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.

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.

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).

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).