One thing that was pretty amazing to me was
because I didn't quite realize this, but
Mandan Nation and the market where Lewis and Clark encountered Sacajawea
was the biggest trading center of the that time in what is now the United States.
It had more economy, more trade, more people than Washington D.C.,
a lot of other urban areas, Philadelphia, on the East Coast
that were considered to be very large in 1804.
I think a lot of Americans don't think of Tribal Nations as being economically sophisticated
but at that time...and of course U.S. policy really desecrated that economic center
and its much revived today.
Of course the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Tribes are still here today.
They weren't completely eradicated.
But trying to understand what an economic powerhouse this place was
and this Tribal Nation was
when Lewis and Clark encountered it
is something that a lot of people...I was amazed to read that.
