This series of public programs complementing Lewis and Clark and the Indian Country is made possible by a grant from the National Park Service.
Saturday, October 1
Program, 11:00 am
Reception immediately following
Speaker: Gary E. Moulton, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
At the direction of President Thomas Jefferson, members of the Corps of Discovery kept extensive records of their travels and discoveries. Meriwether Lewis died in 1806, having failed to fulfill his charge to edit and publish the journals. Why was the scientific document that Jefferson envisioned when he commissioned the expedition not completed for 200 years? Gary Moulton, editor of the 13-volume The Journals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition, will open the exhibit's public program series by tracing the fascinating story of what happened to the journals following the return of the Corps to St. Louis.
Saturday, October 8, 11:00 am
Speaker: James P. Ronda, University of Tulsa
As author of Lewis and Clark Among the Indians (1984), the first book-length study of the Corps of Discovery's interactions with the American Indian peoples they encountered, James Ronda has been deeply involved in the bicentennial of the expedition. In this talk, he will place the story of the expedition on a broad historical stage with a much-expanded cast of characters. He will also reflect on whether bicentennial activities run the risk of missing the larger, deeper stories about our past and our present that can be learned from the Lewis and Clark narrative. And he will offer some answers to a provocative question: "Lewis and Clark-who cares?"
"Most Americans tell themselves a story about Lewis and Clark, about the fact that they were brave explorers and that they discovered the path to the Pacific. We don't dispute that story but we tell a different one." Darrell Robes Kipp (Blackfeet)
The Corps of Discovery depended on, traded, and quarreled with the indigenous people they encountered on their cross country journey. But who were these people and what is life like for their descendants who continue to live along the expedition's route and live with its legacy? In a series of special programs on October 15, November 19, and December 3, the five Native American consultants to this exhibit will show how their tribes today are actively recovering their heritage.
Saturday, October 15, 10:00 am - 2:30 pm
10:00 am
Crickett Hill Drum, Chicago-based inter-tribal group of singers
Dorene Weise (White Earth Ojibwa), Native American Educational Services (NAES) College
Joseph Podlasek (Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe), American Indian Center
10:30 am
Speaker: W. Otis Halfmoon (Nez Perce), National Park Service
A descendant of Heyuum Pahkit Timna (Grizzly Bear with Five Hearts), a Nez Perce Chief who met the Corps of Discovery on their return journey, W. Otis Halfmoon tells his tribe's story of their interactions with the Corps of Discovery. He describes Nez Perce life before Lewis and Clark, and the untold stories and the impact of this small part of tribal history. He will discuss the present condition of the tribe and touch upon issues that pertain to the protection of natural and cultural resources.
The Fort Clatsop Winter: Indian Stories
The winter of 1806 at Fort Clatsop, at the northeastern tip of present-day Oregon, was the low point of the expedition of the Corps of Discovery. Worn down by the hardships of their journey and facing a difficult return trip, the Corps passed a harsh winter with Indians whose previous trading experience with whites had left them unimpressed by the Corps' remaining trade goods. As their journals make clear, Lewis and Clark considered the Indians of the Pacific Northwest "both incomprehensible and reprehensible." But how does the story look viewed from the Indian Country? In the following programs Marjorie Wahaneka and Pat Gold will interweave stories about their peoples' interactions with, and impressions of, the "foul-smelling, flea-infested" men of the Corps of Discovery with narratives of their tribes contemporary conservation and artistic work.
11:30 am
Speaker: Marjorie Waheneka (Cayuse/Umatilla/Warm Springs), Tamastslikt Cultural Institute
Waheneka (Et Twaii Lish), the head of exhibits at the Tamastslikt Cultural Institute, will explain the traditional role of salmon in Columbian River Indians' culture. The salmon that seasonally filled the waters of the Columbia River and its tributaries were essential to the survival of the Indians of the Pacific Northwest. The salmon's life cycle dictated the life cycle of these communities and was at the root of many of their beliefs and customs. Waheneka also will discuss how Native Americans today are participating in projects to restore salmon fisheries in the Columbia, Umatilla, and Walla Walla Rivers.
1:30 pm
Speaker: Pat Courtney Gold (Wasco), fiber artist
Since 1991, Pat Gold's full-turn twined baskets with geometric human figures and motifs have been widely exhibited in museums and galleries from New York City to New Zealand. The Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian, the British Museum, and Harvard University's Peabody Museum are among the museums that have commissioned her to make baskets for their collections. She will demonstrate how she revived the art of Wasco basket weaving, and discuss how studying traditional baskets in museum collections provides her with knowledge and inspiration.
On Sunday, October 16 at 1:00 pm, Pat Courtney Gold will present a family-oriented, hands-on demonstration of basketry at the Mitchell Museum of the American Indian, 2600 Central Park Avenue, Evanston, IL, in conjunction with the Museum's exhibition, Sisters to Sacajawea (Sakakawea): Women in Native American Life. For information call, (847) 475-1030 or visit their Web site, www.mitchellmuseum.org. The program is free with admission to the Mitchell Museum.
Pat Gold's programs at the Newberry and the Mitchell Museum are made possible by grants from the Evanston Cultural Fund, the Illinois Humanities Council, and the Zonta Club of Evanston.
Thursday, October 20
Reception, 5:30 pm
Program, 6:00 pm
Speaker: W. Raymond Wood, University of Missouri
Mapping the Missouri River began, not with Lewis and Clark in 1803, but in 1714 with the expedition of Etienne Vèniard de Bourgmont. In fact, the river remained poorly known by Europeans and Americans until 1797, when the Spanish expedition led by James Mackay and John Thomas Evans returned to St. Louis. Seven years later, their charts provided detailed maps for the first full year of the Corps of Discovery's journey. The extent of these early maps' dependence on Indian informants is not known, but Native American charts, though created with different frames of reference, showed vast areas of the Louisiana Purchase with great accuracy.
This program is co-sponsored by the Chicago Map Society and the Newberry Library's Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography. Admission is free, but a voluntary donation is welcome from non-members of the Chicago Map Society to support programs and refreshments. Reservations are recommended; please leave your name at (312) 255-3689.
Saturday, November 5, 11:00 am - 3:00 pm
11:00 am
Speaker: Richard Mack, Quiet Light Publishing
Richard Mack, an Evanston-based fine art photographer, traveled the trail of the Corps of Discovery for two years, March 2002-March 2004, to document the seasons, landscapes, beauty, and hardships as the Corps would have experienced them 200 years ago. In an illustrated talk, he invites you to re-discover the Lewis and Clark trail through his photographs.
Richard Mack's book, The Lewis and Clark Trail American Landscapes, will be available for sale at the Newberry Library's A. C. McClurg Bookstore. A book signing will follow the talk.
1:30 pm, Film Screening and Lecture
Speaker: Sally Thompson, University of Montana
The media curator for Lewis and Clark and the Indian Country will show her thirty-minute documentary film, Contemporary Voices Along the Lewis and Clark Trail, in which she interviews Native Americans whose ancestors lived along the expedition's route. She will then discuss the origins of the film project, and reflect on how the interviews may help us to better understand the interactions between Native Americans and early nineteenth-century travelers.
Thursday, November 10
Reception, 5:30 pm
Program, 6:00 pm
Speaker: Ralph Ehrenberg
One of Thomas Jefferson's major objectives in sending the Corps of Discovery on this epic adventure was to map the vast region acquired through the Louisiana Purchase. Ralph Ehrenberg, an internationally recognized authority on the history of cartography, has directed two of the most important map collections in the world at the Library of Congress and the National Archives. In an illustrated talk, he will describe Lewis and Clark's preparation and training, their knowledge of the Trans-Mississippi West on the eve of the expedition, their surveying and mapping techniques, and the role of maps prepared by Indians and fur traders. Finally, Ehrenberg will discuss the preparation and printing of the published maps associated with the expedition, focusing on a number of historical maps on display in the exhibit, including a manuscript map prepared shortly after the return of the expedition.
This program is co-sponsored by the Chicago Map Society and the Newberry Library's Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography. Admission is free, but a voluntary donation is welcome from non-members of the Chicago Map Society to support programs and refreshments. Reservations are recommended; please leave your name at (312) 255-3689.
Saturday, November 19, 10:00 am
Speaker: Darrell Robes Kipp (Blackfeet), Piegan Institute
Players: Students from the Nizipuhwahsin (Real Speak) School
In July 1805, Meriwether Lewis shot and killed a young Blackfeet man. In 2003, students in the Nizipuhwahsin (Real Speak) School, Browning, Montana, produced a play retelling this story based on accounts passed down through the Blackfeet oral tradition. On November 19, seven middle-school students will perform this play. On a bare stage, with the simplicity of an ancient Greek play, the students tell this story in Blackfeet-language soliloquies and monologs. A student seated off to the side will translate and provide commentary. Following the play, Darrell Robes Kipp will talk about the importance of language recovery for Blackfeet and other Native peoples.
On Sunday, November 20, 1:00 pm, this event will also be presented at the Mitchell Museum of the American Indian, 2600 Central Park Avenue, Evanston, IL. For more information, please call the Mitchell Museum at (847) 475-1030 or visit their Web site, www.mitchellmuseum.org. The program is free with admission to the Mitchell Museum.
Saturday, December 3, 11:00 am
Speaker: Frederick P. Baker (Mandan/Hidatsa), Three Tribes Museum and Fort Berthold Community College
The hospitality that the Mandan and Hidatsa showed to the Corps of Discovery made the winter of 1805 at Fort Mandan the most pleasant time of their entire journey. Fred Baker, a descendant of the tribes that hosted the Corps, looks forward to the 400th anniversary of Lewis and Clark's journey to ask: Where will the Mandan and Hidatsa people be in 2205?
Today, the Mandan and Hidatsa are part of the Three Tribes community, which, since 1862, has included the Arikara. In the past 200 years, these tribes have adapted to a completely different economic system. They are ranchers, wage earners, and entrepreneurs instead of traders, hunters, and subsistance farmers. Given these dramatic changes, what does it mean to be a "traditionalist" or "modern" Indian today? And what will they need to do in the next two hundred years to maintain their tribal identities, values, and ways of life?
Saturday, December 3, 1:30 pm
Note location: Alliance Française of Chicago, 54 West Chicago Avenue
Speaker: Richard Hètu, La Presse
Commentary and discussion: Frederick P. Baker (Mandan/Hidatsa) and Susan Sleeper Smith, Michigan State University
Richard Hètu, New York correspondent for the Montreal daily newspaper La Presse, is the author of The Lost Guide, a fictional biography of Toussaint Charbonneau, the husband of Sacagawea (Sakakawea). Charbonneau was one of many French-Canadians who ventured into the early Far West as pioneers of the fur trade. Hètu will read excerpts and discuss his research on a man much maligned by historians and novelists, but whom he considers an engaging rogue.
Commentator Frederick Baker is a consultant to the Newberry exhibit, Lewis and Clark and the Indian County, and a descendant of the two tribes with whom the Corps of Discovery spent the winter of 1805. Historian Susan Sleeper Smith is the author of Indian Women and French Men: Rethinking Cultural Encounter in the Western Great Lakes.
Co-sponsored by the Alliance Française of Chicago and the Délégation de Québec à Chicago. The Lost Guide and Indian Women and French Men will be available for purchase from the Newberry Library's A.C. McClurg Bookstore. Book signings will follow the talk.
Saturday, December 10, 11:00 am
Speaker: Peter Onuf, University of Virginia
As President Thomas Jefferson looked westward into the territory of the Louisiana Purchase, his vision of an "empire for liberty" was tempered by profound anxieties about national politics and imperial rivalries in the American hinterland. He understood that the Indian Country was far from a blank slate and that Native peoples would play a key role in determining the geopolitical future of the expanding United States. Peter Onuf, a leading expert on Jefferson's political thought, outlines the President's complex vision of America's future during the period of the Louisiana Purchase and epochal journey of the Corps of Discovery.
Saturday, January 14, 11:00 am
Speaker: Frederick E. Hoxie, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Curator Frederick E. Hoxie, Swanlund Professor of History at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, will close the exhibit at the Newberry with an illustrated talk reflecting on the genesis and the more than three-year development of the Lewis and Clark and the Indian Country project. He and the entire exhibit team worked in partnership with academic scholars and Native American community consultants, who are descendants of tribes who encountered the Corps of Discovery in 1805-1806. He will comment on how the Lewis and Clark bicentennial provides opportunities to expand our understanding of American history by investigating the meaning of the Corps of Discovery's historic journey for the peoples whose lands were incorporated into the United States.
The Newberry Library
Center for Public Programs
60 West Walton Street
Chicago, IL 60610-7324
telephone: (312) 255-3700
fax: (312) 255-3680
e-mail: programs@newberry.org