12 Rene Jusseaume

Rene Jusseaume


There seems to be a lot of historical facts regarding Rene Jusseaume.  He features in several books, and was a translator for the Indian tribes.  He also lived with the Indians and had family.

Divided Loyalties in a Doomed Empire: The French in the West : from New France to the Lewis and Clark Expedition.  by Daniel Royot





http://www.lewis-clark.org/article/2667
 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 

Sheheke, Sheheke-shote, translated as White Coyote, and also known as Coyote or Big White (1766–1812), was a Mandan chief.  His names is also at times spelled Shahaka.

Sheheke was at the time of the arrival of Merriweather Lewis and William Clark among the Mandan in late 1804 the main civil chief at Mitutanka.

Sheheke travelled with Lewis and Clark to meet United States President Thomas Jefferson.  On October 20, 1804, two Mandan leaders, each considering himself the principal chief of Matutonka, came to visit the captains. Having missed the previous day’s meeting, they asked the Americans to repeat their speeches. "They were gratified," Clark reported, "and we put the medal on the neck of the Big White to whome we had Sent Clothes yesterday & a flag." The captains meant well, but as usual they acted hastily, and only worsened an enmity they would have to deal with later.

 Furthermore, they had sealed a relationship with Sheheke that would bear bitter fruit. Upon their return in late August 1806, Sheheke reaffirmed his friendship, and promised that his people would "Shake off all intimacy with the Seioux and unite themselves in a strong alliance and attend to what we had told them &c.” Amid good feelings all around, they smoked, and took a walk together. "The Mandan Chief," Clark observed, "was Saluted by Several Chiefs and brave men on his way with me to the river."

The captains, still eager to fulfill Jefferson’s wish to show Indian leaders the advantages of American culture and civilization, invited Sheheke to return to the East with them, but their gesture only ignited old rivalries, and they had to rely on the able diplomacy of the trader and interpreter René Jusseaume to sort it all out for them. Sheheke finally agreed to go if he could take his wife and son, and if Jusseaume could take his family along, too.  

Because of resistance from Sioux and Arikara warriors, his return home required two attempts in two years, involving a collective force of more than 600 soldiers, cost a total of $20,000 plus four American lives and one limb (of George Shannon), and brought down the careers of at least two great leaders — himself, and Meriwether Lewis. The trip cost him his once respectable reputation among his people, perhaps because of his long absence, but also because his people didn’t believe his tales of the wonders he had seen.

If it is true that Sheheke really wanted to spend the rest of his life among white people, then Jefferson’s policy, as carried out by Lewis and Clark, was vindicated. The irony of his story, however, is that he was killed in his own village by Sioux raiders in 1832. .

Notes from the internet  "I thought I would update you on what I have discovered this past weekend

about Rene Jusseaume.

I found evidence via several sources that the Rene Jusseaume that was born in Montreal in 1753 is the

same Rene Jusseaume that is at the Knife River Trading Camp in 1794 and when Lewis and Clark arrive in 1804. He and Toussaint Charbonneau are there and both have indian women for wives from the Shoshoni tribe. Rene Jusseaume's one wife is known by Broken Tooth and they have two children that accompany them with Lewis and Clark back to Washington DC to report on the findings of

the Corps of Discovery. They go along with the Indian Chief Shahaka or Big White along with his wife and children.

There are no names or genders given for the Jusseaume children, but this would open the possibility for future descendants of Rene Jusseaume when they returned from Washington DC which is believed to be true. Given that Rene Jusseaume's offspring would be Metis, and given that Rene and Broken Tooth were not formally educated the familly name could have easily changed into variations on Jusseaume.

It should be noted that Rene Jusseaume like Toussaint Charbonneau may have had more than one wife. Toussaint from the Journals of Lewis and Clark had three indian wives. So there could be many more offspring than history has recorded for both of these men.

I looked through many various sources this past weekend to locate any original Dusseaume, Dusome, Dussiaume births, marriages or death records up to 1800 and could not find any in the records for

Quebec. So I am guessing that the the Dusseaume came from the many various spellings I have been finding on Jussaume.

The other piece of information I have is that Rene and two of his brothers, Louis and Denis, were hired by Pierre du Calvet who married their sister Marie-Louise Jusseaume, to go west of Montreal as

fur trappers. Pierre du Calvet was a very affluent man who denounced the throne of King George III of England and entertained the Sons of Liberty and Benjamin Franklin at his home in Montreal in 1775 at the beginning of the American Revolution, His home is still there in the old city facing Notre Dame de Bonsecoeur Church.

I have records that show engagements (agreements) between many different men and a Louis Chaboillez to go to Michilimakinac as trappers and hunters. Michilimakinac is what is now Saulte Saint Marie Michigan. Some of the later engagements mention the Mississippi and Missouri River area.

So if not a descendant of Rene Jussaume you could be a descendant of Denis, Louis, Alexandre or Francois Jussaume who are all know to have made many trips west as fur trappers. I am trying now to get more information on these brothers and any know descendants they may have had out in the western wilderness in the 1800-1810 time frame.

I hope this opens up some ideas for you! I know it is not concrete evidence but everytime I go back to the Genealogy Library I find a new piece to the puzzle and they seem to all fit the same puzzle.

Not long after the captains selected their winter site for 1804-1805, the Charbonneau family went a few miles south to the Mandan villages to meet the strangers. Clark's journal entry of November 11, 1804, mentioned them impersonally: "two Squarses of the Rock Mountain, purchased from the Indians by . . . a frenchmen [N(icholas) B(iddle): Chaboneau] Came down." The captains promptly hired Charbonneau as their Hidatsa translator, and Rene Jusseaume as their temporary Mandan translator. Both men and their Indian wives moved into Fort Mandan."

Family history jigsaw puzzles, seems that is what researching one's ancestors amounts to, trying to solve mysteries.  The mention here is that Francois Jussaume, is a brother of Rene Jussaume!