Bad Humored Island

This site is accessible by boat, but can be viewed Fort Pierre.

Bad Humored Island was the backdrop of a meaningful exchange between Lewis & Clark and the native tribes that called the region home. As the journals discuss, Black Buffalo and the other chiefs were invited to tour the keelboat, where they were presented gifts. Captain Clark conducted them back to Lilly Park in the pirogue. He wrote, “As soon as I landed the pirogue, three of their young men seized the cable. Chief Black Buffalo then took hold of the rope and ordered the young warriors away.”

Clark was not permitted to leave the shore; the pirogue soon returned with twelve armed men. The boat guns, and the soldiers’ muzzle-loading guns, were pointed directly at the Lakota, whose numbers had now grown to about 100. (The expedition numbered forty-four.) Both sides stood down. The captains went upstream on the west side of the river to camp for the night. Clark writes, “I called this island Bad Humored Island, as we were in a bad humor.” (Bad Humored Island was later named Marion’s Island)