Hidatsa
The Hidatsa (also called Minitari or Gros Ventres of the Missouri) were a Siouan-speaking agricultural people who lived in three earth-lodge villages near the confluence of the Knife and Missouri Rivers in present-day North Dakota, adjacent to the Mandan. The expedition spent the winter of 1804–1805 at Fort Mandan in close proximity to the Hidatsa, gathering an enormous quantity of geographic, ethnographic, and strategic intelligence from them about the territory to the west. It was in a Hidatsa village that the expedition hired Toussaint Charbonneau and, crucially, encountered his wife Sacagawea, a Lemhi Shoshone woman who had been captured by the Hidatsa in a raid years earlier. The Hidatsa were skilled farmers, warriors, and traders whose detailed knowledge of the upper Missouri and Rocky Mountain geography proved essential to the expedition's route planning.
Biography
The Hidatsa (also known as Minnetaree or Gros Ventre of the Missouri) lived in three earth-lodge villages near the Mandan along the Knife River in present-day North Dakota. They were closely allied with the Mandan and participated in the same extensive trade networks.
The Hidatsa were skilled warriors and hunters who ranged widely across the Northern Plains. It was a Hidatsa raiding party that had captured the young Sacagawea from the Shoshone several years before the expedition — an event that would have profound consequences for American history.
The expedition gathered valuable geographic intelligence from the Hidatsa, who had traveled far to the west on war and hunting expeditions. Their descriptions of the Missouri’s upper reaches and the mountains beyond proved essential for planning the route to the Pacific.
Le Borgne (One Eye), the principal Hidatsa war chief, was one of the most formidable leaders the expedition encountered. The Hidatsa, like the Mandan, were devastated by the 1837 smallpox epidemic.
