[230] The Assiniboin of the Plains had been decimated by small-pox in 1838; while still a numerous tribe, they were reduced from 1,000 to 400 thinly-populated lodges. They had somewhat recovered, doubtless, before Father de Smet’s journey.—Ed.
[231] Red Deer River rises in the Sawback Range, nearly east of Laggan, and flowing east and southeast through the plains of Alberta empties into the South Saskatchewan in Assiniboia, just east of the hundred and tenth meridian.—Ed.
[232] Snake Country (Pays Serpent) was the term applied by the Hudson’s Bay Company to the area drained by Snake (or Lewis) River, the home of the Shoshoni (or Snake) Indians.—Ed.
[233] These tribes have all been previously noted—by “Kants” being meant the Kansa; by “Saucs” the Sac; and by “Ajouas” the Iowa.—Ed.
[234] See De Smet’s Letters in our volume xxvii, p. 391, note 213.—Ed.
[235] Jean Baptiste Thibault went as a missionary to the Red River country in 1833, and travelled widely in the great Northwest, visiting the Hudson’s Bay posts and founding missions for both half-breeds and Indians from Manitoba to New Caledonia. His colleague, Joseph Bourassa, was engaged in the same work from 1844 to 1856.—Ed.
[236] For these rivers see our volume vi, p. 354, with accompanying note. The mission at St. Ann, in Alberta about fifty miles west of Fort Edmonton, was later in charge of the Oblate Fathers, headed by Father La Combe.—Ed.
[237] The last four tribes belong to the great Athapascan, Déné, or Tinneh stock, whose northern division occupies the northernmost interior of the American continent. The names here given (probably translated from French) are intended for the Beaver, Dogrib, Slave and Hare (or Hare-skin) tribes. In general terms their habitat may be described as follows: the Beaver upon Peace River; the Dogrib between Great Slave and Great Bear lakes; the Slaves west of Great Slave Lake, upon Mackenzie and Liard rivers; the Hares on the Mackenzie, Hare, Indian, and Anderson rivers. See A. G. Morice, in Canadian Institute Proceedings, 1889, pp. 109-174. These Indians still rove the great northern lands, little affected by contact with whites.—Ed.
[238] These are all fur-trading posts, most of which De Smet had visited. They have been described in previous volumes of our series, as follows: Fort Corbeaux (Crow), or Alexander, our volume xxvii, p. 146, note 12 (De Smet); Laramie (La Ramee), xxi, p. 181, note 30; Union, xxii, p. 373, note 349; Mandan, or Clark (near Big Knife, not Little Missouri), xxii, p. 344, note 317; Pierre, xxii, p. 315, note 277; Lookout, xxii, p. 304, note 261; Vermillion, xxvii, p. 153, note 22 (De Smet); fort at Council Bluffs, xxii, p. 275, note 231; and Bellevue, xxii, p. 267, note 221. Fort Osage, originally a government post on the Missouri (not the Osage), was abandoned in 1827; see our volume v, p. 60, note 31. Probably De Smet here refers to the trading post at the Osage villages on Osage River, in what is now Kansas. Fort Pied-Noir (Blackfoot), or Lewis, was the successor of Fort Mackenzie (for which see our volume xxiii, p. 87, note 75), destroyed in 1844. Fort Lewis was built (1845) by Alexander Culbertson some distance above the old fort at the mouth of Maria’s River, on the south bank of the Missouri, eighteen miles above the present city of Fort Benton, Montana; see account of founding in Montana Historical Society Contributions, iii, pp. 241-243 (note, however, that the dates in these reminiscences are quite unreliable). Fort Lewis, named for the explorer, Captain Meriwether Lewis, was abandoned in 1846 for the site of Fort Benton—the new post, however, retaining the name Lewis until about 1850. Fort Berthold, in McLean County, North Dakota, on the Indian reservation of that name, one hundred and twenty-five miles above Bismarck, was built as an American Fur Company post in 1845, and named for Bartholomew Berthold, one of the partners of that corporation. An opposition post (erected in 1859) was bought out in 1862, and the effects and name transferred thither. This new stockade was nearly captured by the Sioux in December, 1862. Two years later it was converted into a military post, but the soldiers being withdrawn (1867) the fort was thereafter maintained as an Indian agency, until accidentally burned in 1874; all vestiges have now disappeared. See engraving of its former appearance in O. D. Wheeler, Trail of Lewis and Clark (New York, 1904), i, p. 276.—Ed.
[239] Right Reverend Mathias Loras was born in Lyons, France, in 1792. At the age of twenty-six he was ordained priest, and in 1829 came to the United States with Bishop Portier of Mobile. He served in the latter city until chosen (1839) first bishop of the newly-created see of Dubuque. Two years later he visited Europe for recruits, returning with two priests and four deacons. Bishop Loras died at Dubuque in 1858. In 1841 he sent Augustine Ravoux, one of the deacons who had reinforced his mission (ordained priest in 1840), to visit the traders in what is now Minnesota, and attempt the founding there of a Sioux mission; he was accompanied by Father Lucien Galtier. The latter built a chapel on the site of St. Paul, and gave the infant settlement its name, but in 1844 he was removed, dying in 1866 at Prairie du Chien. Father Ravoux made many missionary journeys over his wide territory—in 1845 to Fort Vermillion, in 1847 to Fort Pierre—and established an incipient Sioux mission. The withdrawal of Galtier made it imperative for Ravoux to devote himself to the care of the Catholic communicants of his wide diocese. See his Reminiscences and Memoirs (St. Paul, 1890). He was still living in 1904.—Ed.