In May 1788, a Native American baby girl was born into the Lemhi Shoshone tribe near Salmon, Idaho. This child, named Sacagawea, would grow up to be an integral member of the Lewis and Clark expedition and would help to ensure the success of their mission.
When she was about 12, she was among a group of young girls that were kidnapped from their village by a rival tribe. She was taken to Washburn, North Dakota and held there until she turned 13. Then she was sold to a Canadian trapper named Toussaint Charbonneau and was forced into a non-consensual marriage. At 16, she became pregnant with their first child.
In the winter of 1804, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark built Fort Mandan in North Dakota with the intention of wintering there before moving on to Missouri. Knowing they would be interacting with the Shoshone Indians, they sought an interpreter to take with them on their journey. They hired Charbonneau as a guide because his wife spoke Shoshone. Sacagawea and her husband moved into the fort and her son was born there. Clark nicknamed her “Janey” and her son, Jean-Baptiste, was nicknamed “Little Pomp.”
In the spring of 1805, they continued up the Missouri River. Sacagawea was a significant helper. She was responsible for saving items that had fallen out of a capsized boat including the journals of Lewis & Clark. When they encountered the Shoshone tribe and wanted some of their horses, it was discovered that the chief, Cameahwait, was Sacagawea’s brother and they greeted her with great joy.
The trip was very challenging. At one point, they were reduced to eating tallow candles to survive. Sacagawea found and prepared camas roots to help the group recover. She also surrendered her blue beaded belt in exchange for a fur robe that Lewis and Clark wanted to present to President Thomas Jefferson. She advised the captains on the best route through the Rocky Mountains (now known as Bozeman Pass) which was later selected as the best route for the Northern Pacific Railway. But Sacagawea’s most valuable contribution was being an Indian woman traveling with a group of white men, signifying to the native people they encountered that they were approaching with peaceful intentions.
At the expedition’s conclusion, William Clark invited Sacagawea and her family to live with him in St Louis, Missouri. They entrusted their son to Clark’s guardianship and he tended to the boy’s education. Sacagawea had a daughter, Lizette, some time after 1810 but the girl did not survive to adulthood.
In 1812, Sacagawea contracted an unknown virus and died at the age of 24. She is commemorated in Boise by a statue of her and her son in front of the Idaho Historical Museum in Julia Davis Park.
