George Drouillard

George Drouillard (Shawnee) (1773-1810) was a civilian interpreter, scout, hunter, and cartographer, hired at the age of 30 for Lewis and Clark's Voyage of Discovery to explore the territory of the Louisiana Purchase in 1804-1806, in search of a water route to the Pacific Ocean. He later worked as a guide and trapper for Manuel Lisa on the upper Missouri River, joining his Missouri Fur Company in 1809. Drouillard was believed to have been killed in that area while trapping beaver, in an attack by Blackfeet or Gros Ventre people.

George Drouillard was born into the Shawnee nation in 1773 in the Detroit River region, son of Pierre Drouillard, a French Canadian, and Asoundechris Flat Head, a Shawnee. At the time of the American Revolutionary War, Pierre Drouillard was employed by the British Indian Department as a trader and interpreter of the Huron language, of the Iroquoian language family. (Note: Other accounts say he was born in 1775.).

Pierre Drouillard was commissioned as a captain by the British army. Drouillard is credited with saving the life of colonist and explorer Simon Kenton, held as a prisoner of the Shawnee at Sandusky, Ohio, in 1778. He brought gifts to trade for Kenton's life and said the British needed to interrogate the man about revolutionary activities on the frontier.

As a boy, George Drouillard learned to read and write. He then acquired frontier skills by becoming a hunter, a trapper, and a cartographer. He grew up speaking Shawnee, an Algonquian language; French and English. He also was proficient at the sign language common among Native American peoples of different language families.

At the age of 28, George Drouillard was hired by Captain Meriwether Lewis for the United States' official expedition into the newly acquired Louisiana Territory. He went to Tennessee in late 1803 to escort eight volunteers of the party to St. Louis, where the Corps of Discovery was wintering at Fort Dubois outside the city. Only four were accepted by Lewis and Clark.

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