A Shoshoni Indian woman, famous for guiding the Lewis and Clark expedition. Sacajawea, or the Bird Woman , as the whites called her, was born about 1787 in a camp of the Shoshoni or Snake Indians. At fourteen she was captured by a Hidatsa war party, and sold to Toussaint Charbonneau, a French Canadian voyageur, who lived with the Hidatsa in their village in North Dakota. he later married her.
When Lewis and Clark arrived in Hidatsa territory in 1804, they engaged Charbonneau as an interpreter and guide. Sacajawea had just given birth to a son, but she went along with the party, carrying her papoose on her back, anxious to visit her own people, who ranged from Three Forks, Montana, westward into Idaho.
It was not long before Sacajawea, and not her husband, guided the party. She and her son are mentioned almost daily in the explorers' famous journal and her many services are praised. When the party reached Three Forks, Montana, Sacajawea met her own people and learned that her brother had become chief of the Shoshoni. She was able to obtain aid and ponies from the Indians, without which the party would not have been able to continue.
On the way back from the Pacific Coast, Sacajawea continued as guide. When they reached a Mandan village on the Missouri River, Lewis and Clark paid Charbonneau for his services and dismissed him. Sacajawea remained with her husband.
The little boy, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, had become a great favorite with both Lewis and Clark. Captain Clark told Charbonneau that if he would bring the child to him he would educate him "and treat him as my own son."
Clark became Agent of Indian Affairs in the Territory of Louisiana in 1807. A little known Letter from the Secretary of War transmitting Information in Relation to the Superintendency of Indian Affairs in the Territory of Michigan During the Year 1820 and Part of 1821 indicates that Clark kept his promise . However, it was the Government, not Captain Clark personally, who paid the innumerable itemized expenses.
It is questionable what happened to Jean Baptiste after the age of about sixteen although he was reported years later in new Orleans. His father was last reported as having been seen in 1838, but what became of Sacajawea remains a mystery.
In 1811 a fur trader reported her death at the age of twenty five. But in 1875 a missionary found an old woman among the Shoshoni who claimed to be the original Sacajawea. She died near Fort Washakie in Wyoming on April 9, 1884, almost one hundred years old. Her grave is marked by a brass tablet, and a bonze tablet to Sacajawea was erected in City Park, Portland Oregon in 1905.
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