Conflict with the Piegans

This excerpt from the journal of Meriwether Lewis describes a fatal conflict members of the Corps of Discovery had with a group of Piegan Indians on July 27, 1806. It is taken from Reuben Gold Thwaites’s 1905 edition of the Lewis and Clark journals.

On July 26, a four-man contingent led by Lewis made contact with a group of eight young Piegan warriors near Two Medicine River at the eastern edge of the present-day Blackfeet Indian Reservation. Although their initial meeting was tense, Lewis took up the Piegan's offer to share their camp that evening. At dawn the next morning, the explorers awoke to find that the Indians had stolen their rifles, slipping away before Joseph Fields, who was on watch, finally noticed what was happening. Fields raised the alarm, waking his brother Reuben, who gave chase. Reuben closed with a Piegan brave named Side Hill Calf, grabbed his rifle back, then sunk a large knife into the Indian's chest, killing him almost instantly.

Lewis and George Drouillard managed to retrieve their weapons without shedding any blood, but once the Piegan realized their plan to steal the explorers' rifles had failed, they shifted their attention to the Americans’ horses. Lewis sprinted after two of the would-be horse thieves. As one of the Indians, armed with a musket, turned around, Lewis shot him in the stomach. The Piegan warrior fell to his knees, but still managed to fire a round at Lewis, barely missing him.

Both sides retreated after that final death, which ended the engagement. Lewis ordered his men to round the horses up. He then burned the Indians’ equipment, which they had left at camp during the melee. Then, in what historian Stephen Ambrose calls an “act of taunting and boasting,” Lewis proceeded to put a peace medal around Side Hill Calf’s neck, so that “they might be informed who we were.”

This conflict with the Piegan was the only time the explorers killed any Indians during their two-year journey. Ambrose puts the blame squarely on the shoulders of Lewis, who made a series of poor decisions that led to the fatal encounter, including traveling through Blackfoot territory with too small of a group, informing the Piegans that the Americans had plans to sell guns to their enemies, sleeping past dawn when camping with Indians whose intentions were far from clear, and chasing after the Piegans when they had already given up the stolen rifles.

Further Reading:
Ambrose, Stephen E. Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996.

Ronda, James P. Lewis and Clark among the Indians. Norman: University of Nebraska Press, 1984.

Written by Cain Allen, © Oregon Historical Society, 2004.