When Lewis and Clark arrived at the Teton or Bad River, near where the village of Fort Pierre is now located, they found there a delegation of Indians, about fifty or sixty in number, who represented a large camp some two or three miles up the Teton River. These Indians were Minneconjou Tetons, a branch of the Sioux, under the
Jefferson Medal given to a Chief by Lewis and Clark
From "Wonderland," 1900
leadership of Black Buffalo, a man quite famous in his time. Pierre Dorion, the guide to the expedition, had been left at Yankton for the purpose of taking a party of Yankton chiefs down to Washington to council with the President, so the party was without an interpreter, except a French boatman who could speak very little Sioux and no English. Communication with the Indians was therefore difficult and unsatisfactory.
It was not the intention of the captains to stop long with the Tetons, for they bore a bad reputation, and it is
