History
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Pierre Dorion, Sr., born in Canada in 1740, was an early trader in what is now South Dakota who came to the area around 1774–1775 to trade with the Sioux. He married Holy Rainbow, the daughter of a Yankton Sioux chief. While delivering a boatload of hides and tallow to St. Louis, he met the Corps of Discovery on June 12th, 1804, during their trek upriver and was hired as their interpreter. On August 29th and 30th, he translated the Sioux language for Captains Lewis and Clark during a grand council below Calumet Bluff near Gavins Point Dam. Lewis and Clark then hired him to take a delegation of Yankton Sioux to Washington D.C. to meet President Thomas Jefferson in 1805. He died in 1810.
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Yankton, South Dakota · United States
