Warrior Women

Sacajawea

Not much is known about Sacajawea. The most reliable sources, concerning her life, her capabilities, her personality and her imprint on history, come from the journals of the men with whom she traveled to the Pacific coast.

 

I think we all know who Sacajawea was – at least those of us who are students of history. For those who don’t, let me introduce you to a true warrior woman.

 

She was born somewhere between the years 1787 and 1790 in the area we now call Idaho. Her father was a chief of the Shoshone tribe, and her mother, well, let’s just say most womens’ names were not important in those days, and as such, remains unrecorded and, unfortunately, lost in time.

 

In 1800, when Sacajawea was about ten or twelve years old, she was kidnapped by a rival tribe and taken far from her homeland. She subsequently was sold as a slave, or a wife, (depending upon which story you read or your definition of relationships in those days) to a French Canadian trapper named Toussaint Charbonneau. On February 11, 1805, Sacajawea gave birth to a boy, Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau. In April of that same year, she began her journey half-way across America.

 

Can you imagine? Here you are, somewhere around sixteen years old, ready to trek to the Pacific coast, carrying a 2-month old baby, for heaven’s sake! I’m going to feel very silly next time I want to complain about walking to the mail box.

 

Toussaint Charbonneau was hired as an interpreter by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, on their odyssey to the north-west coast of America. Sacajawea was asked to join them as a second interpreter, as well as a safe-passage endorsement through Native lands. The group, Lewis, Clark, Charbonneau, Sacajawea, baby Jean-Baptiste and thirty or so adventurous souls, began what became known as the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

 

They reached their destination in November of 1805 and began their return journey in the spring of 1806, arriving home (today’s North Dakota) in August of that year. Charbonneau was paid $500 and given 320 acres of land for his participation in the expedition. Sacajawea was paid exactly zero.

 

A second child was born to Sacajawea and Charbonneau, several years after the journey had ended – a girl, whom they named Lisette (or Lizette.) Sacajawea died shortly thereafter, in December of 1812. She was twenty-five years old.

 

William Clark cared for her children and legally adopted them after her death. There is no record, as far as I could see, of why this occurred or what happened to Charbonneau.

 

As I write this column, I am struck by how easy it is to gather the information to tell Sacajawea’s story. I cannot fathom how difficult it must have been to actual live the journey.

Bless you, dear Sacajawea, you were a true warrior woman.