Quevillon, Monsignor of Quebec
Fondulac, his brother
Father Hennepin, missionary to the Chippewa
La Salle, Nicollet, his associates
Michel Aco, the interpretor
Shingabawassin, Chippewa Chief
Hiawatha, the noble savage
Sacagawea, the Shoshone woman
Meriweather Lewis, Captain Clark, the explorers
York, Clark’s slave
Mandan
President Jefferson
Andrew Jackson
John Coffee
Ordway, Pryor, sargeants with the Discovery
Act 1, scene 1
Beneath the rapids at Sioux Saint Marie. Friars Hennepin, La Salle, and Aco are carried in a great lake canoe by Shingabawassin and his band. They are traveling west along the Portage route stretching into the lake country. The currents are treacherous.
Hennepin: Aco! Have your Indians set this ship in the channel or we are doomed.
La Salle: We are overloaded with provisions and trinkets. Should we scuttle some?
Hennepin: No! We will need these for barter, and it shall be a long winter.
Aco: my good Shingabawassin, will your men paddle us toward the smoother water by the lee bank, yonder?
Shingabawassin: That is my intention, Monsieur. The spirit of Hiawatha will bring us to safety, I assure you.
Act 1, Scene 2
At the regional offices at Quebec.
Quevillon: To Fondulac. Monsieur, we must put our faith in Hennepin and his men. They will find the passage southward from the lake country to the Gulf of Mexico, with God’s help...and Shingabawassin’s.
Fondulac: What greatness will be bestowed upon you by Louis; you shall be master of all Canada. But if they fail?
Quevillon: Hennepin is tenacious, and a man of the cloth; God will not disappoint us.
Act 2, Scene 1
At the falls of Minnehaha, below St. Anthony Falls
Hiawatha: River, river, deep and flowing; your magic powers most bestowing. Summon up your children westward; seeking trade routes, is Frenchmen’s guesswork. Laughing water, in glinting sunset, seeks to make peace with the Jesuits; beaver, elk and mink and otter, are the traders’ flint and fodder. Now my people treat them kindly, wind and wash will sail them swiftly; drums and peace pipe are awaiting, Jesuit traders at Gitchie Gumie. Peace we seek now with the white man, our daughters are for his deep pleasure. But we wait to see his virtue, to test his measure; for our arrows are sharp and tethered, our nature is as resolute as ever. Now gods of Huron and Missisagi, set the waters in a cauldron; test these black-robed men of Jesus, and see if their courage cracks or pleases.
A storm rises wildly on the south shore of Gitchie Gumie (Superior). The Jesuits hold the gunnels tightly. Shingabawassin looks to the southwest with a calm, keen eye. The Apostle Islands rise on the horizon.
La Salle: Pray thee, Father Hennepin, shall we ride these monstrous swells in safety; will these noble savages protect us?
Aco: By the Lord’s command.
Hennepin: If we are preserved we shall see that our mission on behalf of Louis’ Crown is our destiny.
Act 2, Scene 2
At the headwaters of the Mississippi
Shingabawassin, to the black robes: We have brought you to this place, where the water flows from the rock to join the southern waters, to offer you a sign of peace. Now, come to our encampment and join out daughters in the dance of the snake.
Hennepin: In return for your assistance we bestow our thanks and offer eternal life.
Hiawatha, behind a small waterfall: Now the black-robed men have joined us, they know our hidden places wondrous; their odors are a bit offensive, even the women, can be sensative. But their trinkets are amusing, their lust for furs and timber seems too consuming. They thrust the cross of silver at us shouting, Latin phrases that leave us doubting; whether we have made grave errors, the men unscrupulous tidings bearing; Father water, mother moonlight, send these men downstream at fortnight.
Aco: Shingabawassin, please tell us the route to the southern waters. We would be quite pleased to learn all the Indian tribes and convert them to our religion. Now Father Hennepin will bless and anoint you; you are now Christians and members of the Holy Roman Church.
At the falls of St. Anthony Father Hennepin and his black-robed men find a large village of Ojibwa people living on an Island. As they beach their canoes they spot Nicollet, the Jesuit who has set up a Christian Missionary on the island.
Hennepin: Nicollet, my friend, how goes your missionary work? I see you have begun your chapel here above the falls at the tip of the island.
Nicollet: Yes, my friend, we have accomplished much. We have discovered the hunting grounds at Minnetonka, where pelts and fish are plentiful. The savages, when converted have become very cheerful, though I occasionally hear of trappers who give whisky to some of the unconverted, and they become quite unruly.
La Salle: Yes, my friend, it is our faith that will save the heathen from the evil of drink.
Aco: Gentlemen we must venture on downriver.
Act 2, Scene 3
The black robes travel many days on the ever-widening river. They pass under the high bluffs below the St. Croix and Des Moines rivers. On both banks they see many villages of Native people, stopping whenever feasible to convert them. After a number of weeks they come to a place where a giant muddy river enters from the west. They name the place St. Louis. Aco meets a squaw there and leaves the group, retiring there to establish the first mission for France. Hennepin, LaSalle, and Nicollet continue southward. At the Chickisaw bluffs they meet savages with guns. South of the bluffs they come to the tribe of sun worshipers, the Natchez. The French fleet arrives and decimates the village. Quevillon’s wish is fulfilled; France now has possession of the entire territory, its indigenous people either destroyed or converted within 50 miles of either bank.
Hiawatha’s spirit, inside a tree: these black-robed theives have enslaved my people, with their insidious skyward steeples. They steal my land and pollute my waters, and leave the forests barren of otter. I cast my gaze forever westward, to flee the aggression of the great white father; with his powdered wigs and disingenuous science. The native spirit is now entombed in, the great pine forests of Missouri, but the Cherokee nation now gathering cannot withstand the tall Virginian. Even he is a bit kinder than that Scotsman from the Cumberland. Jackson and his cruel commanders will remove us from our lands. But first the tale of exploration, must be told before expansion.
Act 3, Scene 1
On the Shenandoah Plateau, Jefferson paces the floor of his plantation at Montecello. It has been a year since he purchased the Louisiana Territories from the desperate French, who are losing a slave uprising in Haiti.
Jefferson, writing a letter to the commisary at St. Louis. “My good officers Lewis and Clark, you will be so kind as to send word immediately upon return from the voyage you have undertaken. I trust that your company aboard the Discovery have served with courage and obedience. Your expedition will bring about a vast new land belonging to American soil, and your services collecting various and sundry specimens will serve our science immensely. I am particularly interested in making peace with the native peoples on your route, and that you encourage them to understand that they are now children of the great enlightened father in Washington. Oh, I hear from Adams that many in Concord are now talking about the mythical Hiawatha, of the laughing waters in the Minnesota Territory. One amusing story has him buried in a tree.
Act 3, Scene 2
Somewhere on the upper Missouri.
Clark: York, fetch my sextant; I will take a reading.
York: May I try that glass, sir?
Clark: No, you fool. What would you do with it? Can you read a map?
Lewis: Of course he can’t read a damn map, Clark. Let him play with it.
York: Oh thank you sir.
York drops the sextant in the water. Clark whips him severly.
Lewis: Clark, I think he gets the point.
Clark: Shut up, he’s my slave
Ordway, in the rear canoe, mocking: Oh! he’s my slave. (swooning).
Pryor: Quit your blubbering you limey. Do you want the savages to know we’re here.
Lewis, looking at the map: We take the fork to the right beyond that bluff, I reckon.
Clark: I beg your pardon, but it’s the left fork. (He whips York again). If we only had the sextant.
Lewis: It’s the right fork, I say, and I’ve the whisky in my wannagun, so we’ll do it my way.
They take the right fork, and are suddenly rushing downstream into a series of cataracts. The canoes capsize and as Clark steps from the canoe a fierce Mandan savage approaches.
Mandan: What brings you here, into our lands, where we live in harmony with nature’s elements. You bring your filth and disease, your liquor and guns, and slaughter our wildlife, our sustanence. You foist upon us your wicked religion and enslave us in drink and reservation. You are theives. We are not savages, you are. See how you treat York. You claim to civilize us, hah! Jefferson is a fool. He thinks his expansionist ideas can be controlled. He is an enlightened white father but a more evil Scotsman waits to usurp him.
The crew is bound in leather thongs and taken to a nearby village. They are beaten and watch the village dance. Then a woman, a Shoshone, approaches the crew.
Sacagawea, to the Mandans: Please spare these men. I have heard a song from a bird that brings news from Hiawatha’s spirit. The great white father has promised to release him if we spare these men.
Act 4
At a bend in the Tennessee River near French Lick a group of blue-Jacketed horsemen gallop down on a Cherokee village. The tall one, Jackson, decapitates the first child he sees with a long sword.
Andrew Jackson: Hey Coffee, get your men over on their left flank, some women and children are attempting an escape by the river.
Hiawatha’s spirit, entombed in a sandstone boulder on the banks of the Tennessee River: These wretched blue coats murdered our children, sent our women to Oklahoma; they even took our once-proud visage, and pasted it on circus placards; Buffalo Bill has proffered our legacy; now our people are roped and liquored, our once proud land is crossed and ironed; Lord Jackson’s murderous spirit conquered Jefferson, our white father. No hope have we of an uprising, matchless to their automatic weapons. The place we now are forced to inhabit is now the prison they call the reservation.
