Native American Biography: Sacagawea

 Sacagawea, 16, Lemhi Shoshone, guided Lewis and Clark and their expedition, while pregnant, to the Pacific ocean.  She traveled with the group from North Dakota and made important cultural contacts with other Native American groups as they traveled west.  Sacagawea was born in the Salmon, Idaho area.  However at about age twelve she was captured by the Hidatsa in a raid, and thus came to be in North Dakota.  The Hidatsa sold her to Toussaint Charbonneau, a trapper from Quebec.  Lewis and Clark hired Charbonneau and Sacagawea to go with them on the expedition to help with translating.  They wintered with the expedition and Sacagawea had her baby, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau.  While traveling up the Mississippi Sacagawea rescued papers from the river that included the journal and records of  Lewis and Clark.

When they made contact with a Shoshone tribe, Sacagawea was employed to interpret.  She discovered that the chief was her own brother and reacquainted with many relatives.  The Shoshone bartered horses with the travelers for their overland route which then took them to the Columbia River Basin

Sacagawea continued her journey to the Pacific ocean.  She provided her beaded belt so it could be traded to procure a fur coat to be taken back to President Jefferson.  She was a le to see the carcass of a whale that had beached close to where they camped for the winter.

Sacagawea continued her duties on the return trip.  She provided useful information on a couple of occasions, leading them through Gibbons Pass and through the Bozeman Pass.  Her presence on the journey signaled to those they met of the peaceful intention of the group--a woman and child traveling with them.  

After the trek she and her husband and child remained with the Hidatsa for a few years.  They then, at the invitation of William Clark they relocated to the St. Louis area.  Jean Baptiste was adopted by William Clark.  Sacagawea had a daughter.  However (here the stories vary) she may have passed away at this time, 1812 at the age of 25.  Another story has her returning west and marrying a man of the Comanche and later making it back to her Shoshone people.  She was now known as Porivo.  This woman had more children.  This story has her passing away in 1884 and being buried on the Wind River reservation.  

Sacagawea has been honored with both a postage stamp and also a gold dollar.