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CHAPTER TEN The Prince and the Frontiersman
- University of North Texas Press
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85 The sloppily dressed bachelor with bad teeth and a heavy German accent stood on the deck of the Missouri River steamboat Assiniboine and watched the Stars and Stripes waving from the flag staff of Fort Clark, the American Fur Company post below the Mandan villages. It was June 18, 1833, and Alexander Philip Maximilian, Prince of Wied-Neuwied, was about to make the acquaintance of Toussaint Charbonneau.1 Their partnership would be fortunate. As an educated European , the prince certainly knew French. Toussaint, as an interpreter of American Indian languages, could help him with the Indian studies that had brought him to America. He was also better acquainted with the country’s wildlife. The prince had seen his first cottonwood tree in Portsmouth, Ohio, his first yellowheaded blackbird near Leavenworth, Kansas, his first bison in the land that is now South Dakota.2 The two were unlikely companions. When Toussaint returned home with Lewis and Clark in August of 1806, Maximilian was The Prince and the Frontiersman CHAPTER TEN Chapter Ten 86 fighting in the Prussian army that would be crushed by Napoleon at Jena two months later. Nine years later, he was a majorgeneral in the army of allies that entered Paris in triumph after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo.3 But like Baptiste’s benefactor Duke Paul, Maximilian was more interested in botany, zoology and native peoples than in a military career. Before coming to America, he had established his scientific reputation with two years of field work in South America and the study of natural history.4 The prince had arrived in Boston on July 4, 1832, eager to explore North America. Making his way to St. Louis, he embarked up the Missouri on the Yellowstone, the first of the steam-driven sidewheelers Manuel Lisa had introduced on the river, signaling that the keelboat era was nearing its end. When the Yellowstone turned back with a load of furs, Maximilian continued his journey on the Assiniboine.5 St. Louis from the River Below by George Catlin, showing Manuel Lisa’s steamboat Yellowstone, on which Maximilian embarked on the trip on which he would meet Toussaint Charbonneau. (SmithsonianAmericanArt Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison Jr.) [100.25.40.11] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 13:40 GMT) The Prince and the Frontiersman 87 At the age of fifty-five, the prince was not an imposing figure. Alexander Culbertson, a young fur-trade clerk who accompanied him on the Yellowstone, drew a vivid picture: “He was a man of medium height, rather slender, sans teeth, passionately fond of his pipe, unostentatious, and speaking very broken English. His favorite dress was a white slouch hat, a black velvet coat, rather rusty from long service, and probably the greasiest pair of trousers that ever encased princely legs.”6 Toussaint, the aging frontiersman who had lived with the Hidatsas for so long, had much to tell the visitor to the American interior. No sooner was the prince at Fort Clark than Toussaint was interpreting for him at a pipe-smoking conference with Hidatsa chiefs and warriors dressed in their best for the occasion. Later, the interpreter guided the prince to Indian ceremonies, dances and feasts.7 The Travellers meeting with Minatarre Indians near Fort Clark, by Karl Bodmer, showing Prince Maximilian and an interpreter believed to be Toussaint Charbonneau. (Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska, Gift of Enron Art Foundation) Chapter Ten 88 Toussaint was helpful in other ways, intervening once when a Hidatsa warrior tried to wrest a pocket compass from around Maximilian’s neck. “It was only by the assistance of old Charbonneau, that I escaped a disagreeable and, perhaps, violent scene,” said the prince. This may have been the occasion on which Karl Bodmer, the twenty-three-year-old Swiss artist Maximilian had brought along to illustrate the book he planned to write, made what is believed to be the only likeness of Toussaint. The aquatint shows him with long dark hair that belied his seventy-odd years.8 After one day at Fort Clark, Maximilian headed on up the Missouri and stopped at the lower village of the Hidatsas. Here, Toussaint gave him “many particulars respecting these villages, in which he has lived for more than thirty years.” He then said his farewells to Charbonneau and his comrades and proceeded full steam up the Missouri—to Fort Union on the Assiniboine and to Fort McKenzie at the mouth of the Marias River in a sixty-twofoot -long keelboat...