Her range was immortalized on the golden dollar in 2000 , and she is recognisable by her forward - face gaze and the sister she carries on her back . She ’s been described as aninterpreterfor theLewis and Clarkexpedition , but relatively little is known about Sacagawea despite that fact that she is one of the few charwoman ever depicted on U.S. currency .
For starters , you are probably say her name wrong , although hopefully not as disrespectfully asGeneral George Armstrong Custerin " Night at the Museum : Battle of the Smithsonian . " Today , it may be write Sacagawea ( not Sacajawea ) , but aspelling from the journal of William Clark(as in Lewis and Clark ) will get you closer to saying it correctly — Sah - kah - gar - wea . Although Sacagawea was a Shoshoni , her name is given in the Hidatsa language and means " birdie woman , " according to Carolyn Gilman , source of " Lewis and Clark Across the Divide . "
" She was a aboriginal woman who was stuff into history when she accompany Lewis and Clark , " she articulate . " There are a pile of thing that have been claimed for her that you really ca n’t say . "
We do know that Sacagawea crossed the Continental Divide at the years of 17 while toting her baby son . She also crossed culture and play a persona in the achiever of the pleasure trip and perhaps unknowingly inManifest Destiny .
Sacagawea’s Early Life
A Lemhi Shoshone , Sacagawea was born around 1788 in forward-looking - day Idaho . Twelve year later , she was captured by the gun - possess Hidatsa tribe , who , harmonize toHistory , took her to the Hidatsa - Mandan liquidation near what is now North Dakota .
The settlement was an outside trading midpoint , and she live with the Hidatsa — the reason her name is thought to have meaning in that language — for a few year until French - Canadian fur bargainer Toussaint Charbonneau took her as a married woman . In this case , " married woman " is a relative term , and she was one of two . James Ring Adams , fourth-year historiographer , History and Culture Unit at theNational Museum of the American Indian Smithsonian , describes her as a concubine or a consort . Some accounts state that she wassoldor even win in a card biz .
Regardless of how she ended up with Charbonneau , who was about 37 years erstwhile to her 16 , Sacajawea was significant by the sentence Meriwether Lewis and Clark arrived in the area .
On the Road With Lewis and Clark
TheLewis and Clark Expeditionhad start in 1803 when President Thomas Jefferson direct out " The Corps of Discovery " to explore the land gained from the Louisiana Purchase . It ’s of import to think of that the land peck with France included a lot more than today ’s eponymous nation . The soil stretched from rough the Canadian border to the Gulf or Mexico and from the Mississippi River to Colorado , well-nigh double over the sizing of the United States .
Charbonneau offered his divine service as interpreter to Lewis and Clark , offer that he had two wives from near the Continental Divide , excuse Adams . He got the job , and Sacagawea was chosen to go with him on the pleasure trip .
Gilman suggests that Lewis and Clark might have wanted to add Sacagawea more than her married man because they were await for a Shoshoni translating program . Charbonneau only spoke Hidatsa and French . But you could n’t hire a woman , you had to hire her husband , she say . Lewis and Clark had a generally humbled view of Charbonneau . In fact , Lewis by and by described himas a " homo of no peculiar merit . " By dividing line , Sacagawea proved to be an advantageous extremity of the expedition .
In the kickoff , Lewis and Clark were concerned in her tribal connection because her Shoshone banding straddled the Continental Divide , and it was crucial for them to pass over it , according to Adams .
" It turned out even well than they require , " he says . When the expedition first encountered the Shoshone , Lewis was leading , and after an initial contact with an former woman , was approached by a band of about 60 Shoshoni on hogback who became friendly enough . But when Clark ’s radical met up with them a day or so later , Sacajawea was with him , and one of the Shoshone women recognized her as the girlfriend who had been kidnapped many years before . The leader of the band turned out to be her brother . An alliance was formed between the expedition and the dance orchestra , which then provide horses and guides .
Because of incidents like this , Lewis and Clark develop more and more respect for Sacajawea , says Gilman . merely having a fair sex with an infant signaled to those they encountered along the agency that they were not a war party . Tellingly , by the time they reached the Pacific Coast , she wasgiven a votein deciding whether or not the expeditiousness would appease there for the wintertime of 1805 - 1806 .
" Her worth to the expeditiousness became more and more observable as it live on , " says Adams . When the grouping returned to Fort Mandan in North Dakota , Lewis and Clark recorded paying both the interpreter , Charbonneau , and the interpretress , Sacagawea . " Her role in the succeeder of the excursion deserves all the fabled position that it has . "
Post-expedition Life
After the expedition , Sacajawea remained with Charbonneau .
" We do n’t know much about what happened to her afterward , " says Adams . She may have traveled to St. Louis with Charbonneau to deport her Logos Jean Baptiste to Clark , who had offer to parent him and provide him with an Education Department . She had a second child , a daughter , whom she name Lisette . Just months later , Sacajawea die after hurt from " putrid febrility , " according toHistory .
A popular myth of theWind River Indian Reservationin Wyoming say that Sacagawea populate there into her ninety and was buried at Ft . Washakie , but that has been debunk , according to Adams . Most report show that she conk in 1812 .
In sum , there are few docudrama mention of Sacajawea , enunciate Gilman . A traveller who meet her commented that she was a sweet person but offers just one time . A pelt dealer recorded her decease in 1812 and said she was the good womanhood at the fort . Everyone who discussed her had something dependable to say about her .
Sacagawea’s Legacy
The Lewis and Clark Expedition was " too successful , " says Adams . It was billed as a scientific exploration to learn about the new acquire territory , which was largely unknown to Anglo - Americans . In fact , Jefferson theorize that the expedition might encounter mammoth or mastodons . Politically , the expedition " solidified the American claim to that sphere , " according to Adams .
intelligibly , the expedition had far - reaching ramifications , and Sacajawea recreate a part in its success . However , Lewis and Clark attached short importance to her role , although they remark her several times in their journal , says Gilman . It wasNicholas Biddlewho edit their journals for publishing and interview Clark . Much of what is know about Sacajawea occur from the Biddle interview rather than the daybook , and Sacagawea has an enhanced role in the 1814 published variation because Biddle immediately saw that the public would be concerned in her .
" She has been used to represent various thing over the years , " says Gilman . Sacajawea was take on , as many Indian women have been , as symbols of the amity with which the Indians collaborated with European Americans . There is a nifty need Americans have to justify their actions by point to the people who collaborated with them , especially the women . LikePocahontas , Sacagawea was " kind of drafted into this symbolic theatrical role . "
" They all become mythical , " she says . These figures symbolise the union of two dissimilar cultures and become symbolic founders . " That ’s actually what ’s going on for Sacajawea . She is for the West what Pocahontas is for the East . " And in this case , she is not just a figurative mother , Sacagawea is also a genuine mother physical body .
Nevertheless , although she may be ascertain by some as aLa Malinche - flair collaborationist ( La Malinche was the Mexican woman who played a key theatrical role in the Spanish conquering of the Aztec Empire by Hernán Cortés ) , as someone who was a facilitator of the invasion , Gilman says that Lewis and Clark were not on a military expeditiousness in the agency that Hernán Cortés was , so those accusation can not be levelled against her .
" I would like people to empathize with her , " says Gilman . " She was a person who ascertain herself in a berth where she could contribute to history , and she lived up to the expectation that were placed on her . She showed noteworthy fortitude and perseverance throughout the whole experience . "
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