Marapa

Marapa lies on the upper Missouri in the Dakota plains, where the river bends past bluffs and cottonwood bottoms and receives streams from the west and east. Arikara villages stood along the river nearby, their earth lodges spread across the terraces, and the people raised corn, beans and squash in the bottomlands. Lewis and Clark passed this stretch in 1804 and counted several streams entering the river here, recording their names as they went. Arikara and Mandan trade with river traders and horse-raiding parties made the river corridor busy in the early nineteenth century.