Gass
Tuesday 16th. This was another pleasant day. We proceeded on early, and at 9 o'clock met a large periogue with eight men, going to trade with the Ponis nation of Indians on the river Platte about seventy or eighty miles from its mouth. At 11 we met a batteaux and two canoes going up to the Kanowas nation, who live on a river of the same name. We halted with them a while, then proceeded on, and at sunset encamped on an island.
Ordway and Gass both say that this party was bound to trade with the Kansa Indians. Several members of the Robidoux family of Saint Louis, over several generations, were leaders in the fur trade. Joseph Robidoux, probably the young man the party met here, had established a trading post at the site of St. Joseph, Missouri, in 1800 and is regarded as the founder of that city. His license to trade had apparently been issued by the territorial secretary, Joseph Browne, in the absence of the governor, General Wilkinson. Lewis, in an "Essay on an Indian Policy," later expressed further suspicions that the Robidoux family were fomenting disloyalty to the United States among the Indians, but Clark evidently changed his mind about them, since he granted trading licenses to them as superintendent of Indian affairs. Joseph Robidoux later operated his St. Joseph post for the American Fur Company and continued to play an important role in the western fur trade for many years. Mattes (JR); Lavender (FW), 78; Coues (HLC), 3:1236 and n. 7, 1243.
The camp of [June 16, 1804], was in Carroll County, Missouri, nearly opposite the present town of Waverly. The [June 17] camp was about a mile above this. The island where they now camped would be between Carroll and Lafayette counties, a few miles up the Missouri from Waverly. MRC map 12.
Ordway says they were going to trade with the Kansa Indians.
Kansa Indians.