 12 June 1804 riding back to St. Louis with Chouteau Fur Company traders.

    Pierre by Air

    Standoff

    by

    Lewis and Clark first met the Teton Sioux on 25 September 1804. One of Jefferson’s primary political objectives for the expedition was to create a peace treaty and trade agreement them, the most potent military and economic force on the lower Missouri.

    Lisa’s Fur Trade Forts

    And the deaths of Potts and Drouillard

    by

    Manuel Lisa’s men at Fort Raymond not only encouraged the Crows to come trade with them, but they set out parties to trap beaver on their own. It was the latter effort that led to hostilities with the Blackfeet that affected Potts, Drouillard, and Colter.

    January 20, 1805

    Mandan gratitude ritual

    Fort Mandan, ND Gass visits a Mandan village and sees them offer food to a sacred buffalo skull. Clark explains yesterday’s misunderstanding between the two interpreters and their wives.

    April 2, 1804

    Northward-bound traders

    At winter camp across from the mouth of the Missouri, Clark says the men are “a cleaning to Day.” A boat bound for Prairie du Chien and owned by Mississippi River trader Nicholas Jarrot stops for the night.

Notes

Notes
1 “Portrait of Karl Bodmer” New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed16 January 2023. digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/a38d0950-aab9-0139-152b-0242ac110002.

Discover More

  • The Lewis and Clark Expedition: Day by Day by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2018). The story in prose, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
  • The Lewis and Clark Journals: An American Epic of Discovery (abridged) by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2003). Selected journal excerpts, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
  • The Lewis and Clark Journals. by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 1983–2001). The complete story in 13 volumes.