Sacagawea
Sacagawea was a Lemhi Shoshone or Hidatsa woman who, in her teens, helped the Lewis and Clark Expedition in achieving their chartered mission objectives by exploring the Louisiana Territory. Sacagawea traveled with the expedition thousands of miles from North Dakota to the Pacific Ocean, helping to establish cultural contacts with Native American people and contributing to the expedition's knowledge of natural history in different regions.
The National American Woman Suffrage Association of the early 20th century adopted Sacagawea as a symbol of women's worth and independence, erecting several statues and plaques in her memory, and doing much to recount her accomplishments.
Early life
Reliable historical information about Sacagawea is very limited.According to Toussaint Charbonneau, her husband, she was born into the Agaidika tribe near present-day Salmon, Idaho. This is near the continental divide at the present-day Idaho-Montana border. In 1800, when she was about 12 years old, Sacagawea and several other children were taken captive by a group of Hidatsa in a raid that resulted in the deaths of several Shoshone: four men, four women, and several boys. She was held captive at a Hidatsa village near present-day Washburn, North Dakota. She disclosed to Lewis and other expedition members that four Shoshone men and some boys were killed in the battle, and she was taken captive with other women and boys. Her captors were "Gos Vauntos Indians," which some historians attribute to the Hidatsa.
According to an alternative theory presented in the Sacagawea Project Board's 2021 book Our Story of Eagle Woman, Sacagawea was born as a member of the Hidatsa tribe, and was possibly abducted by the Shoshone before returning to her tribe. The authors cite a 1923 oral history told by a man who claimed to be her grandson, Bulls Eye, that was supported by contemporary elders in the tribe. The Sacagawea Project Board conducted DNA testing that they say shows a genetic link between Hidatsa descended from Cedar Woman, who was said to be Sacagawea's daughter, and French Canadians with the name Charbonneau.
At about age 13, she was sold into a non-consensual marriage to Charbonneau, a Quebecois trapper. He had also bought another young Shoshone girl, known as Otter Woman, for a wife. Charbonneau was variously reported to have purchased both girls from the Hidatsa, or to have won Sacagawea while gambling.
Lewis and Clark Expedition
In 1804, the Corps of Discovery reached a Mandan village, where Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark built Fort Mandan for wintering over in 1804–05. They interviewed several trappers who might be able to interpret or guide the expedition up the Missouri River in the springtime. Knowing they would need to communicate with the tribal nations who lived at the headwaters of the Missouri River, they agreed to hire Toussaint Charbonneau in early winter of 1804, who claimed to speak several Native languages, and one of his wives, who spoke Shoshone. Sacagawea was pregnant with her first child at the time.On November 4, 1804, Clark recorded in his journal:
Charbonneau and Sacagawea moved into the expedition's fort a week later. Clark later nicknamed her "Janey." Lewis observed her activities as part of his ethnographic report on Native people. She and her family traveled mostly in the co-captains' company, ate near or with them, and shared the same tent. Lewis recorded the birth of Jean Baptiste Charbonneau on February 11, 1805, noting that another of the party's interpreters administered crushed rattlesnake rattles in water to speed the delivery, which helped with the painful delivery. Clark and other members of the Corps nicknamed the boy "Pomp" or "Pompy."
In April 1805, the expedition left Fort Mandan and headed up the Missouri River in pirogues and Sacagawea carried young Jean Baptiste on her back in an Indian cradleboard. While heading up the Missouri River, they had to be poled against the current and sometimes pulled by crew along the riverbanks. On May 14, 1805, Sacagawea rescued items that had fallen out of a capsized boat, including the journals and records of Lewis and Clark. The corps commanders, who praised her quick action, named the Sacagawea River in her honor on May 20, 1805. By August 1805, the corps had located a Shoshone tribe and was attempting to trade for horses to cross the Rocky Mountains. They used Sacagawea to interpret and discovered that the tribe's leader, Cameahwait, was her brother, though in the Shoshoni language cousin and brother are the same word.
Lewis recorded their reunion in his journal:
And Clark in his:
The Shoshone agreed to barter horses and to provide guides to lead the expedition over the Rocky Mountains. The mountain crossing took longer than expected, and the expedition's food supplies dwindled. When they descended into more temperate regions, Sacagawea helped to find and cook camas roots to help the party members regain their strength.
As the expedition approached the mouth of the Columbia River on the Pacific Coast, Sacagawea gave up her beaded belt to enable the captains to trade for a fur robe they wished to bring back to give to President Thomas Jefferson.
Clark's journal entry for November 20, 1805, reads:
When the corps reached the Pacific Ocean, all members of the expedition—including Sacagawea and Clark's enslaved servant York—voted on November 24 on the location for building their winter fort. In January, when a whale's carcass washed up onto the beach south of Fort Clatsop, Sacagawea insisted on her right to go see this "monstrous fish."
On the return trip, they approached the Rocky Mountains in July 1806. On July 6, Clark recorded:
The Indian woman informed me that she had been in this plain frequently and knew it well. ... She said we would discover a gap in the mountains in our direction .A week later, on July 13, 1806 Sacagawea advised Clark to cross into the Yellowstone River basin at what is now known as Bozeman Pass. Later, this was chosen as the optimal route for the Northern Pacific Railway to cross the continental divide:
"The Indian woman who has been of great service to me as a pilot through this Country recommends a gap in the mountain more South which I shall cross."
While Sacagawea has been depicted as a guide for the expedition, she is recorded as providing direction in only a few instances, primarily in present-day Montana. Her work as a guide revolved around her geographical insight and as an interpreter. Her work as an interpreter helped the party to negotiate with the Shoshone. But, she also had significant value to the mission simply by her presence on the journey, as having a woman and infant accompany them demonstrated the peaceful intent of the expedition. While traveling through what is now Franklin County, Washington, in October 1805, Clark noted that "the wife of Shabono our interpreter, we find reconciles all the Indians, as to our friendly intentions a woman with a party of men is a token of peace." Further he wrote that she "confirmed those people of our friendly intentions, as no woman ever accompanies a war party of Indians in this quarter".
As Clark traveled downriver from Fort Mandan at the end of the journey, on board the pirogue near the Ricara Village, he wrote to Charbonneau:
Sacagawea was mentioned 108 times in the combined Lewis and Clark journals, often in passing as "the wife of our interpreter," "our squaw," or "the Snake woman."
Later life and death
Children
Following the expedition, Charbonneau and Sacagawea spent three years among the Hidatsa before accepting William Clark's invitation to settle in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1809. They entrusted Jean-Baptiste's education to Clark, who enrolled the young man in the Saint Louis Academy boarding school. Sacagawea gave birth to a daughter, Lizette Charbonneau, about 1812. Lizette was identified as a year-old girl in adoption papers in 1813 recognizing William Clark, who also adopted her older brother that year. Because Clark's papers make no later mention of Lizette, it is believed that she died in childhood.Death
According to Bonnie "Spirit Wind-Walker" Butterfield, historical documents suggest that Sacagawea died in 1812 of an unknown sickness. For instance, a journal entry from 1811 by Henry Brackenridge, a fur trader at Fort Lisa Trading Post on the Missouri River, wrote that Sacagawea and Charbonneau were living at the fort. Brackenridge recorded that Sacagawea "had become sickly and longed to revisit her native country." John Luttig, a Fort Lisa clerk, recorded in his journal on December 20, 1812, that "the wife of Charbonneau, a Snake Squaw , died of putrid fever." He said that she was "aged about 25 years. She left a fine infant girl." Documents held by Clark show that Charbonneau had already entrusted their son Baptiste to Clark's care for a boarding school education, at Clark's insistence.In February 1813, a few months after Luttig's journal entry, 15 men were killed in a Native attack on Fort Lisa, which was then located at the mouth of the Bighorn River. John Luttig, as well as Sacagawea's infant daughter, were among the survivors. Charbonneau was mistakenly thought to have been killed at this time, but he apparently lived to at least age 76. He had signed over formal custody of his son to William Clark in 1813.
As further proof that Sacagawea died in 1812, Butterfield writes:
An adoption document made in the Orphans Court Records in St. Louis, Missouri, states, 'On August 11, 1813, William Clark became the guardian of Tousant Charbonneau, a boy about ten years, and Lizette Charbonneau, a girl about one year old.' For a Missouri State Court at the time, to designate a child as orphaned and to allow an adoption, both parents had to be confirmed dead in court papers.
The last recorded document referring to Sacagawea's life appears in William Clark's original notes written between 1825 and 1826. He lists the names of each of the expedition members and their last known whereabouts. For Sacagawea, he writes, "Se car ja we au— Dead."