Lewis and Clark | Into the Wild | 1
American History Tellers
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The Mandan Villages of the Great Plains
The mandan villages were the epicenter of trade in the great plains. Each village contained dozens of large domed lodges that housed up to four families and their animals. In all three thousand people lived in these mandan villages more than double the population of st lewis. Every summer people from across the plains converged on them swelling the population even further. They would spend the summer days hawking and haggling over everything from british guns and spanish mules to european combs and chyan leather. At night the traders gambled courted dance and feasted and as hosts of this thriving marketplace the mandans profited handsomely.
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