Timeline
Maximilian begins his journey from Neuwied (Rhineland-Palatinate), heading to Helvoet in Holland.
May 17, 1832
The party boards the brig Janus for a 6 week transatlantic voyage.
Maximilian and Bodmer arrive in Boston
July 5, 1832
Maximilian and Bodmer begin a three week tour of the northeastern United States. They visit Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. They witnessed Independence Day celebrations, visited museums, toured monuments commemorating the Revolutionary War, and learned of a cholera outbreak that had recently spread from Canada to New York. This affected their travel plans and prevented contact with noted naturalists, who were indisposed during the epidemic.
Maximilian, Bodmer, and Dreidoppel set out for the German settlement of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania by stagecoach. Maximilian identified Bethlehem as a base of operation for his first intensive study of North American flora and fauna. They would shoot hundreds of birds, reptiles, and other animal specimens, which they shipping back to Neuwied. They would spend six weeks in Bethlehem.
September 17, 1832
Maximilian, Bodmer, and Dreidoppel depart Bethlehem and travel west by stagecoach and steamboat across Pennsylvania and along the Ohio River. Their destination was New Harmony, Indiana, a former commune and by the 1830s a destination for scholars.
Arrive in New Harmony. Maximilian and Dreidoppel become ill and convalesce for several weeks. New Harmony featured a natural history museum and was home to two eminent naturalists, Charles-Alexandre Lesueur and Thomas Say. While in New Harmony, they continue to hunt and catalog new species for transshipment back to Europe
January 3, 1833
Bodmer leaves Maximilian and Dreidoppel and travels via steamboat to New Orleans,Louisiana. After conducting business in New Orleans, he returns via the Mississippi with stops in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Natchez, Mississippi. He makes his first portraits of native peoples, a group of Choctaw (Chahta) he encounters in Natchez. He returns to New Harmony by February 15, 1833.
Maximilian, Bodmer, and Dreidoppel depart New Harmony for St. Louis. They travel via steamboat along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.
March 24, 1833
The party arrives in St. Louis. Here they meet William Clark (of Lewis and Clark fame). They stay for two weeks. St. Louis was a major center of national and international trade and gateway to “the West.” Clark was, at the time, the superintendent of Indian Affairs. Maximilian observers negotiations between Clark and Sauk and Meskwaki delegates. Maximilian arranges with the American Fur Company to make use of their steamboats and trading posts along their journey.
The expedition departs St. Louis on the steamboat Yellow Stone, and begins their journey up the Missouri River. In the first several weeks, they visit the military base at Leavenworth (Nebraska territory).
The party arrives in Bellevue, in present-day Nebraska. The settlement hosts Fontenelle’s trading post. Over the next two days, Maximilian and Bodmer meet and document their encounters with the Omaha (Umoⁿhoⁿ).
May 11, 1833
While traveling north on the Missouri River, the party encounter three Ponca men, who later sit for portraits with Bodmer.
May 25, 1833
Maximilian arrives at the Sioux Agency, located in modern day South Dakota. Bodmer completes several portraits of the Dacota Yankton (Iháŋkthuŋwaŋ) chief Wahktä́geli, referred to by Maximilian as “Big Soldier.” Maximilian later visits Wahktä́geli in his lodge and shares in a pipe ceremony.
The party arrives at Fort Pierre. Over the next several days, the group packed specimens and other artifacts they had collected to send them back to St. Louis and prepared for the continuation of the voyage up the Missouri. They resume their journey on June 5, now aboard the steamship Assiniboine.
June 18, 1833
The party stays overnight at Fort Clark and encounter members of the Mandan (Miiti Naamni), Hidatsas (Awadi Aguraawi), and Crows (Apsáalooke). The Mandan chiefs Cháratä-Numakschi and Mató-Tópe come aboard the Assiniboine and tell Maximilian that peace with the Dacotas was not possible because they “were very unreliable people.”
Seventy-five days after leaving St. Louis, the expedition reached Fort Union, in present day North Dakota, which was the farthest a steamboat could navigate on the Missouri at that time. Like the other Missouri River forts visited by Maximilian and Bodmer, Fort Union was not a military encampment but a commercial outpost owned by John Jacob Astor’s American Fur Company and operated for trading purposes. During their stay, Bodmer produced studies of the Assiniboine (Asiniibwaan) people who frequented the post.
In order to push further west, Maximilian’s party board a Fur Company keelboat (the Flora) and begin a 500 mile trip upstream toward Fort McKenzie, north of what is now Great Falls, Montana.
August 5, 1833
At the mouth of the Judith River, the party come across a large encampment of Gros Ventre (A’aninin). Maximilian is “not very glad to see them” because “they did not own many articles for trade and yet wanted to have goods” and worries that “eight to nine hundred Indians can easily massacre the fifty men on our boat.” Nonetheless the encounter proceeds without incident and Bodmer is able to depict the Gros Ventre’s encampment and produces a portrait of their chief Niätóhsä.
August 6, 1833
The party pass through a particularly beautiful area of the Missouri River where Bodmer depicts The Citadel-Rock on the Upper Missouri.
The party arrives at Fort McKenzie (Montana), the American Fur Company’s most remote outpost on the Upper Missouri. Bodmer and Maximilian stay here for five weeks.
August 10, 1833
Maximilian witnesses a trading ritual at Fort McKenzie between representatives of the Piegan Blackfoot (Piikáni), Kainai (Káínaa; referred to by Maximilian as “Blood Indians”), and Gros Ventre nations. Maximilian later reports on rumors that the Kainai were planning to murder those staying at Fort McKenzie. Tensions with the Kainai increase after a Kainai tribesman accidentally shot dead a French-Canadian who was working in the fur trade.
August 16, 1833
Bear Chief (Nínoch-Kiä́iu), a Piegan chief, threatens to lead an attack against the Kainai after accusing them of murdering his nephew.
August 28, 1833
Approximately 580 Assiniboine and Cree (Néhinaw) warriors attack an encampment of Piegan Blackfeet outside of Fort McKenzie. Maximilian and his party shelter inside the Fort helping care for the wounded Piegan and even helping to mount a defense against the attacking Assiniboine, who eventually withdrew to the nearby hills.
Maximilian had originally planned to continue westward towards the Rocky Mountains, but the continued threat of attack from different indigenous nations and the dangers of taking a small party through the region, persuaded him to instead return downriver towards Fort Union.
The party arrives back at Fort Union, where they stay until October 30.
October 11, 1834
Maximilian and Bodmer participate in a Buffalo hunt.
Maximilian and Bodmer return to Fort Clark to spend the winter of 1833–34 near the Mandan village Mih-Tutta-Hangkusch. During this extremely bitter winter, Maximilian collects much information from the tribal warriors and elders, and Bodmer executes numerous watercolor portraits.
The party leaves Fort Clark and continues downriver. They stop at Fort Pierre and the Sioux Agency, finding that both outposts have suffered a harsh winter with little access to fresh food.
May 6, 1834
The party meets the steamboat Assinboine on its way upstream and exchange news with their former crew.
The party arrives in St. Louis, immediately visiting the offices of the American Fur Company. They pack many of the specimens they have collected, including ordering four crates to carry live bears, and prepare them for shipment back to Germany.
June 3, 1834
Maximilian and Bodmer leaves St. Louis on the steamboat Metamora. They retrace their route eastward on the Ohio, again visiting New Harmony, Indiana on their way to Vincennes, Indiana.
The party departs from their prior route eastward along the Ohio when they depart northward along the Ohio Canal. They visit Cincinatti, Cleveland, and Buffalo before arriving at Niagara Falls on June 28, 1834.
July 1, 1834
Maximilian and Bodmer voyage along the Erie Canal to Albany and descended the Hudson River to New York City. They set sail from New York harbor on July 16th, 1834 for Le Havre, France.
Maximilian and Bodmer arrive at Le Havre on August 8th, 1834. They spend over two weeks traveling via steamboat and overland through France, the Netherlands, and Germany before arriving at Monrepos, the summer residence of the Wied family near Neuwied.
