American Heroine

Sacagawea, sometimes written as Sacajawea or Sakakawea, was only twelve years old when she was kidnapped from her Shoshone tribe and brought to a Hidatsa village on the Missouri River. It was shortly thereafter that she married a French fur trapper named Charbonneau, who either purchased her, or won her in a bet. By the time Lewis and Clark headed west in the spring of 1805 she was 14 years old and carrying a newborn baby, Jean Baptiste. The young mother would end up being the saving grace of the entire expedition.

            The name Sacagawea is often misinterpreted as “bird woman,” when its true meaning is “one who travels by boat.” It has been documented that the young native woman never complained during the arduous trip and simply accepted life as it was. When the men were becoming malnourished due to an all meat diet, it was Sacagawea who balanced their meals by finding vegetables in the wild. When one of their boats capsized as they headed up the Missouri River, it was Sacagawea who recovered the most important items, including the men’s journals. But it was neither of these acts that made Sacagawea such a vital component to the Corps of Discovery—it was her mere presence.

            Imagine you’re a Native American man, wandering with a hunting party, when you stumble upon a large group of men with strangely colored skin and mysterious weapons. Your first instinct is to kill them all, to protect your land and loved ones from these outsiders. But wait. What’s that? It’s a young Native American girl carrying a newborn baby. Surely no woman would be traveling with a war party; they must be a peaceful expedition. So instead of killing them, you converse with them. And that’s the very reason Sacagawea was so valuable. Now, there’s no way to prove that the expedition would have failed if not for her presence, but I’d be willing to bet that if she wasn’t there, Lewis and Clark would be remembered as the men who left St. Louis in 1804 and mysteriously disappeared somewhere in Indian territory.

           Even though she is remembered as not only one of the most important women in American history, but one of the most important people, we unfortunately know little information concerning Sacagawea’s life after Lewis and Clark. It is widely assumed that she died in 1812, at the age of 24, of an unknown illness, though a Native American legend tells of her leaving Charbonneau and living among a Comanche tribe until her death in 1884. She would have been 96-years old. We do know that Captain William Clark adopted young Jean Baptiste in 1813, and cared for the boy as his own.

To find out more about Sacagawea 

and other historical figures,

please purchase 

The Road and the River: An American Adventure

Now available on Amazon