S
Recent scholarship has downplayed the role that Sacagawea played in the Lewis and Clark expedition, claiming that she mainly pointed out landmarks in the territory that her people, the Shoshone, frequented. Still, she is a figure writ large in the imaginations of many Americans. Sacagawea’s legendary status stems in part from Eva Emery Dye’s 1902 novel, The Conquest: The True Story of Lewis and Clark, in which her role is expanded beyond what is known from actual historical documents. In truth, the detailed journals of Meriwether Lewis rarely mention her; however, William Clark notes on several occasions in his own journal that Sacagawea was a significant asset to the expedition.
Little is known about Sacagawea beyond her involvement in the Lewis and Clark expedition. However, it is generally accepted that when she was between twelve and fourteen years old, she was captured by the Hidatsa Indians while a part of either a Shoshone hunting party or war expedition. She was then sold to Toussaint Charbonneau, a French-Canadian trapper and fur trader. While Charbonneau took her as one of his wives, the relationship appears to have been rather tumultuous with indications that he abused her. On one occasion during the Lewis and Clark expedition, Clark had to reprimand Charbonneau for beating her.
Sacagawea aided the Lewis and Clark expedition through the Louisiana Purchase territory in 1805–1806 as a guide and interpreter. She proved invaluable when reunited with her native Shoshone people, from whom she was separated as a young girl. This image is from a drawing by E. S. Paxton, ca. 1810. (Getty Images)
Sacagawea was about seventeen years old and a mother of a two-month-old son, Jean-Baptiste, when she first encountered Lewis and Clark. They were spending the winter of 1804 in Hidatsa territory in present-day North Dakota, where Sacagawea and her husband were living. Lewis and Clark had been commissioned by Thomas Jefferson to explore the territories north and west of the Mississippi, a mission that gained urgency after Jefferson acquired the Louisiana Purchase from France in late 1803. While the Louisiana Purchase also included Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Minnesota, the Lewis and Clark expedition, accompanied by Sacagawea, explored the territories of the Upper Great Plains, present-day Nebraska, North and South Dakota, and Montana. Jefferson also charged the expedition with finding an overland route to the Pacific Ocean as well as establishing treaties with some of the local tribes, gaining them as allies and trading partners.
Accounts vary as to whether Lewis and Clark sought Charbonneau for his services or whether he first offered them to Lewis and Clark. However, Lewis and Clark appear to have had a specific interest in Sacagawea, assuming that having a Native American woman and her young child on the expedition would demonstrate their peaceful intentions to the various tribes along their route, a strategy that did keep them from violent skirmishes with some of the Native Americans they encountered. Sacagawea, often referred to as “Janey” in Clark’s journals, proved particularly useful among her own people, the Shoshone. Some time after Sacagawea’s capture by the Hidatsas, her brother, Cameahwait, had become chief of the tribe. So when Lewis and Clark ventured into Shoshone territory and were brought before Cameahwait, Sacagawea, acting as their interpreter, recognized her brother and ran to embrace him. Cameahwait had been reluctant to help the expedition, but finding his lost sister among the men gave him a change of heart. He provided the expedition with much-needed guides and horses to help them get across the Rocky Mountains.
According to Clark’s account, Sacagawea proved an asset on their expedition at other times as well. Sacagawea was able to find wild artichokes, berries, and other edible roots at a time when food was particularly scarce, keeping the members of the expedition from starvation. She also proved herself heroic when one of the supply boats capsized. She helped to save some of the navigational instruments, medicine, and other necessities for the expedition as well as many of the records Lewis and Clark had been keeping during the journey. Some accounts suggest that she did this while balancing her small child in one arm. In recognition of her role during the expedition, the explorers named one of the rivers that they encountered in her honor.
As the expedition neared the Pacific coast in November 1805, Lewis and Clark decided to take a small party the rest of the way to the seashore. When Sacagawea discovered that she was not among those they intended to take along, she insisted that she should be able to see the “great waters,” as she had come so far with the explorers already. The group consented.
Sacagawea continued to aid the expedition on their return trip, serving as an interpreter with the Nez Perce Indians and recommending Bozeman Pass for their return passage through the Rocky Mountains. In August 1806, the expedition returned to Fort Mandan in the Hidatsa territory where Sacagawea and her husband first joined the party.
Clark, however, had developed an affection for Sacagawea’s young son, Jean-Baptiste, whom Clark nicknamed “Pomp.” Clark offered to raise and educate the young boy, but while the parents did not initially accept, records show that they did eventually travel with “Pomp” to St. Louis where Clark provided them with 320 acres of farmland. While they stayed there a time, Charbonneau apparently did not take to farming. He took his wife back north, joining Manuel Lisa’s Missouri Fur Company, apparently leaving Jean-Baptiste in Clark’s care.
At this point, the details of Sacagawea’s life again become murky. Written records indicate that she probably died in 1812 at Fort Manuel, where the Missouri Fur Company was located. Eyewitness accounts indicate that Charbonneau’s wife died of fever at the age of twenty-five. Clark also lists her as deceased in the 1820s. However, Charbonneau had another Shoshone wife, about the same age as Sacagawea, and those present may have confused the two women. Other accounts, namely that posited by Grace Raymond Hebard, suggest that Sacagawea didn’t die until 1884, at almost ninety-six years old. According to Hebard, Sacagawea left her husband and lived among the Comanches, marrying a man named Jerk Meat. When he died, she traveled back to Shoshone territory, rejoining her son, Jean-Baptiste, and her nephew. She subsequently played a behind-the-scenes leadership role among her people until she settled on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming where she died.
The mystery surrounding her early and later life only add to the intrigue of Sacagawea and the role she played in westward expansion. While the expedition she helped lead opened up the northwestern territory for white settlers who would eventually usurp the land, her role is lauded as an example of the strength and resolve of women. Her figure on the dollar coin minted in 2000, showing her as practically still a child with her own two-month-old child on her back, embodies the legend of this courageous young woman.
W. Todd Martin
See also Culture Heroes of the Native Americans; Legends; Lewis and Clark Expedition
Further Reading
Clark, Ella E. 1979. Sacagawea of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Kessler, Donna J. 1996. The Making of Sacagawea: A Euro-American Legend. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.
Nelson, W. Dale. 2003. Interpreters with Lewis and Clark: The Story of Sacagawea and Toussaint Charbonneau. Denton: University of North Texas Press.
Summitt, April R. 2008. Sacagawea: A Biography. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.