The Lemhi-Shoshone, Sacajawea - Camp Fortunate and the Lewis and Clark Expedition

"Crow Old Man" of the Lemhi-Shoshone Tribes, was the name of Ben Ariwite also known as the "Last" Lemhi-Shoshone Medicine Man

Rod Ariwite Sr., current Chairman of the Lemhi tribe, is the great-grandson of Ben Ariwite.

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Fort Lemhi Indian Community, Sacajawea, Sacagawea, Lemhi Pass, Sacagawea Lewis Clark,

Updated July 15, 2005

Sacajawea's People
The Lemhi-Shoshones and the Salmon River Country

By John W. W. Mann
University of Nebraska Press

On October 20, 2001, a crowd gathered just east of Salmon, Idaho, to dedicate the site of the Sacajawea Interpretive, Cultural, and Education Center, in preparation for the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial. In a bitter instance of irony, the American Indian peoples conducting the ceremony dedicating the land to the tribe, the city of Salmon, and the nation the Lemhi Shoshones, Sacajawea's own people had been removed from their homeland nearly a hundred years earlier and had yet to regain official federal recognition as a tribe. John W. W. Mann's book at long last tells the remarkable and inspiring story of the Lemhi Shoshones, from their distant beginning to their present struggles.

Mann offers an absorbing and richly detailed look at the life of Sacajawea's people before their first contact with non-Natives, their encounter with the Lewis and Clark Expedition in the early nineteenth century, and their subsequent confinement to a reservation in northern Idaho near the town of Salmon. He follows the Lemhis from the liquidation of their reservation in 1907 to their forced union with the Shoshone-Bannock tribes of the Fort Hall Reservation to the south.

He describes how for the past century, surrounded by more populous and powerful Native tribes, the Lemhis have fought to preserve their political, economic, and cultural integrity. His compelling and informative account should help to bring Sacajawea's people out of the long shadow of history and restore them to their rightful place in the American story.
John W. W. Mann is a visiting assistant professor in the Department of History at the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire.

Order your copy here >>

Also read an excerpt from the book here: "The Lemhi Shoshone, Federal Recognition and the Bicentennial of The Corps of Discovery"
By: John W. Mann

3 new photos of Chief Tendoy, his wife and his son.
Photos courtesy of Robert Michael .

National Lewis & Clark Heritage Bicentennial Signature Event

Hartford, Illinois - Both Randy'l Teton and Rod Ariwite were invited to participate in the state of Illinois Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Signature Event to speak on the involvement and contributions of the Lemhi-Shoshone people.

The host tribes for this particular event are the three federally recognized Shawnee Tribes of Oklahoma: Shawnee, Absentee Shawnee and the Eastern Shawnee. Other distinguished Native American experts through out the country were invited to participate in the events.

This particular signature event will move across the Mississippi River to Saint Charles, Missouri - that will kick off on May 20th. Rod Ariwite has been asked by the great-great grandson of Captain William Clark to present at the re-dedication of the William Clark Memorial on Friday, May 21st at the historic Saint Charles National Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Signature Event site.

The Lewis & Clark Rediscovery project (Lifelong Learning Online): - Explore the Past & Present

Lemhi Pass Camp Fortunate - 8/13/1805 - Lewis and Clark enter the Lemhi-Shoshones backyard near present day Clark Canyon, Montana and forever changed the lives of the people who had occupied the area for over ten thousand years.

The website content was developed at the University of Idaho, Wheeling Jesuit University, and University of Montana in Missoula. The UM, along with the UI, developed maps, images, GIS, and NASA visualizations that interact with the UI-developed Learning Environment Interface, and compliment the content developed by WJU.
Horse Traders , Old Toby, Recuperating, Lemhi Valley Indian Reservations, All my Relations >>

Professor Orlan J. Svingen - Washington State University / Department of History:
On February 12, 1875, President Grant established a 100 square mile executive order reservation for the Lemhi-Shoshone people in the Lemhi Valley. Known as the Lemhi Valley Indian Reservation, the executive order established the reserve for "the exclusive use of the mixed tribes of Salmon-Eater Shoshone, Sheep-Eater, and Northern Bannock Indians. Almost from the outset, however, the government and local residents began efforts to rescind the executive order reservation. They ultimately succeeded in 1905, and in 1907 the Lemhi began what many have called the "Lemhi Trail of Tears," which saw their forced removal from their ancestral homelands to the Fort Hall Indian Reservation, home of the much larger Shoshone-Bannock Indians (Snake River Shoshone). More >>

Banished from their homelands in 1907 and seeking to return ever since, the Lemhi-Shoshone people create a dilemma for the nation. As it prepares to commemorate the Bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery, the United States needs to reassess its commitment to the Lemhi people, to Sacajawea's people. The obligation the nation acknowledges toward wolf and salmon recovery efforts is dwarfed by the responsibility it faces in treating fairly the people who played such a crucial role in advancing the success of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
More >>

View an html version of Washington State University's PowerPoint Presentation of Lemhi-Shoshone history >>

"The Lemhi People and Their Struggle to Retain a Homeland" By: Shirley Stephens "The Lemhi's traditional remote and isolated setting was a world apart, far removed, from the cultural crossroads of Pocatello, Fort Hall, the Snake River Plains, and Great Basin culture. The removal of the Lemhi to Fort Hall entailed far more than a geographic move of two hundred miles."	"The Lemhi Shoshone, Federal Recognition, and the Bicentennial of The Corps of Discovery" By: John W. Mann "The approach of the bicentennial celebration of the Lewis and Clark expedition presents the federal government with a unique opportunity. The Lemhis have been refugees for nearly a century."	PowerPoint Presentation from Professor Orlan J. Svingen - Created by the Washington State University, Department of History. "Shoshone Country" "Map of L&C Expedition's "Fortunate Camp" "Sacajaweas Critics" "Virginia City Treaty" "Lemhi Valley Indian Reservation - Executive Order - Feb. 12, 1875: U.S. Grant Map of Lemhi Country: Treaty Period "The Lemhi continue to return after removal" "Post 1970 Lemhi Politics" "The destruction of the Lemhi Indian Camp in Salmon, Idaho"
Almost two hundred years ago, Sacajawea walked onto the world stage and played a more important role than any other American Indian, male or female. Without question, Sacajawea along with her people and their horses, were the key to the success of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the greatest exploration of the early American West ever undertaken by young and struggling country (United States of America).	Captain Meriwether Lewis, the personal Secretary of President Jefferson wrote in his journals that Sacajawea was indispensable in their successful attempt to reach the Pacific Ocean and return. The story of Sacajawea is so appealing that it adds the unique charm of bravery and motherhood to this early American epic journey of the Lewis and Clark.	The primary reason for the participation of Sacajawea as member of the Corps of Discovery was to facilitate the acquisition of horses from her people (the Lemhi-Shoshone) to cross the continental divide to the headwaters of the Pacific Ocean. As the oral history of the Lemhi Shoshoni is farther substantiated by the various journals of the Lewis and Clark party, the primary leader of the Lemhi-Shoshoni was Cameahwait the brother of Sacajawea. More >>

"To domesticate and civilize wild Indians is a noble work, the accomplishment of which should be a crown of glory to a nation. But to allow them to drag along year after year and generation after generation, in their old superstitions, laziness and filth, when we have the power to elevate them in the scale of humanity, would be a lasting disgrace to our government."
U.S.A.'s Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Hiram Price, 1881

Who are the Lemhi-Shoshone and where is their home? Lemhis are Agaidikas (Salmoneaters), Tukudikas (Sheepeaters), and (Northern) Bannocks and their home is in the Lemhi Valley of Idaho in the Salmon River drainage.

View a slide-show of Lemhi-Shoshone Country, Photos by Wayne Mumford.

View aerial map showing the Lemhi's Trail of Tears