Sacagawea was pregnant with her first child when the Corps of Discovery arrived near the Hidatsa villages to spend the winter of 1804–05. Sacajawea had been captured when younger by the Minnetares and later won in a bet by Charbonneau. She was only 14 years old. Lewis and Clark hired Charbonneau as an interpreter when they discovered his wife spoke Shoshone, as they knew they would need the help of Shoshone tribes at the headwaters of the Missouri. "Pompy" was the nickname given to her son. In April, the expedition left Fort Mandan and headed up the Missouri River. 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 was her brother Cameahwait. 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 very hard and when they descended into the more temperate regions on the other side, Sacagawea helped to find and cook food to help them regain their strength. After later crossing the Bitterroot Mountains, the Corps followed the Clearwater River to the Snake River and then the Snake River to the Columbia. When the corps reached the Pacific Ocean, all members of the expedition, including Sacajawea, voted on November 24 on the location for building their winter fort.
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..." which is now Gibbons Pass. A week later, on July 13, Sacagawea advised Clark to cross into the Yellowstone River at what is now known as Bozeman Pass. This was later 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, 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 showed their peaceful intent. While traveling through the Washington area, Clark noted, "The Indian woman confirmed those people of our friendly intentions, as no woman ever accompanies a war party of Indians in this quarter.," A woman with a party of men is a token of peace." After the expedition, Charbonneau and Sacagawea spent three years among the Hidatsa before accepting William Clark's invitation to settle in St. Louis, MO, in 1809. Some American Indian oral traditions relate that rather than dying in 1812, Sacagawea left her husband Charbonneau, crossed the Great Plains and married into a Comanche tribe. She was said to have returned to the Shoshone in Wyoming, where she died in 1884.
What an impact the Corps and the insight of Thomas Jefferson had in changing the course of history for America. The third picture is a beautiful bronze statue of what she may have looked like and is located on the river bank where the Clearwater River meets the Snake River, in Lewiston, Idaho. There are no pictures of Sacajawea, so all likenesses are based on features of her descendants.
There is a Sacajawea Museum and State Park just a few miles up the road here in WA on the bank where the Snake River meets the Columbia River. It is also where the Corps camped before heading down the Columbia River. The museum was closed on our last visit. We didn’t miss much. We were disappointed the other day because we thought the museum was going to be dedicated to Sacajawea’s life. Instead it was just a brief recap of the expedition’s journey. A $10 fee was charged for that tiny museum, and we thought that was high for what you saw.
This is only a very brief history of the contribution Sacajawea made to the Corps of Discovery. It is well worth it to read the Lewis and Clark Journals or read Stephen Ambrose’s “Undaunted Courage”. Two of the best interpretive centers we have visited are the one in Great Falls, MT, and the one at Cape Disappointment on the coast of WA. We got hooked on the Lewis and Clark Expedition many years ago, before deciding to follow it as much as possible in 2008. I posted in an earlier blog what a wonderful trip that was. At night, wherever we were, we would take out the journals and read what the Corps did in that spot and where they went the next day, etc. So that is what brought us to WA the first time. While following Lewis and Clark, it was awesome to stand in exact places where they stood, camped, portaged, etc. It was just another great adventure as the result of RVing.
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