By late October 1804 the Corps of Discovery reached the villages of the Mandan Indian tribe, where they built Fort Mandan (near present-day Stanton, North Dakota), and spent the winter of 1804-1805. The Mandan people lived in earth lodges along the Missouri River. Their neighbors the Hidatsa lived along the Knife River close by. The villages of the Mandan and Hidatsa people were the center of a huge trade network in the West. Lewis and Clark were not the first European
Americans to visit this part of the country. During the winter Lewis and Clark recruited a Frenchman who had lived with the Hidatsa (sometimes referred to as the Minnetari) Indians for many years. His name was Toussaint Charbonneau, and the captains wanted him to act as an interpreter. They got a real bargain, because along with charbonneau would come his 16-year old shoshone wife, Sacagawea, and her newborn baby boy.