The Adaptive Value of Walking in the Other Man's Moccasins (2013)

From colonial times through the first century of our nation's history, the concept and reality of a frontier was of fundamental importance. The expanse of territory to the west and its mysterious inhabitants held many Americans in its grasp; the wonder, the romance and the economic potential always tugging seductively at the imagination. At different times, Americans interacted with the frontier and its inhabitants in different ways; the natives sometimes being allies in war, sometimes enemies, their ways sometimes admired and copied, and sometimes rejected and held in contempt. However, the land they occupied and the bounty it held consistently intrigued and attracted a burgeoning population in the East. Early traders probed its depths and expeditions tried repeatedly to acquire some measure of its extent and contents. These endeavors were dangerous, its participants never really knowing what the next bend in the river would hold or what lay over the next mountain.One cannot read a narrative of the Lewis and Clark Expedition without being impressed that such a mission was completed with the loss of but a single member. In The Indianization of Lewis and Clark, William R. Swagerty argues in great detail that the expedition's success was due in large part to the adoption of the technology, foraging techniques, and accoutrements of the Native Americans they met.The manner in which they engaged with the people they encountered had complex roots. The concept of the Native Americans held by white society at the time ran the spectrum from the classical Noble Savage at one extreme to subhuman on the other. As with everything else, Thomas Jefferson's thoughts on the topic were richly nuanced. While resigned to the eventual displacement and extinction of Native Americans at the hands of a technologically superior and territorially aggressive people, he also understood the balance Native Americans had struck with the surrounding world and understood its advantages to anyone who even temporarily wanted to occupy that world. This may not have been foremost in Meriwether Lewis's mind as he outfitted the expedition with arms at Harper's Ferry or acquired scientific instrumentation in Philadelphia, but by the time he was in St. Louis, gathering supplies under the tutelage of Pierre Chouteau, his mind was more focused on Indian ways. The Chouteau family was involved in every aspect of the economy of early St. Louis, including the fur trade across the Missouri River Watershed, and well understood what it took to live and work in that environment. Fur traders with whom Chouteau dealt had long adapted to life among the Indians by practicing deep transculturalization, sometimes reaching a high level of social status among the people with whom they traded.As the expedition entered the field, it held a healthy balance of European and Native American perspectives. Regardless of the extent to which they intended to adopt Indian ways, they certainly understood that their firearms would be indispensible throughout the course of their mission. Knowing that they would take advantage of watercourses as often as possible, Lewis understood the attendant hazards and developed a system of packaging half of their five hundred pounds of powder in lead cylinders, soldered closed and additionally sealed in wax. This system worked quite well. Their technology was also supported by John Shields, whose blacksmithing skills kept the firearms in working order through challenging circumstances. Shields talents were also used as barter, repairing the firearms of the people with whom they traded and manufacturing other items they desired. Lewis also understood when the technology he carried with him failed. He had designed and overseen the construction of a collapsible iron boat frame manufactured at Harper's Ferry. It was his pet project, designed to be easily dismantled for portage between the waterways they would utilize. However, the seams of the skins which stretched across the frame needed to be sealed with pitch every time it was reassembled. …