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Sacajawea: Clark Corps
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Sacajawea's fateful journey with Captain Meriwether Lewis and Captain William Clark was the culmination of a young life filled with hardship. She had been born into the Shoshone tribe in eastern Idaho around 1787. As a young girl, she was captured by an enemy tribe and sold into slavery with the Missouri River Mandans. Eventually, Sacajawea was sold to a French-Canadian fur trader named Toussaint Charbonneau, who married her.
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Sacajawea is well-known as the Indian woman who led Lewis and Clark on their famous expedition to find the Pacific Ocean. The truth is a bit different from the movie and children's book versions.... In fact, Sacajawea was not officially a member of the expedition party. Her husband, Toussaint Charbonneau, was hired as an interpreter and took Sacajawea along. She was allowed to join the party as an unofficial member because the captains thought she would be useful to help in communicating with some of the Indian tribes they met and also in obtaining horses from her native tribe, the Shoshone.
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In 1806, when the expedition was completed, Sacajawea and her husband and son returned to Fort Mandan. Captain Clark wrote to Charbonneau and invited him to come to St. Louis with his family. He agreed and they moved near St. Louis, where Jean Baptiste was schooled. However, in March 1811, Charbonneau sold his land to Clark and returned with Sacajawea to the Dakotas. They left their son in St. Louis with Captain Clark, so he could continue his education. Captain Clark was the Indian Agent of the Louisiana Purchase at that time.
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The facts of Sacajawea's life have provoked much disagreement, and the debates have only increased as she has gained more attention for her role as a female Native American hero. Even the correct spelling of her name has sparked contention, and various groups are now lobbying for what they believe is the "correct" spelling. During the Lewis and Clark Expedition, her name was spelled in a wide variety of ways (Lewis and Clark were creative spellers). Most often, her name was spelled "Sacagawea" in these men's accounts, and that was probably close to how her name was pronounced. Today, some Hidatsa Native Americans argue "Sakakawea" is a more accurate spelling, following the conventions for spelling that region's Native people's words in the English alphabet. The spelling that has perhaps the least real merit of all is the spelling used here, "Sacajawea".
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Sacajawea , Sacagawea , or Sakakawea , c.1784-1884?, Native North American woman guide on the Lewis and Clark expedition and the only woman to accompany the party. She is generally called the Bird Woman in English, although this translation has been challenged, and there has been much dispute about the form of her Native American name. She was a member of the Shoshone, had been captured and sold to a Mandan, and finally was traded to Toussaint Charbonneau, one of whose wives she became. He was interpreter for the expedition. She proved invaluable as a guide and interpreter when Lewis and Clark reached the upper Missouri River and the mountains from which she had come. On the return journey she and Charbonneau left (1806) the expedition at the Mandan villages.
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Sacajawea gave birth to a daughter sometime after 1810. However, in March 1811, Charbonneau sold his land back to Clark and returned to the Dakotas with Sacajawea. Popular belief is that Sacajawea died on Dec. 20, 1812. Shoshone oral tradition says that she wandered the West for a few years and eventually returned to her tribe on the Wind River Reservation, where she died on April 9, 1884, and is buried next to her son, Jean Baptiste. Today, there is a monument to Sacajawea over the grave.
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