Sacagawea (ca. 1780-1812) Gerald M. Parsons David J. Wishart Project Team Katherine Walter Laura Weakly Nicholas Swiercek 2011 egp.gen.031 Encyclopedia of the Great Plains University of Nebraska–Lincoln Center for Digital Research in the Humanities
319 Love Library University of Nebraska–Lincoln Lincoln, NE 68588-4100 cdrh@unlnotes.unl.edu
2011

Copyright © 2011 by University of Nebraska–Lincoln, all rights reserved. Redistribution or republication in any medium, except as allowed under the Fair Use provisions of U.S. copyright law, requires express written consent from the editors and advance notification of the publisher, the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

 Gerald M. Parsons. "Sacagawea (ca. 1780-1812)." In David J. Wishart, ed. Encyclopedia of the Great Plains. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004. 336. 2008-02-23 Nicholas Swiercek Model Encoding SACAGAWEA (ca. 1780-1812)
"Sacagawea statue by Leonard Crunelle, Bismarck, ND, 2004-in front of the North Dakota State Capitol"

The only woman on Lewis and Clark's expedition, Sacagawea was a young Shoshone who had been captured by Hidatsa raiders near the three forks of the Missouri River about 1800. She married trader Toussaint Charbonneau sometime before 1804. A son, Jean Baptiste, called "Pomp" by Clark, was born to them in February of 1805. Together, the family traveled from the Mandan-Hidatsa villages in presentday North Dakota to the Pacific and back.

Sacagawea has been the object of considerable myth and misinformation; her contributions to the expedition have been both exaggerated and minimized. Clark thought more of her contributions than did Lewis, though one must consider here the eighteenth-century tendency to discount contributions of nonwhite peoples. In a letter to Charbonneau after the expedition, Clark wrote, "Your woman diserved a greater reward for her attention and services on that rout than we had in our power to give her." Lewis's view was more dismissive: "If she has enough to eat and a few trinkets I believe she would be perfectly content anywhere."

In fact, Sacagawea's contributions were real: she provided important geographical data to the party at various times, she helped as translator with certain tribes, she rescued important documents during a canoe mishap in May 1805, and, perhaps most important, she gave a friendlier face to the Corps of Discovery. Clark wrote that she "reconsiles all the Indians, as to our friendly intentions, a woman with a party of men is a token of peace."

Sacagawea died of a "putrid fever" in December 1812 near present-day Mobridge, South Dakota, at about age thirty-two. Jean Baptiste and Sacagawea's daughter, Lizette, lived with Clark at St. Louis for a time.

See also EUROPEAN AMERICANS: \ Lewis and Clark.

Gerald M. Parsons University of Nebraska-Lincoln McMurtry, Larry, "Sacagawea's Nickname." New York Review of Books 48 (September 20, 2001): 71–72. Moulton, Gary, ed. The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. 13 vols. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983–2001. Ronda, James P. Lewis and Clark among the Indians. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984.