Sacagawea ( SAK-ə-jə-WEE-ə or sə-KAH-gə-WAY-ə; also spelled Sakakawea or Sacajawea; c. May 1788 – December 20, 1812) was a Lemhi Shoshone or Hidatsa woman who, in her teens, helped the Lewis and Clark Expedition in achieving their chartered mission objectives by exploring the Louisiana Territory. Sacagawea traveled with the expedition thousands of miles from North Dakota to the Pacific Ocean, helping to establish cultural contacts with Native American people and contributing to the expedition's knowledge of natural history in different regions.
The National American Woman Suffrage Association of the early 20th century adopted Sacagawea as a symbol of women's worth and independence, erecting several statues and plaques in her memory, and doing much to recount her accomplishments.
Reliable historical information about Sacagawea is very limited.
According to Toussaint Charbonneau, her husband, she was born c. 1788 into the Agaidika ('Salmon Eater', aka Lemhi Shoshone) tribe near present-day Salmon, Idaho. This is near the continental divide at the present-day Idaho-Montana border. In 1800, when she was about 12 years old, Sacagawea and several other children were taken captive by a group of Hidatsa in a raid that resulted in the deaths of several Shoshone: four men, four women, and several boys. She was held captive at a Hidatsa village near present-day Washburn, North Dakota. She disclosed to Lewis and other expedition members that four Shoshone men and some boys were killed in the battle, and she was taken captive with other women and boys. Her captors were "Gos Vauntos Indians," which some historians attribute to the Hidatsa.
According to an alternative theory presented in the Sacagawea Project Board's 2021 book Our Story of Eagle Woman, Sacagawea was born as a member of the Hidatsa tribe, and was possibly abducted by the Shoshone (rather than the reverse, as in Charbonneau's telling) before returning to her tribe. The authors cite a 1923 oral history told by a man who claimed to be her grandson, Bulls Eye, that was supported by contemporary elders in the tribe. The Sacagawea Project Board conducted DNA testing that they say shows a genetic link between Hidatsa descended from Cedar Woman, who was said to be Sacagawea's daughter (born after her supposed death in 1812), and French Canadians with the name Charbonneau.
At about age 13, she was granted into what was then a Native American custom at the time, a non-consensual marriage to Charbonneau, a Quebecois trapper. He had also been associated with another young Shoshone girl, known as Otter Woman, for a wife. Charbonneau was variously reported to have purchased both girls from the Hidatsa, or to have won Sacagawea while gambling.
In 1804, the Corps of Discovery reached a Mandan village, where Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark built Fort Mandan for wintering over in 1804–05. They interviewed several trappers who might be able to interpret or guide the expedition up the Missouri River in the springtime. Knowing they would need to communicate with the tribal nations who lived at the headwaters of the Missouri River, they agreed to hire Toussaint Charbonneau in early winter of 1804, who claimed to speak several Native languages, and one of his wives, who spoke Shoshone. Sacagawea was pregnant with her first child at the time.
On November 4, 1804, Clark recorded in his journal:
[A] french man by Name Chabonah, who Speaks the Big Belley language visit us, he wished to hire & informed us his 2 Squars (squaws) were Snake Indians, we engau (engaged) him to go on with us and take one of his wives to interpret the Snake language.
Charbonneau and Sacagawea moved into the expedition's fort a week later. Clark later nicknamed her "Janey." Lewis observed her activities as part of his ethnographic report on Native people. She and her family traveled mostly in the co-captains' company, ate near or with them, and shared the same tent. Lewis recorded the birth of Jean Baptiste Charbonneau on February 11, 1805, noting that another of the party's interpreters administered crushed rattlesnake rattles in water to speed the delivery, which helped with the painful delivery. Clark and other members of the Corps nicknamed the boy "Pomp" or "Pompy."
In April 1805, the expedition left Fort Mandan and headed up the Missouri River in pirogues and Sacagawea carried young Jean Baptiste on her back in an Indian cradleboard. While heading up the Missouri River, they had to be poled against the current and sometimes pulled by crew along the riverbanks. On May 14, 1805, Sacagawea rescued items that had fallen out of a capsized boat, including the journals and records of Lewis and Clark. The corps commanders, who praised her quick action, named the Sacagawea River in her honor on May 20, 1805. 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 leader, Cameahwait, was her brother, though in the Shoshoni language cousin and brother are the same word.
Lewis recorded their reunion in his journal:
Shortly after Capt. Clark arrived with the Interpreter Charbono, and the Indian woman, who proved to be a sister of the Chief Cameahwait. The meeting of those people was really affecting, particularly between Sah cah-gar-we-ah and an Indian woman, who had been taken prisoner at the same time with her, and who had afterwards escaped from the Minnetares and rejoined her nation.
The Intertrepeter [sic] & Squar who were before me at Some distance danced for the joyful Sight, and She made signs to me that they were her nation ...
The Shoshone agreed to barter horses and to provide guides to lead the expedition over the Rocky Mountains. The mountain crossing took longer than expected, and the expedition's food supplies dwindled. When they descended into more temperate regions, Sacagawea helped to find and cook camas roots to help the party members regain their strength.
As the expedition approached the mouth of the Columbia River on the Pacific Coast, Sacagawea gave up her beaded belt to enable the captains to trade for a fur robe they wished to bring back to give to President Thomas Jefferson.
Clark's journal entry for November 20, 1805, reads:
one of the Indians had on a roab made of 2 Sea Otter Skins the fur of them were more butifull than any fur I had ever Seen both Capt. Lewis & my Self endeavored to purchase the roab with different articles at length we precured it for a belt of blue beeds which the Squar—wife of our interpreter Shabono wore around her waste. [sic]