August 14th 2010
9:00am to 9:00pm
Admission-
Regular Admission Price (click here to see regular fees)
Location: Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park (On-a-Slant Village)

On August 18, 1806, the Lewis and Clark expedition camped on the banks of the Missouri River across from an abandoned Mandan Indian Village. They were traveling back to St. Louis, and eventually Washington, DC, with a friend they had made among the Mandan people. That evening, after camp was established and cook fires started, Sheheke-shote, the White Coyote, began to tell the explorers from the United States about his life in the village across the river.

Sheheke-shote, who Lewis and Clark called Big White, had been born there forty years previously, around 1766. Sheheke reached far back, before history, to tell Lewis and Clark how his people had entered this world by climbing a grapevine from their city under the earth. He said that there were seven villages of the Mandan during his youth, all as big or bigger than On-a-Slant. The Sioux and smallpox had killed most of his people when he was about 15 years old, Sheheke explained, and in their weakened condition the Mandan fled north, eventually settling in the villages Lewis and Clark visited.

After the night of the history lesson, Lewis, Clark and Sheheke continued to St. Louis, and then on to Lewis’ home at Charlottesville, Virginia, before taking a carriage along the old road through Richmond and on to Washington, DC, where he met President Thomas Jefferson at the White House on December 20, 1806.

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