Pierre Dorion, Il

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Dorion_Jr.

Pierre Dorion Jr. (1782-1814) was a Métis fur trapper and interpreter that worked across the modern Midwestern United States and later the Pacific Northwest.

Early life

Pierre was named after his father, Pierre Dorion Sr. and had a Yankton Sioux mother. He remained among the Yankton peoples for much of his early life. Dorion met members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition on 29 August 1804. At the time he was engaged in mercantile transactions with some of the 70 Yankton present by the explorer's camp. Later in 1806 he took Marie Aioe Dorion as a wife "through barter or wager." Dorion was employed by Nathaniel Hale Pryor as an interpreter in a trading expedition organized by Pryor in 1807. Besides Dorion there were 10 other men and a small boat used to sail up the Missouri River to trade with the Sioux nations. In 1809, Manuel Lisa hired Dorion for his services as an interpreter and "conducted their traders in safety through the different tribes of the Sioux." While based at Fort Lisa, Dorion quickly became in debt due to excessive purchases of alcohol. In June 1810, Dorion, Marie and their two infant children left Fort Lisa for St. Louis.

Pacific Fur Company

In the winter of 1810-1811, Dorion was the only qualified speaker of the Sioux languages in St. Louis. This made him a desirable hire for fur traders. Both Lisa and W. Price Hunt wanted to have his services for their companies, respectively the Missouri Fur Company and the Pacific Fur Company. In the end, Hunt was able to secure Dorion, on the condition that Marie and his two children be brought along as well. Early into the travel north where the PFC wintering camp was located, Dorion physically abused his wife and caused her to flee for a day. Upon rejoining the main party, Hunt led the expedition further up the Missouri, intent on following the course made by Lewis and Clark. After leaving Fort Osage, Dorion "severely beat his squaw" as Marie desired to stay with newly made Osage acquiescences rather than continue with the expedition.

A war party of several hundred Lakota and Yankton were eventually encountered. A battle was narrowly avoided by the firing the company cannons with only powder and the linguistic skills of Dorion. In the ensuing discussions with assembled Sioux leadership Dorion translated for Hunt. Assurances were given that the expedition wouldn't trade with the neighboring Arikara, Mandan and the Gros Ventre nations, all three of whom the Sioux were at war with. After this the expedition was allowed to continue towards the Pacific Coast.

Lisa and his own expedition caught up with the PFC group in early June. John Bradbury recounted how tensions arose between Dorion and Lisa:

Mr. Lisa had invited Dorion, our interpreter, to his boat, where he had given him some whiskey, and took that opportunity of avowing his intention to take him away from Mr. Hunt, in consequence of a debt due by Dorion to the Missouri Fur Company.

A duel between Lisa and Dorion was narrowly avoided by Henry Marie Brackenridge and Bradbury intervening between the men.

Death

After many material struggles, the overland expedition reached Fort Astoria in 1812. Dorion and his family were sent to the Snake River as part of a trapping outfit under John Reed the following year. Early in 1814, Dorion, Reed and five other trappers were killed by a band of either Northern Shoshone or Bannocks. His wife and two children then began their celebrated journey back to the safety of PFC posts.

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• http://www.offbeatoregon.com/H022_MarieDorion.htm

Marie Dorion was married to a man named Pierre, whose extraordinary skills as a scout were matched up with an extreme and violent temper. He's reputed to have once nearly scalped his own father in a bar fight.

When Pierre was hired in St. Louis to guide the Astor party to Oregon in 1811, he was given a $200 advance .. Marie told her husband that if he had engaged the family's word to work for the Astorians, they would do it. Stealing $200 was not an option.

Pierre's anger, amplified by the liquor, rose and he attacked and struck his wife. Peltier's book doesn't give details of this blow, whether it was a slap or a punch or what.  In any case, Marie responded by grabbing a club and knocking Pierre unconscious.  One thing would never be the same, though: As Gulick puts it, "There is no record that Pierre Dorion ever attempted to beat his wife again."

Family

• Parents:  son of Pierre Dorion I and a Yankton mother, born in a Yankton village in today's Dakotas.  

married 

1. Marie Aloe Laguivoise (1786 - 1850) also known by Marie Aloe Dorion Venier Toupin.

and their children were:   (These are children that have been documented.  There may be more.)  

1. Paul  (b.1808/09).
2. Jean Baptiste (b.1812/13).
3. Unnamed baby, born 29 December 1811, while enroute from St. Louis to Astoria on the Pacific coast.  (This baby died within a month).                         

Brief Biography

In June of 1839 he joined a party at Ft. Pierre on the Missouri, consisting of Joseph Nicollet, John Fremont, Charles Geyer, William Dickson, Louison Freniere, Etienne Provost, Jacques Fournaise, Francois Latulipe, Joseph Chartran, Louis Zindel, William May, and several others not mentioned, on their way north to Devil's Lake then reaching Lac qui Parle (at Joseph Renville's fort) on August 25th - - -joining the party was Pierre Dorion, probably a descendant of "old" Pierre Dorion, Sr., the interpreter who had accompanied Lewis and Clark through the Dakota country . . "  ( from Joseph Nicollet's journal of his 1838/39 expeditions for the U.S. government).

On 29 August 1804, Pierre II is with a large band of Yankton, who meet the Lewis & Clark expedition on the Missouri just above the mouth of the James River when he is mentioned in the expedition journal:  ". . . At four o'clock in the afternoon, Sergeant Pryor and his party arrived on the opposite side, attended by five chiefs and about 70 men and boys.  We sent a boat for them and they joined us, as did also Mr. (Pierre) Dorion, son of our interpreter, who happened to be trading with the Sioux at this time..".  In 1809 he served as an interpreter on the Missouri River for Manuel Lisa and in 1811 journeyed west with the land expedition (led by Wilson P. Hunt) of American Fur Co.  Lisa obtained a warrant against Dorion in the spring of 1811 for an unpaid debt that Pierre had incurred as a former employee at Fort Mandan.  In summer of 1813 he left Astoria with a group led by John Reed to Snake River Country and spent the winter of 1813/14 on the Boise River in Idaho.  Gabriel Franchere's journal describes finding Pierre's wife and two boys on the Upper Columbia River while on his return journey to Canada from Astoria.  Regner, John Hubbough, Gilles Leclerc, Francois Landry, J.B. Turcotte, Andre Lachapelle and Pierre De Launay dead) and her escape the previous January.

Sources:

• [https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.2.1/9C4Q-2CK%C2%A0"Pedigree Resource File," database, FamilySearch (http://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.2.1/9C4Q-2CK : accessed 20 March 2012), entry for Pierre Dorion.]
• Munnick, Harriet Duncan. Catholic Church Records of the Pacific Northwest; Vancouver, Volumes I & II (1838–1856) and Stellamaris Mission (1848–1860). St. Paul, OR: French Prairie Press, 1972 "Pierre Dorion, who was part of the Hunt party expedition to Astoria, was killed in the aftermath of the Reed party massacre in 1814."

Links

• http://users.usinternet.com/dfnels/dorion.htm
• http://www.museum.bmi.net/MARIE%20DORION%20PEOPLE/pierre__dorion_ii...
• Reed and Fort Boise, 1814-35. J. Neilson Barry. Oregon Historical Quarterly. Vol. 34, No. 1 (Mar., 1933), pp. 60-67