Toussaint Charbonneau

By John Krist,
Senior reporter

Toussaint Charbonneau's affiliation with the Corps of Discovery did not begin auspiciously, and he did little over the next two years to improve the reputation history has accorded him.

A French Canadian fur trader who had been living for about eight years among the Mandan and Hidatsa tribes near present-day Washburn, N.D., he met Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in November 1804. Charbonneau approached the commanders and offered his services as an interpreter, noting that he was fluent in the Hidatsa language. He also told Lewis and Clark that his "wives" (captives whom he had purchased from the Hidatsa) were members of the Shoshone tribe, and that their people lived at the headwaters of the Missouri River and possessed horses.

Lewis and Clark quickly recognized that one of Charbonneau's two wives, 16-year-old Sacagawea, would be useful as an interpreter when the expedition reached the headwaters and began traveling overland. (The age and name of the other wife is unknown.) The Corps of Discovery would need horses to carry supplies and trade goods over the mountains, and negotiations would more likely be successful if someone in the group actually spoke the Shoshone language. They agreed to hire Charbonneau "as an interpreter through his wife," according to Clark's journal entry for March 11, 1805.

Charbonneau immediately set the tone for his apparently prickly relationship with the rest of the explorers by refusing to perform the duties every member of the party was obligated to perform. Not only would he decline to stand regular guard and carry out other routine camp tasks, he told the commanders, but he wanted a guarantee that if he ever grew "miffed with any man" he would be free to leave with as many provisions as he could carry.

The commanders rejected Charbonneau's terms and hired another interpreter. Four days later, however, Charbonneau returned to apologize, and Lewis and Clark hired him.

With one exception, Charbonneau's skills in the wilderness did not impress either of the expedition's leaders, Lewis describing him as "a man of no particular merit." Twice, he nearly caused disasters while at the helm of one of the expedition's boats.

The first time, only a few days after the group left it's winter quarters in spring 1805, came when a sudden squall blew up the river and Charbonneau turned the boat broadside to the wind - the worst possible maneuver, nearly causing it to overturn.

The second time came a month later, when Charbonneau again reacted to a sudden gust by turning the boat broadside to the wind. The boat flipped and began filling with water; Charbonneau panicked and froze. One of his shipmates, Pierre Cruzatte, drew a gun and threatened to shoot Charbonneau if he did not grab the rudder and regain control of the vessel while the rest of the crew worked to stabilize the boat. As the boat's cargo began floating away, Sacagawea calmly retrieved most of the items.

Not surprisingly, Lewis pronounced Charbonneau, who could not swim, "the most timid waterman in the world."

Charbonneau also reacted to an early encounter with grizzly bears by running away and firing his gun wildly into the air. He was reprimanded by Clark for striking Sacagawea one night at dinner.

The only really favorable reference to Charbonneau in the expedition journals concerns his culinary skills. Lewis, something of an epicure, describes in rapturous detail Charbonneau's preparation of a dish called "boudin blanc," or white pudding - actually a sort of sausage encased in buffalo intestines, boiled and then fried - which Lewis declared "we all esteem one of the greatest delicacies of the forest."

Despite repeated references to Charbonneau's pratfalls and less savory characteristics, his treatment at the conclusion of the expedition suggests that he was less inept and more useful to the explorers than it might seem. Declaring that Charbonneau had "discharged his duties with good faith," the commanders presented him a voucher for $500.33 for his services. He cashed it in later in St. Louis, and was granted the same 320 acres of land given to each of the expedition's enlisted men.