Goodbye to Four
Journal 2006 08 17
Goodbye to Four
“Settled with Touisant Chabono for his Services as an enterpreter the pric of a horse and Lodge purchased of him for public Service in all amounting to 500$ 33⅓ cents…” My mind wanders back to a cold winter morning two winters and two hundred years ago when Toussaint Charbonneau informs the Captains that he wants to renegotiate his contract with them. They say no, give him one day to change his mind and later send him outside the walls of Fort Mandan. Charbonneau later repents of his foolishness to the Captains and asks for reinstatement. They agree. And here we are at this day in history with the end truly better than the beginning.
Their friend and comrade in arms John Colter leaves camp back up the Missouri for two years of fortune seeking in beaver pelts. The Chief says his goodbyes to all who are weeping never expecting to see him again. Clark smokes one last pipe with the Mandan leaders and sets out downstream. He records the following, “…we then Saluted them with a gun and Set out and proceeded on to Fort Mandan where I landed and went to view the old works the houses except one in the rear bastion was burnt by accident,” The winds picked up and blew so hard that the men were forced to shore and made camp at only twenty miles this day.
Of significance today is that four members of the expedition will continue no further. For the three members of the Charbonneau family their cycle is complete. They started here and end here. For John Colter who had hoped to visit civilization the journey continues.
To me, of greater importance today is what Clark records next. “we also took our leave of T. Chabono, his Snake Indian wife and their Son Child who had accompanied us on our rout to the pacific Ocean in the Capacity of interpreter and interpretes. T. Chabono wished much to accompany us in the Said Capacity if <he> we could have provailed the Menetarre Chiefs to dcend the river with us to the U. States, but as none of those chiefs of whoes <set out> language he was Conversent would accompany us, his Services were no longer of use to the U' States and he was therefore discharged and paid up. we offered to convey him down to the Illinois if he Chose to go, he declined proceeding on at present, observing that he had no acquaintance or prospects of makeing a liveing below, and must continue to live in the way that he had done. I offered to take his little Son a butifull promising Child who is 19 months old to which they both himself & wife wer willing provided the Child had been weened. they observed that in one year the boy would be Sufficiently old to leave his mother & he would then take him to me if I would be so freindly as to raise the Child for him in Such a manner as I thought proper, to which I agreeed &c…”
William Clark, the rock, offered to raise and care for little Jean Baptiste, or Pomp as they all liked to call him, as his own. Charbonneau and his wife, Sacagawea, agree. What must have transpired during the year and a half of travel across our great land that William Clark, an unmarried man, would even offer to take the boy as his own? How deep was the trust and respect of mother and father for Clark that they would agree? We don’t read a lot about the littlest member of the expedition in the journals. My mind races when I picture him through some of the stages of this epic. Who carried him most of the time? Who carried him through the dangerous places? When did he start walking? At nineteen months he most likely was. Did the men reserve their best food for his mother and later for him? How many would see him as part of their family, like a son or little brother? Where was he as they marched across the Rockies near starvation? Where was he when they shot the rapids of the Columbia intent on reaching the Pacific?
This young infant participated in something that marked him for the rest of his life. He did come to be raised by William Clark at age four. Clark had married by then. As a young man he went to Europe with a prince to be exposed to more of the world and receive more education. He returned to America where he led many parties through the wildernesses of the West where he died in the Oregon Country in his early sixties. Pompy’s story needs to be told.
In the story of nineteen month old Jean Baptiste Charbonneau we see a picture of the adoption completed by God the Father. We are told, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” (Romans 8:14 MKJV)
“For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption by which we cry, Abba, Father! The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. And if we are children, then we are heirs; heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ; so that if we suffer with Him, we may also be glorified together.” (Romans 8:15-17 MKJV)
Something happened along the trail to the Pacific and back that joined William Clark to young Pomp and his parents. Something happened in the Garden of Eden that joined Father God to every one of Adam and Eve’s children to follow. He loved us and desired that we would be led by the Spirit of God. He sent his own Son to complete a journey ending in a sacrificial death providing the method through which He could adopt us and raise us as His own.
That is a hard concept to swallow, isn’t it? That God would love us so much that He would send His Son on a sacrificial journey to capture the opportunity for all Adam and Eve’s children to become His by adoption. But He did. And He does. Will I let Him raise me as His own? Will you? Will we give Him our children to raise as His own?
If we believe He is the Creator and truly God, why wouldn’t we?
Proceed on.
Goodbye to Four
“Settled with Touisant Chabono for his Services as an enterpreter the pric of a horse and Lodge purchased of him for public Service in all amounting to 500$ 33⅓ cents…” My mind wanders back to a cold winter morning two winters and two hundred years ago when Toussaint Charbonneau informs the Captains that he wants to renegotiate his contract with them. They say no, give him one day to change his mind and later send him outside the walls of Fort Mandan. Charbonneau later repents of his foolishness to the Captains and asks for reinstatement. They agree. And here we are at this day in history with the end truly better than the beginning.
Their friend and comrade in arms John Colter leaves camp back up the Missouri for two years of fortune seeking in beaver pelts. The Chief says his goodbyes to all who are weeping never expecting to see him again. Clark smokes one last pipe with the Mandan leaders and sets out downstream. He records the following, “…we then Saluted them with a gun and Set out and proceeded on to Fort Mandan where I landed and went to view the old works the houses except one in the rear bastion was burnt by accident,” The winds picked up and blew so hard that the men were forced to shore and made camp at only twenty miles this day.
Of significance today is that four members of the expedition will continue no further. For the three members of the Charbonneau family their cycle is complete. They started here and end here. For John Colter who had hoped to visit civilization the journey continues.
To me, of greater importance today is what Clark records next. “we also took our leave of T. Chabono, his Snake Indian wife and their Son Child who had accompanied us on our rout to the pacific Ocean in the Capacity of interpreter and interpretes. T. Chabono wished much to accompany us in the Said Capacity if <he> we could have provailed the Menetarre Chiefs to dcend the river with us to the U. States, but as none of those chiefs of whoes <set out> language he was Conversent would accompany us, his Services were no longer of use to the U' States and he was therefore discharged and paid up. we offered to convey him down to the Illinois if he Chose to go, he declined proceeding on at present, observing that he had no acquaintance or prospects of makeing a liveing below, and must continue to live in the way that he had done. I offered to take his little Son a butifull promising Child who is 19 months old to which they both himself & wife wer willing provided the Child had been weened. they observed that in one year the boy would be Sufficiently old to leave his mother & he would then take him to me if I would be so freindly as to raise the Child for him in Such a manner as I thought proper, to which I agreeed &c…”
William Clark, the rock, offered to raise and care for little Jean Baptiste, or Pomp as they all liked to call him, as his own. Charbonneau and his wife, Sacagawea, agree. What must have transpired during the year and a half of travel across our great land that William Clark, an unmarried man, would even offer to take the boy as his own? How deep was the trust and respect of mother and father for Clark that they would agree? We don’t read a lot about the littlest member of the expedition in the journals. My mind races when I picture him through some of the stages of this epic. Who carried him most of the time? Who carried him through the dangerous places? When did he start walking? At nineteen months he most likely was. Did the men reserve their best food for his mother and later for him? How many would see him as part of their family, like a son or little brother? Where was he as they marched across the Rockies near starvation? Where was he when they shot the rapids of the Columbia intent on reaching the Pacific?
This young infant participated in something that marked him for the rest of his life. He did come to be raised by William Clark at age four. Clark had married by then. As a young man he went to Europe with a prince to be exposed to more of the world and receive more education. He returned to America where he led many parties through the wildernesses of the West where he died in the Oregon Country in his early sixties. Pompy’s story needs to be told.
In the story of nineteen month old Jean Baptiste Charbonneau we see a picture of the adoption completed by God the Father. We are told, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” (Romans 8:14 MKJV)
“For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption by which we cry, Abba, Father! The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. And if we are children, then we are heirs; heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ; so that if we suffer with Him, we may also be glorified together.” (Romans 8:15-17 MKJV)
Something happened along the trail to the Pacific and back that joined William Clark to young Pomp and his parents. Something happened in the Garden of Eden that joined Father God to every one of Adam and Eve’s children to follow. He loved us and desired that we would be led by the Spirit of God. He sent his own Son to complete a journey ending in a sacrificial death providing the method through which He could adopt us and raise us as His own.
That is a hard concept to swallow, isn’t it? That God would love us so much that He would send His Son on a sacrificial journey to capture the opportunity for all Adam and Eve’s children to become His by adoption. But He did. And He does. Will I let Him raise me as His own? Will you? Will we give Him our children to raise as His own?
If we believe He is the Creator and truly God, why wouldn’t we?
Proceed on.
posted by @2007 Dick Cinkovich | 3:43 PM
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