II American Rule in St. Louis
Immediately after his appointment in charge of Indian affairs, Clark left Washington, with Pryor and Shannon, Big White and Jussaume and their Indian families. The Ohio, swollen to the highest notch, bore them racing into the Mississippi.
“Manuel Lisa haf gone up de Meessouri,” was the news at St. Louis. All winter Manuel Lisa had been flying around St. Louis with Pierre Menard and George Drouillard, preparing for an early ascent into the fur country. So also had been the Chouteaus, intending to escort Big White back to the Mandans.
At any time an Indian trader was a great man in St. Louis. He could command fabulous prices for his skill, and still more now could Drouillard, fresh from the unexploited land beyond the Mandans. All his money Drouillard put into the business, and with the earliest opening of 1807, Lisa, Menard and Drouillard set out for the upper Missouri with an outfit of sixteen thousand dollars.
“Wait for the Mandan chief,” said Frederick Bates, the new Territorial Secretary.
Manuel Lisa was not a man to wait. “While others consider whether they will start, I am on my way,” he answered.
Dark, secret, unfathomable, restless, enterprising, a very Spaniard for pride, distrusted and trusted, a judge of men, Manuel Lisa had in him the spirit of De Soto and Coronado.
For twenty years Lisa had traded with Indians. Of late the Spanish government had given him exclusive rights on the Osage, a privilege once held by the Chouteaus, but alas for Lisa! a right now tumbled by the cession. For the United States gave no exclusive privileges.
He reached the ear of Drouillard; they went away together. No one better than Lisa saw the meaning of that great exploration.
Coincidently with the arrival of Clark and Big White out of the Ohio, came down a deputation of Yankton Sioux with old Dorion from the Missouri. With that encampment of Indians, around, behind, before the Government House, began the reign of the Red Head chief over the nations of the West that was to last for thirty years. St. Louis became the Red Head’s town, and the Red Head’s signature came to be known to the utmost border of Louisiana.
“We want arms and traders,” said the Yankton Sioux.
Both were granted, and laden with presents, before the close of May they were dispatched again to their own country. And with them went Big White in charge of Ensign Pryor, Sergeant George Shannon, and Pierre Chouteau, with thirty-two men for the Mandan trade.
Even the Kansas knew that Big White had gone down the river, and were waiting to see him go by.
“The whites are as the grasses of the prairie,” said Big White.
In July the new Governor, Meriwether Lewis, arrived and assumed the Government. With difficulty the officers had endeavoured to harmonise the old and the new. All was in feud, faction, disorder.
St. Louis was a foreign village before the cession. Nor was this changed in a day.
“Deed not de great Napoleon guarantee our leebertee?” said the French. “We want self-government.”
But Lewis and Clark, these two had met the French ideal of chivalry in facing the Shining Mountains and the Ocean. Pretty girls sat in the verandas to see them pass. Fur magnates set out their choicest viands. The conquest of St. Louis was largely social. With less tact and less winning personalities we might have had discord.
Whatever Lewis wanted, Clark seconded as a sort of Lieutenant Governor. It seemed as if the two might go on forever as they had done in the great expedition. Ever busy, carving districts that became future States, laying out roads, dispensing justice and treating with Indians, all went well until the 16th of October, when a wave of sensation swept over St. Louis.
“Big White, the Mandan chief, is back. The American flag at the bow of his boat has been fired on and he is compelled to fall back on St. Louis.”
All summer the vengeful Arikaras had been watching.
“They killed our chief, the Brave Raven.”
The Teton Sioux plotted. “They will give the Mandans arms and make our enemies stronger than we are.” So in great bands, Sioux and Arikaras had camped along the river to intercept the returning brave.
“These are the machinations of the British,” said Americans in St. Louis.
“This is a trick of Manuel Lisa,” said the fur traders. “His boats passed in safety, why not ours?”
In fact, there had been a battle. Not with impunity should trade be carried into the land of anarchy. Three men were killed and several wounded, including Shannon and René Jussaume. And they in turn had killed Black Buffalo, the Teton chief that led the onslaught.
All the way down the Missouri George Shannon had writhed with his wounded knee. Blood poisoning set in. They left him at Bellefontaine.
“Dees leg must come off,” said Dr. Saugrain, the army surgeon.
He sent for Dr. Farrar, a young American physician who had lately located in St. Louis. Together, without anesthetics, they performed the first operation in thigh amputation ever known in that region.
“Woonderful! woonderful!” exclaimed the Creoles. “Dees Dogtors can cut une man all up.” Great already was the reputation of Dr. Saugrain; to young Farrar it gave a prestige that made him the Father of St. Louis surgery.
Shannon lay at the point of death for eighteen months, but youth rallied, and he regained sufficient strength to journey to Lexington, where he took up the study of law. He lived to become an eminent jurist and judge, and the honoured progenitor of many distinguished bearers of his name.