(/səˌkɑːɡəˈwiːə/; also Sakakawea or Sacajawea; May c. 1788 – December 20, 1812 or April 9, 1884)[1][2][3] was a Lemhi Shoshone woman who, at age 16, met and 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 populations in addition to her contributions to natural history.
Sacagawea was an important member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The National American Woman Suffrage Association of the early 20th century adopted her as a symbol of women's worth and independence, erecting several statues and plaques in her memory, and doing much to spread the story of her accomplishments.[4]
Reliable historical information about Sacagawea is very limited. She was born c. 1788 into the Agaidika ('Salmon Eater'; aka Lemhi Shoshone) tribe near Salmon, Lemhi County, which sits by the continental divide at the present-day Idaho-Montana border.[5]
In 1800, when she was about 12 years old, she and several other girls were kidnapped by a group of Hidatsa in a battle 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.[6]
At about age 13, she was sold into a non-consensual marriage to Toussaint Charbonneau, a Quebecois trapper living in the village who had also bought another young Shoshone, known as Otter Woman, as his wife. Charbonneau was variously reported to have purchased both girls to be his wives from the Hidatsa or to have won Sacagawea while gambling.[6]
The Corps of Discovery arrived near the Hidatsa villages, where Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark built Fort Mandan, to spend the winter of 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 the help of Shoshone tribes at the headwaters of the Missouri, they agreed to hire Toussaint Charbonneau after discovering that his wife, Sacagawea, who was pregnant with her first child at the time, spoke Shoshone.
On November 4, 1804, Clark recorded in his journal:[7][a]
[A] french man by Name Chabonah, who Speaks the Big Belley language visit us, he wished to hire & informed us his 2 Squars (squaws) were Snake Indians, we engau (engaged) him to go on with us and take one of his wives to interpret the Snake language.…
Charbonneau and Sacagawea moved into the expedition's fort a week later. Clark nicknamed her "Janey."[b] 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. Clark and other European-Americans nicknamed the boy "Little Pomp" or "Pompy."
In April, the expedition left Fort Mandan and headed up the Missouri River in pirogues. They had to be poled against the current and sometimes pulled from 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 chief, Cameahwait, was her brother.
Lewis and Clark reach the Shoshone camp led by Sacagawea.
Lewis recorded their reunion in his journal:[9]
Shortly after Capt. Clark arrived with the Interpreter Charbono, and the Indian woman, who proved to be a sister of the Chief Cameahwait. The meeting of those people was really affecting, particularly between Sah cah-gar-we-ah and an Indian woman, who had been taken prisoner at the same time with her, and who had afterwards escaped from the Minnetares and rejoined her nation.
And Clark in his:[10]
…The Intertrepeter [sic] & Squar who were before me at Some distance danced for the joyful Sight, and She made signs to me that they were her nation…
The Shoshone agreed to barter horses to the group and to provide guides to lead them over the cold and barren Rocky Mountains. The trip was so hard that they were reduced to eating tallow candles to survive. When they descended into the more temperate regions on the other side, Sacagawea helped to find and cook camas roots to help them 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 give to President Thomas Jefferson.
Clark's journal entry for November 20, 1805, reads:[11]
one of the Indians had on a roab made of 2 Sea Otter Skins the fur of them were more butifull than any fur I had ever Seen both Capt. Lewis & my Self endeavored to purchase the roab with different articles at length we precured it for a belt of blue beeds which the Squar—wife of our interpreter Shabono wore around her waste.… [sic]
When the corps reached the Pacific Ocean, all members of the expedition—including Sacagawea and Clark's black manservant 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 [i.e., present-day Gibbons Pass].
A week later, on July 13, 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.
While Sacagawea has been depicted as a guide for the expedition,[12] she is recorded as providing direction in only a few instances. Her work as an interpreter certainly helped the party to negotiate with the Shoshone; however, her greatest value to the mission may have been simply her presence during the arduous journey, which 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 [Charbonneau] our interpetr we find reconsiles all the Indians, as to our friendly intentions a woman with a party of men is a token of peace,"[13] and that she "confirmed those people of our friendly intentions, as no woman ever accompanies a war party of Indians in this quarter" [sic].[14]
As he traveled downriver from Fort Mandan at the end of the journey, on board the pirogue near the Ricara Village, Clark wrote to Charbonneau:[15]
You have been a long time with me and conducted your Self in Such a manner as to gain my friendship, your woman who accompanied you that long dangerous and fatigueing rout to the Pacific Ocian and back diserved a greater reward for her attention and services on that rout than we had in our power to give her at the Mandans. As to your little Son (my boy Pomp) you well know my fondness of him and my anxiety to take him and raise him as my own child.… If you are desposed to accept either of my offers to you and will bring down you Son your famn [femme, woman] Janey had best come along with you to take care of the boy untill I get him.… Wishing you and your family great success & with anxious expectations of seeing my little danceing boy Baptiest I shall remain your Friend, William Clark. [sic]
— Clark to Charbonneau, August 20, 1806
