Fort Mandan

Fort Mandan was the name of the encampment at which the Lewis and Clark Expedition wintered in 1804-1805. The encampment was located on the Missouri River approximately twelve miles from Washburn, North Dakota, though the precise location is not known for certain and may be under the nearby river.

The fort was built of cottonwood lumber cut from the riverbanks. It was triangular in shape, with high walls on all sides and a gate facing the riverbank. Storage rooms provided a safe place to keep their supplies. The Corps of Discovery started the fort on November 2, 1804, and remained in the area until April 7, 1805. They built the fort slightly down river from the five villages of the Mandan and Hidatsa nations.

The winter was very cold with temperatures sometimes dipping to minus 45 degrees Fahrenheit (-43°C), but the fort provided some protection from the elements. As it was, quite a few men of the expedition suffered frostbite.

Diplomacy
Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark spent much of the winter on diplomatic efforts with the tribes who lived near Fort Mandan. Because the expedition would establish the first official contact between the United States and several Native American nations, President Thomas Jefferson had several diplomatic goals for the captains to pursue. They were to try to establish a friendly relationship with as many tribes as possible and announce that American traders would be coming to the region. They were also to claim territorial sovereignty over the land. Because the Tetons had shown resistance to the expedition, Lewis and Clark gradually made an adjustment to these goals and decided to try forming an alliance with the Arikaras, Hidatsas, and Mandans against them.

The Mandans were cautiously favorable towards allying with the United States, even going so far as to send one of their chiefs, Sheheke, back with the Expedition in 1806 to travel to Washington, D.C., and meet with Thomas Jefferson. However they did not commit to trading with the United States at the expense of their previous trading partnerships. The Hidatsas were much more resistant to American diplomatic efforts, often avoiding even meeting with Lewis and Clark.

Preparations for the spring
The Corps also spent a great deal of the winter preparing to travel again in the spring. On the journey up until Fort Mandan they had maps by previous explorers, but west of there they would enter unfamiliar territory. Therefore Clark gathered information from Sheheke about the route to the west to make a preliminary map. Also, not knowing whether they would survive to bring back the information they had gathered thus far, Lewis and Clark compiled their descriptions of tributaries of the Missouri River, their observations on Native nations, and their descriptions of plant and mineral specimens collected among many other details into a manuscript they called the Mandan Miscellany, which they sent back to St. Louis with their large keelboat in the spring.

Sacagawea
It was apparently also at Fort Mandan that Lewis and Clark first met Sacagawea. Her husband, Toussaint Charbonneau, served as a Hidatsa interpreter for the expedition, and the journals imply that she lived at the fort with him. Her son Jean Baptiste, whom she carried with her throughout the rest of the expedition, was born on February 11, also possibly at the fort.

After 1805
When the Corps passed back through the area in August, 1806, on their return journey home, the fort had burnt to the ground; the reason is unknown. Since that time, the Missouri River has slowly eroded its bank and has shifted to the east, covering up what remained of the charred fort.

A replica stands along the river, 2.5 miles from the intersection of ND 200A and US 83. It is located near the North Dakota Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center, which offers tours and interpretive programs about the significance of the Lewis and Clark Expedition in American and regional history.