OCTOBER 27

this Village is Small and Contains but fiew inhabitents. above this village & also above the Knife River on the Same Side of the Missouri the Big bellies [Hidatsa or Gross Ventre Indians] Towns are Situated a further Discription will be given here after as also of the Town of Mandans on this Side of the river— Great numbers on both Sides flocked down to the bank to view us as wee passed.

Capt Lewis with the Interpetr. walked down to the village below our Camp After delaying one hour he returned and informed me the Indians had returned to their village, we Sent three Carrots of Tobacco by three young men, to the three Villages above inviting them to come Down & Council with us tomorrow. many Indians Came to view us Some Stayed all night in the Camp of our party— we procured Some information of Mr: Jessomme* of the Chiefs of the Different Nations

.— well to give my ideas as to the impression thais man [Jusseaume] makes on me is a Cunin artfull an insincere— he tels me he was once empld. by my brother [George Rogers Clark] in the Illinois & of his description I conceve as
a Spye upon the British of Michillinicknac [Fort Michilimackinac] & St Joseph, we think he may be made use full to
us & do employ him as an interpeter— no. of Indians bring their wives &c. to the campes of our party on Shore.

[*René Jusseaume, or Jessaume, was a free trader who in 1804 had lived with the Mandans for about
fifteen years, drawing his goods on credit from the North West Company. He told Clark he had been a spy for George Rogers Clark in the Illinois country during the Revolutionary War. He acted as Mandan interpreter for many persons, but apparently was not considered a good one. He seems to have
participated fully in the social and ceremonial life of the Mandans, which may account for some of the low opinions whites expressed of him. Evans thought that Jusseaume planned his murder in 1796, when Evans tried to exclude him from the Indian trade. David Thompson, whom he accompanied to the Mandans in 1797, was not impressed with his character, and Alexander Henry the Younger called him "that old sneaking cheat." Lewis and Clark also found him "assumeing and discont'd." Nevertheless they hired him to accompany Sheheke (Big White), the Mandan chief, to Washington as interpreter in 1806. During the attempted return of that chief in 1807, which was stopped by the Arikaras, Jusseaume suffered a crippling wound and petitioned Jefferson for a pension. In 1809 he apprenticed his thirteen-year old son to Lewis, to provide for the boy's education. He was still alive at the time of Maximilian's visit to the Mandans in 1833–34, and was still not considered a really good interpreter. ]

Ordway: from the mouth of the Missouri to this place is 1610 miles.