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Throughout American History the Lewis and Clark expedition lacked Indigenous peoples' perspective on their settlement due to only illustrating their trip to Native lands and believing they had discovered new territory. In reality, Indigenous people were negatively impacted in many communities due to not being able to understand many messages that Lewis and Clark delivered, such as peace medals, and other cultural differences. Lewis and Clark were provided with special privileges by being able to navigate through unknown territory with the help of Native Americans, improving their ability to accomplish their goal of exploring and mapping out the western lands.

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Sacagawea was a Shoshone interpreter best known for serving as a member of the Lewis and Clark expedition into the American West and for being the only woman on the famous excursion. One reason the various tribes were so helpful to Lewis and Clark was because of their Indian companion, Sacagawea, and her infant son.

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"The Lolo Trail was the northern route across the rugged Bitterroot Mountains used for centuries before Lewis & Clark by Native Americans of the West. The Nez Perce traveled east to the Great Plains and the buffalo. The Salish used the trail to reach the Lochsa river and fish for salmon." (Hike Lolo Trail, 3)

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"The Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation, also known as the Three Affiliated Tribes, is located on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in central North Dakota." (MHA Nation Our Tribe, 1)

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"The Nez Perce Indians lived in scattered villages in the Plains west of the Rocky Mountains. About 4,000 in number, they were excellent horsemen and owned the largest horse herd on the continent. They fished for salmon along the Clearwater and Snake rivers, and harvested camas plants in mountain meadows." (Nez Perce Indians, 1)

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Part of a map of Lewis and Clark's track illustrating the numerous tribes and people they encountered.

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The Native American’s extensive use of the Buffalo depicts their resourcefulness of the animals around them. Additionally, the diagram shows how Native people depended heavily on natural resources, leading to difficulties in continuing to live their way of life when American expansion intervened with their livelihoods.

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An example of the Jefferson or peace medals that were distributed to Native Americans to show friendship between the Americans and the Indigenous people. Because of the differences between Native American and American culture, Native people were not able to fully comprehend the significance of the peace medals.

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The Lewis and Clark expedition remains one of the most notable in American history. However, in Native American history it is not regarded as a major, triumphant discovery like it is from the American perspective.

To many Native Americans, the discoveries made by the Lewis and Clark expedition were not discoveries at all. As Bluehorse explains, "To imply the land is empty or untrammeled is to miss the fact that there were civilizations here that existed longer than the civilizations that came over", expressing a key point in the history of the Lewis and Clark expedition: the abundance of complex Native American communities that existed and learned the ways of the land long before the expedition took place, as well as their contributions to the success of the expedition (Olson, 13).

However, due to the natural diversity among different Indigenous tribes, opinions and perspectives differed within the Indigenous peoples such as the Tenton Siox Indians’ perception of the white men as competitors and the Nez Perce Indians’ hospitable actions.

Despite this, many Indigenous people feel that American history has attempted to erase their roles in historical events such as the Lewis and Clark expedition. Overall, as historian Bernard DeVoto explains, “A dismaying amount of [white men] history has been written without regard to the Indians”, and should be changed to include the perspective of those who contributed to the revolutionizing historical events that took place (Olson, 3).

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Lewis and Clark's expedition traveled through three different culture areas: the Plains, Plateau, and Northwest Coast. Plain Indians were nomadic buffalo hunters who lived most of the year in tipis. The horse played a great role in their culture. There were also the Plateau Indians who lived in the Columbia River Country and were fishermen as well as hunters. When Lewis and Clark reached the pacific ocean they met Indians of the Northwest Coast Culture Area. “They were excellent wood workers who built large houses, boats, and totem poles.”(Viola 8)  The encounters Lewis and Clark had with the Indigenous tribes was a way for them to pass safely through unknown landscapes and were “benefited from the protective custody they enjoyed while within the territory occupied by each tribe they visited ''. This exemplifies Lewis and Clark had an advantage from most Americans due to gaining Indigenous tribes trust and being able to be honored by their cultures. All Indigenous people had a way in adding nature into their everyday life styles and signifying their love towards their land.

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Interaction between Indigenous people and Americans

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Interaction between Indigenous people and Americans

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Over the course of the Lewis and Clark expedition they came in contact with about fifty different tribes and figured out that all of them had different customs and traditions from each other. Another thing that varied between each tribe was their opinions on the white man because some tribes welcomed and helped them as they were traveling, while others perceived them to be hostile or attacked the Americans. A good example of this is when the expedition members were in critical condition after coming out of the mountains and the Nez Perce Indians “provided aid at a time when their help was critical to the survival of the expedition members.”(Hospitality and Hostility, 3) This shows the natural instinct of the Natives by showing their kindness to the expedition members that they barely met. The Native Americans that had heard bad things about the white man were very “fearful and threatened.”(Hospitality and Hostility, 1) This conveys that the Native Americans follow their intuition a lot. The different opinions led to many mixed interactions between Europeans and Native Americans .

Many Indigenous people had friendly encounters with French, Spanish, and English people prior to the formation of the United States. Lewis and Clark fulfilled their roles as ambassadors of good will to perfection. “Whenever they encountered a band of Indians, the captains held a conference, distributed presents, and explained to them that they now owed their allegiance to the United States, not France, Spain, or England”(Viola 9). This illustrates the Americans wanted to bribe their way through the Native Americans loyalty. But the most important of the presents were certificates, American flags, and Jefferson medals, known as peace medals from the clasped hands of friendship on the obverse. Although “Indians who might have suspected the explorers were on a warlike mission would have been reassured by seeing Sacagawea and her child with the soldiers”(Viola 17). This illustration shows that many Native Americans did not see Lewis and Clark as trustful people but they would seek comfort by viewing one of their own having married an American Soldier. The Lewis and Clark expedition led Native Americans  into new communities benefiting Lewis and Clark’s view in new territories and being able to expand their map. Lewis and Clark's Expedition was to obtain geographical information from many Indian tribes.

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Many Native Americans feel as if the story of the Lewis and Clark expedition was written without truly incorporating their contribution that led to the ultimate success of the expedition. As Lewis and Clark encountered different tribes they received aid in food, shelter, and valuable information about the land.

The Mandan-Hidatsa played a “critical role in Lewis and Clark surviving the 45-below days of the winter of 1804-05.” (Olson, 5) As Cassi Rench, a descendant of the Mandan-Hidatsa tribes, explains about the expedition team, “They wouldn't have made it if we hadn't been here to show them how to hunt and what wood to chop” (Olson, 5). Another indelible tribe that helped the people on the expedition were the Nez Perce Indians. Their generous hospitality is described in one of Clark’s reports stating that “In September 1805...those people [the Nez Perce] gave us a Small piece of Buffalow meat, Some dried Salmon beries & roots in different States…” (University of Virginia, 3).  In addition to providing food, the Nez Perce “furnished guides to lead them safely across the [Lolo trail]” (Viola, 16). Without the help of tribes such as these, the expedition wouldn’t have become the admirable expedition it is believed to be today.

In addition to offering hospitality, Native Americans helped the American explorers navigate through territories in the west. As Lewis recalls in his journal in 1805, “I now prevailed on the [Shoshone] Chief to instruct me with rispect to the geography of his country. this he undertook very cheerfully, by delineating the rivers on the ground. [With] a number of heeps of sand on each side which he informed me represented the vast mountains of rock eternally covered with snow which the river passed”, becoming a map through the Rocky Mountains by way of the Lolo Trail for Americans (Viola, 19). Native Americans passed on their knowledge of the terriroties and provided tools for the Americans such as “inscribed maps drawn with charcoal on tanned animal hides or scratched in the ground on snow; raised relief maps modeled with sand, dirt, or snow; and storytelling communicated through sign language”, illustrating their extensive awareness and understanding of the land that proved to be helpful to the Americans (Viola, 21). Despite their compassion for the explorers, Native Americans are highly disregarded and are denied any credit for their contributions to the Lewis and Clark expedition.

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While Lewis and Clark received praise for their exploration of western lands, Native Americans began to experience great losses during the westward expansion that followed the expedition.

Resources that Native Americans relied on to survive, such as Pacific Salmon, buffalo, and forests, decreased as technological advancements spread across the Americas. Bluehorse, a worker for the Indian Education Program for Portland Public Schools and Native American himself, explains the environmental devastation as he states, “the ancient forests were clear cut. The great buffalo herds that fed (the expedition) were reduced to fewer than 300 animals…” (8) Additionally, “Pacific salmon...continue to struggle for survival against lethal changes wrought by the dam-and-reservoir landscape”, demonstrating the long term, catastrophic effects that occurred after the Lewis and Clark expedition (9). The environmental destruction that occurred after Lewis and Clark reported the abundance of land and resources in Indian territories is emphasized in Leslie Marmon Silko’s poem Ceremony as it is predicted that “[white men] will poison the water....take this world from ocean to ocean…”, destroying life and Indigenous people knew it, and unleashing chaos on the land that the Native people worked hard to maintain (16-24). The essential resources that Native American tribes depended on we're being destroyed, leaving tribes to starve and in great danger.

In addition to the long term environmental effects of the expedition, Native Americans suffered great losses of land, cultural integrity, and freedom. This perspective is emphasized in Ceremony, as it is stated that “[white men] see no life...the deer and bear are objects…” (Silko, 11). With the deer and bear symbolizing Native Americans, this statement explains that Native Americans were not considered to be the living, intelligent human beings they were to the white man’s perspective, rather they were categorized as objects that were of good use. While Lewis and Clark explored the west in a dutiful manner, what followed was the degrading treatment that Native Americans endured for many more centuries to come. "Within 100 years of Lewis and Clark passing through here, every Native nation they encountered was displaced from their traditional lands and put on reservations," noted BlueHorse (8). This sudden and drastic change for Indigenous people made their survival extremely challenging as they were forced to adapt to their unfamiliar surroundings, along with “forced assimilation, culture-purging boarding schools and repeated assaults on Native American land” that followed the expedition (19). Bluehores goes on to say “reservoirs drowned the most important Native American fishing sites and many sacred sites…”, showing the disrespect and degradation that Native American communities were subjected to though America’s thoughtless actions in their efforts to expand after the Lewis and Clark expedition(8).