Joseph Garreau

Photo: “Lewis and Clark at Mandan Village, 1804” by Hugh Charles McBarron II. 

One of the traders who Captains Lewis and Clark encountered in the area of Fort Mandan during the winter of 1804-1805 was Joseph Garreau.

It’s believed that Garreau first came to the area of the Arikaras with an expedition in 1793, where he remained and became known as the first white settler in South Dakota. Thought to be either a Spaniard or Frenchman, he was an interpreter and trader among the Arikaras and Mandans for nearly 40 years.

In a detailed journal entry of nearly 750 words, Captain Lewis wrote how Garreau demonstrated to the men of the Corps the process used by the Native peoples to make beads, which seems to have been a well-kept secret. Lewis’s preface to the process, “…the discovery of this art these nations are said to have derived from the Snake Indians who have been taken prisoners by the Ricaras. the art is kept a secret by the Indians among themselves and is yet known to but few of them.”