In the Footsteps of Lewis and Clark: Early Commemorations and the Origins of the National Historic Trail

6: Commemoration and Authenticity on the Trail

159 E ven before the U.S. Congress officially added the Lewis and Clark trail to the National Scenic Trail system, interest in the history of the expedition was heightened by the nation’s bicentennial , celebrated in 1976. Within a few years of that event, the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation began to establish local chapters. Eventually, individual chapters all along the trail began to host the organization’s annual summer meetings, at which members attended lectures on various topics, watched costumed reenactments , visited nearby expedition sites, and socialized. In 1980, nearly two years after the creation of the National Historic Trail, Bert Hansen’s pageant was revived at the Three Forks of the Missouri. To commemorate the 175th anniversary of the expedition’s arrival at the headwaters, Nick Nixon of Bozeman, Montana, wrote and produced a revised version of the pageant, which was performed at Missouri Commemoration and Authenticity on the Trail C h a p t e r s i x 160 C o mmem o r a ti o n a n d A u thenticit y o n the T r a il Headwaters State Park on July 26 and 27, 1980.1 The performance by a cast of forty took place between the west side of Fort Rock and the river. The roles of “Sacajawea” and her brother Cameahwait were played by Oliviane Baier of Bozeman, a White Mountain Apache, and Rodger Spotted Eagle of Three Forks, a Blackfeet, while many other Native Americans appeared as villagers and Indian horseman. The same cast performed the pageant the following summer, aided by the Waa-No-Inee-Git Indian dancers.2 While Native Americans participated in the expedition’s sesquicentennial , major differences in their attitudes toward it and future events have developed over the past fifty years. The Salish Indians who took part in Bert Hansen’s 1955 pageants in Three Forks and Missoula, for example, added authenticity and color to what were essentially celebrations of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The same might be said of members of the Nez Perce tribe who camped that summer by the Clearwater River at Lewiston, Idaho, and of lower Columbia River Indians who appeared at sesquicentennial ceremonies in Astoria, Oregon.Thosewhoclaimedtobedirectdescendantsof “Sacajawea”appeared as featured guests in major sesquicentennial functions and pageants . By the end of the twentieth century, however, Native Americans who lived along the route had become divided in their opinions about the upcoming bicentennial and of Lewis and Clark in general. These opinions ran the gamut from bitter opposition, on one hand, to a desire to at least share in the expected profits and to use the event as a springboard for educating non-Indians about Indian history. Even those who supported participation in the bicentennial argued that it should be a commemoration rather than a celebration. Their view, shared by bicentennial organizers, was that one commemorates an event or individuals to remember them in significant ways rather than necessarily to exalt them. There is often bitterness in recognizing the cost to Native American peoples of the expansion of white America that followed in the wake of the Corps of Discovery. The journals themselves offer cause for resentment: for example, the attitudes Clark expressed about the Teton band of Lakota that confronted the expedition in South Dakota or Lewis’s account of the fracas near the Marias River that resulted in the deaths of two Piegan Blackfeet warriors. A traditional Blackfeet explanation 161 C o mmem o r a ti o n a n d A u thenticit y o n the T r a il of what happened insists that the “warriors” were actually twelveand thirteen-year-old boys who had been invited to camp overnight with Lewis and his men but who were attacked when they tried to leave during the night. This account denies, however, that the Piegans tried to steal a rifle and a horse. Morever, many Blackfeet today appear to regard Lewis and Clark with either indifference or anger—as insignificant or villainous.3 This attitude is widely shared. At a 1992 conference at the Uni­ versity of Montana, held to discuss the expedition’s impact, scholar Betty White—a member of the Salish tribe—criticized the explorers for the way they dehumanized the native peoples they encountered, treating them as objects in the same cold, “scientific” way they treated plant specimens. White also excoriated the expedition for...