LA CHARRETTE
A History of the Village Gateway to the American Frontier Visited by Lewis and Clark, Daniel Boone, Zebulon Pike
by Lowell Schake
Every square inch of earth has its own history. In this meticulously researched and compiled study, a small Creole village gets its due.
La Charrette, one of the earliest settlements on the Missouri River, flourished for 30 years in the late 1790s and early 1800s and then disappeared. Using this obscure village as his focal point, Schake covers a wide swath of classic American history–the Louisiana Purchase, Daniel Boone, the fur trade, black and Native-American slavery, the War of 1812, the Trail of Tears and the daily life of the Osage tribe–as it related to the daily life of small town settlers. He includes countless arcane yet fascinating little facts: The origin of the word "Missouri" may be smoky water. Male Osage warriors who showed cowardice in battle were forced to dress as, and live among, the squaws. One of the prime objectives of the Lewis and Clark expedition was to establish friendly relations among the Indians. A local Indian, tried for the murder of his wife, was acquitted on the argument that the prevailing citizenry were, by law, non-native aliens, and therefore he could not be expected to obey their laws. Observed with an acute eye for detail, life in a small river town in the early 1800s was just as complex and rapidly-changing as our own confused era.
A delicately crafted, absorbing account of an American past seldom encountered in conventional histories.