August 21, 2003

Plains Folk: Sheheke

Tom Isern, Professor of History
North Dakota State University

It was Sheheke, or White Coyote, civil chief of the Mandan village Mitutanka, who made the famous pledge to Lewis and Clark, "If we eat, you shall eat, if we starve, you must starve also." On Oct. 24, 1804, Mandan emissaries had met the Corps of Discovery on the Missouri River. On Oct. 30, Sheheke had received a Jefferson Peace Medal.

For his own reasons, Sheheke chose to befriend the travelers, helping them to site Fort Mandan for winter quarters and assisting them in various ways throughout their stay in the vicinity. Then, in 1806, he traveled with the explorers downriver and all the way to Washington as a diplomat of his people.

Sheheke: Mandan Indian Diplomat is a new book that illuminates the life of this remarkable man. The author is Tracy Potter, Executive Director of the Abraham Lincoln Foundation, Mandan. The publisher is Farcountry Press of Helena, Mont., publishing for Fort Mandan Press, Washburn, N.D. That’s a venture launched by the North Dakota Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Foundation, headed by David Borlaug.

Potter has a problem. The writing of Indian history requires careful attention to oral traditions of the native peoples, which often explain events differently than the documents generated by whites. Mandan oral tradition, however, was tragically shattered by the smallpox epidemics of 1781 and 1837.

The Mandan husbanded their history through elaborate processes by which certain individuals told certain stories to certain listeners at certain times. Smallpox in 1781 killed 80 percent of the Mandan population of some 10,000. Essential links of tradition were lost. This does not mean that the Mandan have no history of their own, but it means there are serious gaps.

Potter, then, has to reconstruct much from white visitors’ and observers’ accounts, "snippets," he calls them. Lewis and Clark, along with their sergeants Ordway and Gass, are the best informants. On the visit to Washington, we have the words spoken by Jefferson to Sheheke, but none on his own in reply.

So, the author works carefully and applies a sensible strategy. The result is a life-and-times biography, emphasizing Sheheke’s situation in Mandan society and diplomacy, rather than personal details. At every juncture, too, Potter pauses to consider what his subject was doing, what he was trying to do. The writer’s success is remarkable. He writes in readable fashion, too.

Sheheke, born in On-a-Slant village in 1766, grew up in what Potter calls the "golden age" of the Mandan: "Life was, in Sheheke’s youth, for the most part, very good." After that, though, "The whole Upper Missouri Country saw death on a scale unimaginable."

Therein lies the irony of this biography of Sheheke. The book is publishable, and will be read, because of association with the bicentennial of the Corps of Discovery. This observance is celebratory. Potter reminds us that from the Mandan point of view, the era of Lewis and Clark is nothing to celebrate. It was the near-extinguishments of their people, who survived only by laudable character and resilience.

Sheheke was a key player in this. As the Mandan regrouped and entered into uneasy alliance with the Hidatsa, he became chief of the southernmost village, Mitutanka. Moreover, Sheheke, as Potter observes, "was, and his nation was, a consistent friend of the United States." Why was this?

The United States, from the chief’s point of view, was important to the restoration of Mandan power as opposed to their overbearing friends, the Hidatsa. Trade relations to the north fed Hidatsa power. Developing relationships with the U.S. to the south favored the Mandan.

This explanation is all about what historians these days call "agency," meaning the idea that people generally know what they are doing and take responsible actions on their own behalf. Sheheke was no one’s dupe. He befriended the Americans for the benefit, he hoped, of his own people. His example of leadership deserves the attention that this welcome biography delivers.

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Source: Tom Isern, (701) 799-2941, isern@plainsfolk.com
Editor: Rich Mattern, (701) 231-6136, richard.mattern@ndsu.nodak.edu 

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