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Show INTRODUCTION The years of Maximilian's expedition were pivotal in American history. As fur traders penetrated farther up the Missouri River and western migration along the Oregon Trail commenced, the end of an era for the Plains Indian began. Maximilian and Bodmer arrived just in time to record the landscapes and the cultures that would soon be irrevocably altered. Arriving in St. Louis in the spring of 1833, the prince-explorer and his illustrator traveled up the Missouri by steamer as far as Fort McKenzie in present-day Montana. Along the way Bodmer sketched the passing scenery and the Indians the travelers met. However, it was on the return voyage at Fort Clark, where the party wintered, that the most detailed observations concerning Indian culture were made. During this time Maximilian and Bodmer had many opportunities to observe the Mandan and Minnetarre tribes in their villages nearby. Bodmer's portfolio was filled with studies of the villages and their inhabitants. Maximilian's scientific observations concerning Indian life, dress, and ceremony, in combination with Bodmer's watercolors and sketches, were to prove critically important as documents of these Indian cultures-three years after the expedition, smallpox decimated the tribes. The significance of the expedition, and of Bodmer's role in it, cannot be overemphasized. Although he followed the same route as Lewis and Clark in 1804, Maximilian's expedition was in many ways unique. Few previous |