During the winter of 1804-05, Lewis and Clark wintered among the Mandan
Indians of North Dakota, during which time they built Fort Mandan and readied
for their upcoming departure in the Spring of 1805 to continue on their quest to
the Pacific Ocean. As soon as work began on the new fort, Indians crossed the
river to observe, mingle, and trade with the soldiers. Other visitors also came.
On November 4, 1804, Clark recorded that “a french man by Name Chabonah....visit
us, he wished to hire and informed us his two Squars were Snake (Shoshone)
Indians.” The captains eagerly accepted Charbonneau’s offer to sign on
as interpreters, not so much for his own sake as because his wives could speak
the language of the mountain tribe. So, on the spot they signed up Charbonneau
and one of his wives “to go on with us”. He chose Sacagawea, who was
about 15 years old and 6 months pregnant.
Captain Lewis acted as the doctor on the expedition and did quite a bit of
doctoring for the Indians at Fort Mandan. On the 1st day of winter, a Mandan
woman brought her child to Lewis, showed him an abscess on the child’s back
and offered him all the corn she could carry for some medicine to cure the sore.
On January 10, a 13 year old Mandan boy came to the fort with frozen feet. Lewis
tried the standard treatment of soaking the feet in cold water but the boy was
too far gone. On January 26, Clark recorded that “Captain Lewis took off
the Toes of one foot of the boy who got frost bit Some time ago.” Five
days later, the captains “sawed off the boys toes” from the other
foot. But, Lewis’s most unusual experience as a doctor came on February 11,
when he was present at the labor of one of Charbonneau’s wives, Sacagawea.
Lewis noted that “this was the first child which this woman had boarn and
as is common in such cases her labour was tedious and the pain violent.”
Lewis worried about her because he was counting on her as a translator with the
Shoshone Indians (known by Lewis to have many horses) when he got to the
mountains. He consulted with Jessaume, who said that in such cases it was
practice to administer a small portion of the rattle of the rattlesnake.
According to Jessaume, it always worked.
“Having the rattle of a snake by me,” Lewis wrote in his journal,
he broke the rattles into small pieces and mixed them with some water, which
Sacagawea drank. “Whether this medicine was truly the cause or not I shall
not undertake to determine,” Lewis said, “but she had not taken it
more than 10 minutes before she brought forth.” In a sentence itself
filled with hope but tempered by skepticism befitting a scientist, Lewis wrote, “This
remedy may be worthy of future experiments, but I must confess that I want faith
as to it’s efficacy.” The baby, a boy named Jean Baptiste Charbonneau,
(called Pomp or Pompy by Sacagawea) was healthy and active.