SACAJAWEA
1790-1884
During the last years of the eighteenth century, in an Indian village
along the banks of the Snake River, just west of the Bitter Root
Mountains, in what is now the state of Idaho, a little girl was born.
She was named Sacajawea (Sah-cah″-jah-we′ah), which in English means
“Bird-woman.” Of her early life there is little to tell. She doubtless
lived as did the rest of her tribe, grinding corn into meal, providing
the food, always out-of-doors, alert and resourceful.
When she was about nine years old the Shoshones (or Snake Indians, as
they were sometimes called) were attacked suddenly by their hereditary
foe, the Minnetarees of Knife River. They hastily retreated three miles
up-stream and concealed themselves in the woods, but the enemy pursued.
Being too few to contend successfully, the Shoshone men mounted their
horses and fled, while the women and children scattered, but were soon
captured. Sacajawea tried to escape by crossing the river at a shallow
place, but half-way over was taken prisoner.
Eastward the captives were hurried, to a Minnetaree village near the
present city of Bismarck, North Dakota, and here the girl Sacajawea was
sold as a slave to Toussaint Chaboneau, a French half-breed, a wanderer
and interpreter for the Northwest Fur Company. When she was about
fourteen, an age considered womanhood among the Indians, Chaboneau
married her.
In October of that year, 1804, there was much excitement in the
village. Up the river from the south came a great boat, filled with
white men, who, finding a good site for their camp on an island not
far from the Minnetaree wigwams, landed, built a number of log huts
and remained throughout the winter. From all the region roundabout the
inquisitive Indians were continually visiting these white men whose
errand was strange though peaceable. Not to make war, but to travel far
to the west had they come. Among their supplies were many things about
which the savages were curious. The squaws particularly were attracted
by a mill that would grind their maize, enviously comparing its ease
and speed with their slow methods. They longed for many articles in
the white men’s packs, and were glad to barter their corn for blue and
white beads, for rings and for cloth. There was constant trading, and
many, many were the questions asked about the great unknown country to
the north and west.
A Canadian half-breed served the two white leaders of the party as
interpreter. They also talked through Chaboneau, who knew both French
and an Indian dialect, and who one day pointed out Sacajawea to them
saying proudly, “She my slave, I buy her from de Rock Mountain, I make
her my wife.” When they heard who the Bird-woman was, they invited
her and her husband to go with them on their long journey. He could
interpret for some of the tribes, she for the Shoshones, for she had
not forgotten the language of her childhood.
On the eleventh of February Sacajawea’s son Baptiste was born, and
a merry little papoose he proved to be. The travelers started west
on the seventh of April, Chaboneau accompanying them, and Sacajawea
carrying her baby, not quite two months old; every step of that
five-thousand-mile journey she carried him, so that he was the most
traveled papoose in the land.
Taking the Bird-woman with them was an extremely wise measure on the
part of the leaders, Lewis and Clark. Her presence was a sure guarantee
that their intentions were peaceful, for no Indian tribe ever took a
woman in their war parties. For the whole group of men the presence of
this gentle, virtuous, retiring little woman and her baby must have had
a softening, humanizing effect, greater than they were aware. Near the
fire she would sit, making moccasins and crooning a song in her soft
Indian monotone, while the baby toddled about, the two giving a touch
of domesticity to that Oregon winter.
There were many heroes of this journey to the Far West, but only one
heroine--this modest, unselfish, tireless squaw. With the strongest of
the men she canoed and trudged and climbed and starved, always with
the baby strapped on her back. Long dreary months of toil she endured
like a Spartan. Instead of being a drag on their progress she was time
and again the inspiration, the genius of the expedition. And in their
journals both Lewis and Clark gave her frequent credit for her splendid
services and frankly acknowledged in terms of respect and admiration
their indebtedness to her.
One May afternoon when the travelers had been five or six weeks on
their journey and were making good time with a sail hoisted on their
boat, a sudden squall of wind struck them. The boat nearly went over,
for Chaboneau, who was an interpreter and not a helmsman, lost his
head, let go the tiller and called loudly to God for mercy. The water
poured in and the boat was almost capsized before the men could cut the
sail down. Out on the stream floated valuable papers and instruments,
books, medicine, and a great quantity of merchandise. Always plucky
in trouble, Sacajawea, who was in the rear, saved nearly all of these
things, which were worth far more than their intrinsic value, since
to replace them meant a journey of three thousand miles and a year’s
delay. No wonder that Clark added, when speaking of the quick action
of the Bird-woman, “to whom I ascribe equal fortitude and resolution
with any person on board at the time of the accident.”
Soon after this, from the tenth of June to the twenty-fourth, Sacajawea
was very ill. One of the white captains bled her, a process that must
have seemed strange to the Indian girl, but from their journals one
can see that excellent care was taken of her. The party must continue
on its way, so she was moved into the back part of the boat which
was covered over and cool. All one night the Bird-woman complained,
refusing the medicine offered her, while Chaboneau made constant
petition to be allowed to return with his squaw.
The leaders were concerned for Sacajawea for they knew enough of
medicine to see that her case was serious. And they were also concerned
for the expedition’s sake, for she was their sole dependence to
negotiate with the Shoshone Indians on whom they relied for help. Lewis
therefore determined to make camp till she was entirely restored. He
persuaded her to take some laudanum and herbs and two days later wrote
in his diary:
“Indian woman much better to-day. Continued same course of medicine.
She is free from pain, clear of fever, her pulse regular, eats as
heartily as I am willing to permit her of broiled buffalo well
seasoned with pepper and salt and rich soup of the same meat.”
The next day she improved rapidly, sat up for a time and even walked
out. But alas! this brief period of convalescence Sacajawea evidently
thought sufficient, and the following morning she
“walked out and gathered a considerable quantity of white apples
of which she ate so heartily in their raw state, together with a
considerable quantity of dried fish without my knowledge that she
complained very much and her fever returned. I rebuked Chaboneau
severely for suffering her to indulge herself with such food, and gave
her diluted nitre and thirty drops of laudanum.”
The next day, however, she appeared to be in a fair way for recovery,
walking about and fishing, so the party again started westward.
Nine days later, while Clark, Chaboneau and Sacajawea were making a
portage, they noticed a black cloud coming up rapidly in the west.
Hunting about for shelter they found a ravine protected by shelving
rocks. Clark had laid aside his gun and compass, the Bird-woman her
baby’s extra clothes and his cradle, when suddenly rain fell in such a
torrent that it washed down rocks and earth from higher up the gorge. A
landslide followed but just before the heaviest part of it struck them,
the white captain seized his gun in one hand and with the other dragged
Sacajawea, her baby in her arms, up the steep bank. Chaboneau caught at
her and pulled her along, but was too frightened to be of much help.
Down the ravine in a rolling torrent came the rain, with irresistible
force, driving rocks and earth and everything before it. The water rose
waist high and before Clark could reach the higher ground had ruined
his watch. The compass and the cradle and the baby’s clothes were
washed away. By the time they reached the top of the hill the water
was fifteen feet deep in the ravine. Anxious lest little Baptiste take
cold and fearful that Sacajawea should suffer a relapse, Clark hurried
the group to camp with all possible speed and gave the Indian woman a
little spirits to revive her.
Toward the end of July they came to a country which Sacajawea knew. At
first she was guided by instinct, like a homing bird. Then she began
to recognize familiar landmarks, for this was where she had lived as
a little girl. Both as guide and interpreter she was now the leading
individual in the party, and of invaluable service. Often the white
men could not see plainly the buffalo paths and Indian trails, but she
divined them immediately. During her childhood she had traveled this
road often, for it was the great resort of the Shoshones who came there
to gather quamash and to trap the beaver.
Reaching the three forks of the Missouri River she advised that they
follow the southern branch, as that was the route her tribe always took
when crossing into the plains. One of their camps, the Bird-woman said,
was on the very spot where she herself had been taken prisoner.
“She showed no distress at these recollections,” comments the record,
“nor any joy at the prospect of being restored to her country, for
she seems to possess the folly or philosophy of not suffering her
feelings to extend beyond the anxiety of having plenty to eat and a
few trinkets to wear.”
But that Sacajawea had no emotions was clearly a mistaken inference,
for the journal, a few days later, has an interesting story to tell.
Hoping to find an Indian trail that would lead to a tribe which could
supply them guides and horses, they landed, resolved to succeed if it
took a month’s time. It seemed a forlorn search, but at all costs these
two necessities must be had.
With Chaboneau and his wife, Clark was walking along the shore, the
Indians a hundred yards ahead, when Sacajawea began to dance and show
every mark of the most extravagant joy, turning round to the white
captain, pointing to several Indians approaching them, and sucking her
fingers to show that they belonged to her tribe. Suddenly a woman made
her way through the crowd, ran toward her and embraced her with the
most tender affection. Companions in childhood, they had been taken
prisoner at the same time and had shared captivity. Finally the one
had escaped, while the other was left to be sold as a slave to the
half-breed interpreter. A peculiarly touching meeting this was, for
they had scarcely hoped ever to see each other again, and now they were
renewing their friendship.
The two white captains meanwhile had a long conference with the
Shoshone chief. After smoking together, gifts were exchanged. Then
in order to converse more intelligently, Sacajawea was sent for. She
sat down and began to translate, when, looking intently at the Indian
chief, she recognized him as her brother. Jumping up she ran to him,
embraced him, threw her blanket over him and wept. The chief himself
was moved. Sacajawea tried to go on with her work of interpretation,
but seemed overpowered by the situation and was frequently interrupted
by tears.
Cameahwait, the Shoshone chief, agreed to aid the white men, giving
them horses and guides, in which business Sacajawea was of the greatest
help. She had a long talk with her brother, telling him of the great
power of the American government, of the advantages he would receive by
trading with the whites, and completely won the good will of her nation
as she did that of other tribes they met. She persuaded her people to
make the white men’s journey through their country possible.
Now the chief wealth of the Shoshone Indians was in their small wiry
horses, fleet and sure-footed. Fine presents the white chiefs gave in
exchange for pack-horses--an axe, a knife, a handkerchief and a little
paint, all for one horse. As long as the supply of kettles held out,
a kettle and a white pony were considered an even trade. Sometimes
instead of the coveted kettle Clark would give a sword, a hundred
bullets and powder, with some additional small articles. Once three
horses were bargained for with one of the Indians, who left, the proud
possessor of a chief’s coat, handkerchiefs, a shirt, leggings and a few
arrow points. One day after many wares were offered in exchange for
otter skins, Sacajawea gave the precious beads which she wore around
her waist.
The Bird-woman was invaluable also as an interpreter. The captains
would speak in English, which was put into French by one of the men,
Chaboneau then repeated it in the Minnetaree dialect to his wife, who
translated it into the Shoshone tongue which was understood by an
Indian boy in the party, and he in turn told it to the tribe with whom
Lewis and Clark wished to talk. Do you wonder that when possible they
all used sign language, and relied still more on the language of gifts?
The Americans were surprised that Sacajawea showed no desire to remain
with her own people, but her loyalty and devotion to the explorers were
unfailing. Once she learned of threatened treachery on the part of her
tribe, that they planned to break camp and go down the Missouri River
to the buffalo country on the east, taking with them the horses which
had been promised to the white men. This would leave the newcomers
stranded in the mountains, the lack of horses preventing their going
westward. Immediately she told Lewis and Clark, who called the chiefs
together, and after some discussion the plan was changed. By the end of
August, with a replenished larder and fresh horses, the explorers were
ready to start once more on their journey westward.
The road, Sacajawea told the white captains, was over steep and rocky
mountains, in whose fastnesses they would come to the narrow divide
marking the source of the Missouri River. An hour later they would
find a stream running west, that would grow into a large river and flow
on till it came to the great waters far away. But there was no food
along its course, no paths along its rocky banks, no canoes could swim
on its rough current. If they went on they must follow rude Indian
trails where there was no game. For ten days they must cross a sandy
desert. In many places travel would be slow.
Slow progress indeed it was, on this toilsome, dangerous journey.
Some days five miles was the best they could make; other days they
went forward scarcely at all. Food became scarce, and among the men,
as winter weather came on, there was much sickness. Once they had a
six-day storm that drenched everything they had on. And by this time
their supply of dried meat and fish was exhausted.
They followed obscure windings of Indian trails, known only to the
savages. Sometimes they made their way through wild cañons strewn with
stones; sometimes they climbed painfully up a rough slippery height, or
skirted the edge of a precipice. Almost a month was spent in getting
through the mountains. Cold, half-starved, fatigued, ragged, footsore,
they came out on the other side, more like fugitives than conquerors.
What would they have done without Sacajawea? Dauntless and determined,
always cheerful and resourceful, she had in her care the lives and
fortunes of the whole party. It was she who gathered plants unknown
to the white captains and cooked them into a mush. It was she who
varied their monotonous diet by roasting, boiling and drying fennel
roots, and stewing wild onions with their meat. It was she who found
berries and edible seeds when starvation seemed the only outcome. She
searched in the prairie dogs’ holes with a sharp stick and discovered
wild artichokes, as valuable as potatoes, with a delicious flavor. She
taught the white men how to break shank bones of elk, boil them and
extract the grease to make “trapper’s butter.” When Clark was ill she
made bread for him with some flour she had saved for her baby--the only
mouthful he tasted for days.
Late in November they reached the coast and spent the winter, a forlorn
group, at Fort Clatsop. There was much sickness and the strength of
the men began to fail. There was nothing but dried fish for food, and
it rained and rained till their clothes and bedding rotted away.
They had a strange celebration on Christmas day, when the men sang
songs in the morning, and the Bird-woman brought a gift to Clark--two
dozen white weasels’ tails!
In January during a brief interval of sunny weather, they planned to
go to the beach to get oil and blubber from a whale that was reported
stranded there. Sacajawea had heard of the Pacific in the legends of
her tribe, she had heard of whales too, and begged to be allowed to go.
Had she traveled all that long way only to fail to see the great waters
and the great fish? So Clark agreed that she should accompany them.
When they arrived the Indians had already disposed of the whale, the
skeleton, a hundred and five feet long, being all that was left.
Because of sickness and scant stores of food, bitterly disappointed
when no trading ships appeared with fresh supplies, they began the
return trip early in March instead of in April. Progress was so rapid
that the journey which westward had lasted for full eight months, was
made in five, and six weeks of this time was taken up by a detour. The
party divided and Clark, with Chaboneau and Sacajawea as guides, went
to explore the Yellowstone.
In August they were once more at the Minnetaree village where the
Bird-woman had first seen the white captains and their mill for
grinding corn. Here the leaders said good-by to their Indian friend and
guide. Clark offered to take the family to the states, give them land,
horses, cows and hogs to start farming, or a boatload of merchandise
as a stock for trading. But Chaboneau preferred to remain among the
Indians, saying he had no acquaintance in the East and no chance of
making a livelihood. Clark then offered to take the baby, “my little
dancing boy Baptiste,” now eighteen months old, and bring him up as his
own child, but Sacajawea refused.
Chaboneau’s wages, together with the payment for a horse, were five
hundred dollars and thirty-three cents. The records say not a word of
any sum for Sacajawea whose faithfulness and intelligence had made
success possible. She who could divine routes, who had courage when the
men quailed, who could spread as good a table with bones as others with
meat, was unthought of when bounties in land and money were granted.
Writing back to Chaboneau a few days later, Clark did indeed give her
full credit when he said:
“Your woman who accompanied you that long and dangerous and fatiguing
route to the Pacific Ocean and back deserved a greater reward for her
attention and services on that route than we had in our power to give
her at the Mandans.”
Chaboneau’s money probably served to establish his family very
comfortably in the village in Dakota. You can imagine what stories they
told of their adventures during the long winter evenings--of the wild
animals they met, of their escape from the cloudburst at the Great
Falls, of the mysterious, explosive sounds heard in the mountains, of
the portages they made, of shooting the rapids in the Columbia, of
their struggle among the snows of the Bitter Root range, and of the
great salt ocean at the sunset--for they had taken part in the most
remarkable exploration of modern times.
For many years there is no record of Sacajawea. Clark, as
superintendent of Indian affairs, in 1837 appointed Chaboneau
interpreter, with a salary of three hundred dollars. And there is one
official item, an expense account for a boy (possibly Baptiste) in
school at Saint Louis, which was paid to Chaboneau, in 1820. The little
papoose who traveled all that long journey grew up to be a guide, with
his mother’s native instinct and cleverness. He served with Bridger
in southwest Wyoming; he is mentioned with Fremont in 1842 and from
sometime in the sixties he lived on an Indian reservation in Fremont
County, Wyoming.
Sacajawea was there with him after 1871. An old, old woman, she is
described by one of the missionaries, Doctor Irwin, short of stature,
spare of figure, quick in her movements, remarkably straight and
wonderfully active and intelligent considering her great age. She
often told of her journey to the place of “much water for the great
Washington,” as the government was always referred to, and talked of
the “big waters beyond the shining mountains, toward the setting sun.”
And on that reservation she died and was buried.
The journey of the two white captains pushed the frontier from the
Mississippi to the coast. It burst through the Rocky Mountain barrier
and opened the gates to the Pacific slope. It gave the nation a rich
territory from which ten states were formed. But the services of
Sacajawea had for many years no lasting commemoration. Shortly after
the adventure in the boat the leaders did indeed name a river for the
Bird-woman, one of the branches of the Musselshell in central Montana,
but the very first settlers changed it from Sacajawea to Crooked Creek
and so it is called to-day. In very recent times the Geological Survey
named for her the great peak in the Bridger range overlooking the spot
where she was captured, and where she pointed out the pass over the
mountains--a route chosen years later by the engineers of the Northern
Pacific Railroad. This place was also marked with a boulder and tablet
by the Montana chapter of the Daughters of the Revolution.
That is all that remains of Sacajawea--a peak bearing her name, and her
story. A century after her long journey the women of Oregon erected,
in the center of the great exposition court at Portland, a bronze
statue of the noble Indian girl whose faithful service as a guide made
possible the success of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.