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Day 12 - Sacajawea
Mar. 12th, 2018 09:36 amSacajawea
I have been fascinated by the Corps of Discovery for many years and by Sacajawea ever since I read the biographical novel Sacajawea by Anna Lee Waldo in the early 80s.
She was a woman of the Limhi Band of the Shoshone tribe that lived near the Salmon River in what is now Idaho. She was born in 1788 or so and was kidnapped by the Hidatsa of modern day North Dakota in around 1800. In 1803 or so, she became the wife of a French-Canadian fur trapper named Toussaint Charbonneau, over twenty years her senior. It is said that he either bought her or won her in a card game. She was about 15.
Sent West by Thomas Jefferson to explore the Louisiana Purchase, Merriweather Lewis and William Clark hired her husband and her in 1804 to help translate as they traveled through Indian Territory on their journey to the western sea. Though she did not speak English, she did speak Shoshone. Lewis and Clark knew they’d need horses from the Shoshone to make their way through the Rocky Mountains and they needed someone to talk to the Shoshone.
Sacajawea gave birth to a baby boy on the journey. She provided translations and even met her birth brother among the Shoshone. Her presence also gave the expedition a non-warlike appearance to the native people they met along the way.
Though some movies have portrayed her as lover to one the American explorers, there is no basis in fact for this assumption. She was friendly with Clark but there is no indication of anything more.
The oral story tells that she returned to the far west and lived in Wyoming to an old age. There are historical records that suggest that she died in 1812 of an unknown illness. Her children both became wards of William Clark in 1813 and at the time, both parents had to be dead for such to occur.
Sacajawea has been on coins and has been an icon of the women’s rights movement for many years.
But at the end of the day, she was a child, stolen and enslaved and dead before she was 25 years old. And yet we remember her.
The
Sacajawea Monument in Salmon, Idaho:
A coin with her and her son:
Anna Lee Waldo’s Book:
I have been fascinated by the Corps of Discovery for many years and by Sacajawea ever since I read the biographical novel Sacajawea by Anna Lee Waldo in the early 80s.
She was a woman of the Limhi Band of the Shoshone tribe that lived near the Salmon River in what is now Idaho. She was born in 1788 or so and was kidnapped by the Hidatsa of modern day North Dakota in around 1800. In 1803 or so, she became the wife of a French-Canadian fur trapper named Toussaint Charbonneau, over twenty years her senior. It is said that he either bought her or won her in a card game. She was about 15.
Sent West by Thomas Jefferson to explore the Louisiana Purchase, Merriweather Lewis and William Clark hired her husband and her in 1804 to help translate as they traveled through Indian Territory on their journey to the western sea. Though she did not speak English, she did speak Shoshone. Lewis and Clark knew they’d need horses from the Shoshone to make their way through the Rocky Mountains and they needed someone to talk to the Shoshone.
Sacajawea gave birth to a baby boy on the journey. She provided translations and even met her birth brother among the Shoshone. Her presence also gave the expedition a non-warlike appearance to the native people they met along the way.
Though some movies have portrayed her as lover to one the American explorers, there is no basis in fact for this assumption. She was friendly with Clark but there is no indication of anything more.
The oral story tells that she returned to the far west and lived in Wyoming to an old age. There are historical records that suggest that she died in 1812 of an unknown illness. Her children both became wards of William Clark in 1813 and at the time, both parents had to be dead for such to occur.
Sacajawea has been on coins and has been an icon of the women’s rights movement for many years.
But at the end of the day, she was a child, stolen and enslaved and dead before she was 25 years old. And yet we remember her.
The
Sacajawea Monument in Salmon, Idaho:
A coin with her and her son:
Anna Lee Waldo’s Book:
