The Lemhi Shoshone are a tribe of Northern Shoshone , also called the Akaitikka , Agaidika , or "Eaters of Salmon". The name "Lemhi" comes from Fort Lemhi , a Mormon mission to this group. They traditionally lived in the Lemhi River Valley and along the upper Salmon River in Idaho . Bands were very fluid and nomadic , and they often interacted with and intermarried other bands of Shoshone and other tribes, such as the Bannock . Today most of them are enrolled in the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes of the Fort Hall Reservation of Idaho .
46-558: Sacagawea ( / ˌ s æ k ə dʒ ə ˈ w iː ə / SAK -ə-jə- WEE -ə or / s ə ˌ k ɒ ɡ ə ˈ w eɪ ə / sə- KOG -ə- WAY -ə ; also spelled Sakakawea or Sacajawea ; May c. 1788 – December 20, 1812) was a Lemhi Shoshone woman who, in her teens, helped the Lewis and Clark Expedition in achieving their chartered mission objectives by exploring the Louisiana Territory . Sacagawea traveled with
92-662: A Shoshone tribe and was attempting to trade for horses to cross the Rocky Mountains . They used Sacagawea to interpret and discovered that the tribe's leader, Cameahwait , was her brother. Lewis recorded their reunion in his journal: Shortly after Capt. Clark arrived with the Interpreter Charbono, and the Indian woman, who proved to be a sister of the Chief Cameahwait. The meeting of those people
138-672: A boy about ten years, and Lizette Charbonneau, a girl about one year old.' For a Missouri State Court at the time, to designate a child as orphaned and to allow an adoption, both parents had to be confirmed dead in court papers. The last recorded document referring to Sacagawea's life appears in William Clark's original notes written between 1825 and 1826. He lists the names of each of the expedition members and their last known whereabouts. For Sacagawea, he writes, "Se car ja we au— Dead." Some oral traditions relate that, rather than dying in 1812, Sacagawea left her husband Charbonneau, crossed
184-465: A greater reward for her attention and services on that rout than we had in our power to give her at the Mandans. As to your little Son (my boy Pomp) you well know my fondness of him and my anxiety to take him and raise him as my own child. ... If you are desposed to accept either of my offers to you and will bring down you Son your famn [femme, woman] Janey had best come along with you to take care of
230-523: A journal entry from 1811 by Henry Brackenridge , a fur trader at Fort Lisa Trading Post on the Missouri River, wrote that Sacagawea and Charbonneau were living at the fort. Brackenridge recorded that Sacagawea "had become sickly and longed to revisit her native country." John Luttig, a Fort Lisa clerk, recorded in his journal on December 20, 1812, that "the wife of Charbonneau, a Snake Squaw [i.e. Shoshone ], died of putrid fever ." He said that she
276-688: A silver Jefferson peace medal of the type carried by the Lewis and Clark Expedition. He found a Comanche woman named Tacutine who said that Porivo was her grandmother. According to Tacutine, Porivo had married into a Comanche tribe and had a number of children, including Tacutine's father, Ticannaf. Porivo left the tribe after her husband, Jerk-Meat, was killed. According to these narratives, Porivo lived for some time at Fort Bridger in Wyoming with her sons Bazil and Baptiste, who each knew several languages, including English and French. Eventually, she returned to
322-598: A war party of Indians in this quarter" [ sic ]. As Clark traveled downriver from Fort Mandan at the end of the journey, on board the pirogue near the Ricara Village, he wrote to Charbonneau: You have been a long time with me and conducted your Self in Such a manner as to gain my friendship, your woman who accompanied you that long dangerous and fatigueing rout to the Pacific Ocian and back diserved
368-476: Is advisable to emphasize the second, long syllable, rather than the /i/ syllable, as is common in English. The name has several spelling traditions in English. The origin of each tradition is described in the following sections. The spelling Sacajawea ( / ˌ s æ k ə dʒ ə ˈ w iː ə / ) is said to have derived from Shoshone Saca-tzaw-meah, meaning 'boat puller' or 'boat launcher'. In contrast to
414-558: Is now known as Bozeman Pass . Later, this was chosen as the optimal route for the Northern Pacific Railway to cross the continental divide . While Sacagawea has been depicted as a guide for the expedition, she is recorded as providing direction in only a few instances, primarily in present-day Montana. Her work as an interpreter helped the party to negotiate with the Shoshone. But, she also had significant value to
460-513: Is very limited. She was born c. 1788 into the Agaidika ('Salmon Eater', aka Lemhi Shoshone ) tribe near present-day Salmon, Idaho . This is near the continental divide at the present-day Idaho- Montana border. In 1800, when she was about 12 years old, Sacagawea and several other children were taken captive by a group of Hidatsa in a raid that resulted in the deaths of several Shoshone : four men, four women, and several boys. She
506-664: The Corps of Discovery reached a Mandan village, where Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark built Fort Mandan for wintering over in 1804–05. They interviewed several trappers who might be able to interpret or guide the expedition up the Missouri River in the springtime. Knowing they would need to communicate with the tribal nations who lived at the headwaters of the Missouri River, they agreed to hire Toussaint Charbonneau , who claimed to speak several Native languages, and one of his wives, who spoke Shoshone . Sacajawea
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#1732797396580552-542: The Great Plains , and married into a Comanche tribe. She was said to have returned to the Shoshone in 1860 in Wyoming, where she died in 1884. However there is no independent evidence supporting this tale. Sacagawea's son, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau , had an adventurous life. Known as the infant who, with his mother, accompanied the explorers to the Pacific Ocean and back, he had lifelong celebrity status. At
598-630: The Lemhi Shoshone at the Wind River Reservation, where she was recorded as "Bazil's mother." This woman, Porivo, is believed to have died on April 9, 1884. Eastman concluded that Porivo was Sacagawea. In 1963, a monument to "Sacajawea of the Shoshonis" was erected at Fort Washakie on the Wind River Reservation near Lander, Wyoming , on the basis of this claim. The belief that Sacagawea lived to old age and died in Wyoming
644-486: The 1870s have always considered the name's Hidatsa etymology essentially indisputable. The name is a compound of two common Hidatsa nouns : cagáàga ( [tsakáàka] , 'bird') and míà ( [míà] , 'woman'). The compound is written as Cagáàgawia ('Bird Woman') in modern Hidatsa orthography , and pronounced [tsakáàkawia] ( /m/ is pronounced [w] between vowels in Hidatsa). The double /aa/ in
690-649: The 1930s, after publication of a history novel about her. Wilson notes: Interest in Sacajawea peaked and controversy intensified when Dr. Grace Raymond Hebard , professor of political economy at the University of Wyoming in Laramie and an active supporter of the Nineteenth Amendment , campaigned for federal legislation to erect an edifice honoring Sacajawea's alleged death in 1884. An account of
736-677: The Fort Hall Indian Reservation. Others remain near Salmon, Idaho. Robert Harry Lowie studied the band and published The Northern Shoshone , a monograph about them in 1909. Sacagawea River The Sacagawea River is a tributary of the Musselshell River , approximately 30 mi (48 km) long, in north-central Montana in the United States . It rises on the plains of northern Fergus County and flows eastward. The river formerly joined
782-493: The Hidatsa etymology more popular among academics, Sacajawea is the preferred spelling used by her own tribe, the Lemhi Shoshone people, some of whom claim that her Hidatsa captors transliterated her Shoshone name in their own language and pronounced it according to their own dialect. That is, they heard a name that approximated tsakaka and wia , and interpreted it as 'bird woman', substituting their hard "g/k" pronunciation for
828-764: The Lemhi Shoshone. In the 19th century, buffalo hunting provided meat, furs, hides, and other materials. During the 19th century, the Lemhi Shoshone were allied with the Flatheads and enemies of the Blackfeet . The Lewis and Clark Expedition encountered the Lemhi at the Three Forks of the Missouri River in 1805. In the 1860s, Indian agents estimated the Lemhi population, which included Shoshone, Bannock, and Tukudeka (Sheepeaters), to be 1,200. Tendoy
874-475: The Missouri River in pirogues . They had to be poled against the current and sometimes pulled by crew along the riverbanks. On May 14, 1805, Sacagawea rescued items that had fallen out of a capsized boat, including the journals and records of Lewis and Clark. The corps commanders, who praised her quick action, named the Sacagawea River in her honor on May 20, 1805. By August 1805, the corps had located
920-586: The Musselshell five miles above the confluence of the Musselshell with the Missouri , but it now flows into the arm of Fort Peck Lake on the Missouri formed by the mouth of the Musselshell. The river was explored during the Lewis and Clark Expedition and named after their guide, Sacagawea . The river was named after her because she was in a canoe, and got caught in a storm. The canoe nearly tipped over,
966-559: The Squar—wife of our interpreter Shabono wore around her waste. [ sic ] When the corps reached the Pacific Ocean, all members of the expedition—including Sacagawea and Clark's enslaved servant York —voted on November 24 on the location for building their winter fort. In January, when a whale 's carcass washed up onto the beach south of Fort Clatsop , Sacagawea insisted on her right to go see this "monstrous fish." On
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#17327973965801012-508: The Wyoming Wind River Reservation was Sacajawea. Critics have also questioned Hebard's work because she portrayed Sacajawea in a manner described as "undeniably long on romance and short on hard evidence, suffering from a sentimentalization of Indian culture." A long-running controversy has related to the correct spelling, pronunciation, and etymology of the Shoshone woman's name. Linguists studying Hidatsa since
1058-543: The age of 18, he was befriended by a German Prince , Duke Paul Wilhelm of Württemberg , who took him to Europe . There, Jean Baptiste lived for six years among royalty , while learning four languages and allegedly fathering a child in Germany named Anton Fries. After his infant son died, Jean Baptiste returned from Europe in 1829 to the United States. He lived after that as a Western frontiersman . In 1846, he
1104-561: The boy untill I get him. ... Wishing you and your family great success & with anxious expectations of seeing my little danceing boy Baptiest I shall remain your Friend, William Clark. [ sic ] Following the expedition, Charbonneau and Sacagawea spent three years among the Hidatsa before accepting William Clark's invitation to settle in St. Louis, Missouri , in 1809. They entrusted Jean-Baptiste's education to Clark, who enrolled
1150-480: The captains to trade for a fur robe they wished to bring back to give to President Thomas Jefferson . Clark's journal entry for November 20, 1805, reads: one of the Indians had on a roab made of 2 Sea Otter Skins the fur of them were more butifull than any fur I had ever Seen both Capt. Lewis & my Self endeavored to purchase the roab with different articles at length we precured it for a belt of blue beeds which
1196-457: The expedition members were trying to balance the boat, but Sacajawea collected all the books, records, and instruments from the journey. They may have been covered in some material which prevented water damage. The river was named after her for this deed. The Sacagawea River has also been known as: Bird Womans River, Birdwoman's River, Crooked Creek, Sah cah ger we-ah River, Sah-ca-gee-me-ah River, Sahcagahwea River. This article related to
1242-603: The expedition over the Rocky Mountains. The mountain crossing took longer than expected, and the expedition's food supplies dwindled. When they descended into more temperate regions, Sacagawea helped to find and cook camas roots to help the party members regain their strength. As the expedition approached the mouth of the Columbia River on the Pacific Coast , Sacagawea gave up her beaded belt to enable
1288-661: The expedition published in May 1919 noted that "A sculptor, Mr. Bruno Zimm , seeking a model for a statue of Sacagawea that was later erected at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, discovered a record of the pilot-woman's death in 1884 (when ninety-five years old) on the Shoshone Reservation, Wyoming, and her wind-swept grave." In 1925, Dr. Charles Eastman , a Dakota Sioux physician,
1334-529: The expedition thousands of miles from North Dakota to the Pacific Ocean , helping to establish cultural contacts with Native American people and contributing to the expedition's knowledge of natural history in different regions. The National American Woman Suffrage Association of the early 20th century adopted Sacagawea as a symbol of women's worth and independence, erecting several statues and plaques in her memory, and doing much to recount her accomplishments. Reliable historical information about Sacagawea
1380-455: The expedition's fort a week later. Clark later nicknamed her "Janey." Lewis recorded the birth of Jean Baptiste Charbonneau on February 11, 1805, noting that another of the party's interpreters administered crushed rattlesnake rattles in water to speed the delivery. Clark and other members of the Corps nicknamed the boy "Pomp" or "Pompy." In April, the expedition left Fort Mandan and headed up
1426-467: The gold mines of Montana . He was 61 years old, and the trip was too much for him. He became ill with pneumonia and died in a remote area near Danner, Oregon , on May 16, 1866. The question of Sacagawea's burial place caught the attention of national suffragists seeking voting rights for women, according to author Raymond Wilson. Wilson argues that Sacagawea became a role model whom suffragists pointed to "with pride". She received even more attention in
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1472-632: The mission simply by her presence on the journey, as having a woman and infant accompany them demonstrated the peaceful intent of the expedition. While traveling through what is now Franklin County , Washington , in October 1805, Clark noted that "the wife of Shabono [Charbonneau] our interpreter, we find reconciles all the Indians, as to our friendly intentions a woman with a party of men is a token of peace." Further he wrote that she "confirmed those people of our friendly intentions, as no woman ever accompanies
1518-441: The name indicates a long vowel , while the diacritics suggest a falling pitch pattern. Hidatsa is a pitch-accent language that does not have stress ; therefore, in the Hidatsa pronunciation all syllables in [tsaɡáàɡawia] are pronounced with roughly the same relative emphasis. However, most English speakers perceive the accented syllable (the long /aa/ ) as stressed. In faithful rendering of Cagáàgawia to other languages, it
1564-520: The return trip, they approached the Rocky Mountains in July 1806. On July 6, Clark recorded: The Indian woman informed me that she had been in this plain frequently and knew it well. ... She said we would discover a gap in the mountains in our direction [i.e., present-day Gibbons Pass ]. A week later, on July 13, Sacagawea advised Clark to cross into the Yellowstone River basin at what
1610-452: The softer "tz/j" sound that did not exist in the Hidatsa language. The use of this spelling almost certainly originated with Nicholas Biddle , who used the "j" when he annotated the journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition for publication in 1814. This use became more widespread with the publication in 1902 of Eva Emery Dye 's novel The Conquest: The True Story of Lewis and Clark . It is likely that Dye used Biddle's secondary source for
1656-482: The spelling, and her highly popular book made this version ubiquitous throughout the United States (previously most non-scholars had never even heard of Sacagawea). Lemhi Shoshone The Akaitikka are Numic speakers, speaking the Shoshone language . Fishing is an important source of food, and salmon, and trout were staples. Gooseberries and camas root, Camassia quamash are traditional vegetable foods for
1702-507: The survivors. Charbonneau was mistakenly thought to have been killed at this time, but he apparently lived to at least age 76. He had signed over formal custody of his son to William Clark in 1813. As further proof that Sacagawea died in 1812, Butterfield writes: An adoption document made in the Orphans Court Records in St. Louis, Missouri, states, 'On August 11, 1813, William Clark became the guardian of Tousant Charbonneau,
1748-591: The young man in the Saint Louis Academy boarding school. Sacagawea gave birth to a daughter, Lizette Charbonneau, about 1812. Lizette was identified as a year-old girl in adoption papers in 1813 recognizing William Clark, who also adopted her older brother that year. Because Clark's papers make no later mention of Lizette, it is believed that she died in childhood. According to Bonnie "Spirit Wind-Walker" Butterfield, historical documents suggest that Sacagawea died in 1812 of an unknown sickness. For instance,
1794-531: Was "aged about 25 years. She left a fine infant girl." Documents held by Clark show that Charbonneau had already entrusted their son Baptiste to Clark's care for a boarding school education, at Clark's insistence (Jackson, 1962). In February 1813, a few months after Luttig's journal entry, 15 men were killed in a Native attack on Fort Lisa, which was then located at the mouth of the Bighorn River . John Luttig, as well as Sacagawea's infant daughter, were among
1840-729: Was a guide for the Mormon Battalion during construction of the first wagon road to South California. While in California, he was appointed as a magistrate for the Mission San Luis Rey . He disliked the way Indians were treated in the missions and left to become a hotel clerk in Auburn, California , once the center of gold rush activity. After working six years in Auburn, Jean Baptiste left in search of riches in
1886-647: Was a prominent Lemhi chief in the mid-19th century. He was half-Shoshone and half-Bannock. He became the Lemhi's leading chief in 1863 after Tio-van-du-ah was killed in Bannock County, Idaho . The Lemhi Reservation , located along the Lemhi River, west of the Bitterroot Range and north of the Lemhi Range was created in 1875 and terminated in 1907. Most of the residents were moved to
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1932-418: Was held captive at a Hidatsa village near present-day Washburn, North Dakota . At about age 13, she was sold into a non-consensual marriage to Toussaint Charbonneau , a Quebecois trapper . He had also bought another young Shoshone girl, known as Otter Woman , for a wife. Charbonneau was variously reported to have purchased both girls from the Hidatsa, or to have won Sacagawea while gambling . In 1804,
1978-598: Was hired by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to locate Sacagawea's remains. Eastman visited various Native American tribes to interview elders who might have known or heard of Sacagawea. He learned of a Shoshone woman at the Wind River Reservation with the Comanche name Porivo ('chief woman'). Some of those he interviewed said that she spoke of a long journey wherein she had helped white men, and that she had
2024-512: Was pregnant with her first child at the time. On November 4, 1804, Clark recorded in his journal: [A] french man by Name Chabonah, who Speaks the Big Belley language visit us, he wished to hire & informed us his 2 Squars (squaws) were Snake Indians, we engau (engaged) him to go on with us and take one of his wives to interpret the Snake language . Charbonneau and Sacagawea moved into
2070-539: Was really affecting, particularly between Sah cah-gar-we-ah and an Indian woman, who had been taken prisoner at the same time with her, and who had afterwards escaped from the Minnetares and rejoined her nation. And Clark in his: The Intertrepeter [ sic ] & Squar who were before me at Some distance danced for the joyful Sight, and She made signs to me that they were her nation ... The Shoshone agreed to barter horses and to provide guides to lead
2116-405: Was widely disseminated in the United States through Sacajawea (1933), a biography written by Grace Raymond Hebard, based on her 30 years of research. Mickelson recounts the findings of Thomas H. Johnson, who argues in his Also Called Sacajawea: Chief Woman's Stolen Identity (2007) that Hebard identified the wrong woman when she relied upon oral history that an old woman who died and is buried on
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