Keywords

Sacagawea, Sacajawea, Eagle Woman, Shoshone, Hidatsa, William Clark, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau

Abstract

On Saturday August 17, 1806, Captain William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition recorded: "we ... took our leave of T. Chabono, his Snake Indian wife and their Son Child who had accompanied us on our rout to the pacific Ocean in the Capacity of interpreter and interpretes." This "Snake Indian wife" Sacagawea, also known as Sacajawea or Sakakawea, had proven her worth as a significant contributor to the Expedition not only through her services as "interpretes" but also through her diplomatic skills with Natives, knowledge of the land, food gathering abilities, and the symbol of peace she represented as a mother with a child among a party of men. The journals kept by the explorers document her life, her tribal origins, and the ways she aided the explorers. Despite the information recorded in the journals, the details of her pre- and post-Expedition life have been greatly contested. Historical records, oral histories, and contradictory accounts present different accounts of nearly every feature of her entire life, including her tribal heritage, birth date, life experiences, marriages and children, and her death. In a perceptive book review in the November 2022 issue of We Proceeded On, Editor Clay Jenkinson framed the question this way: "Is it possible to know Sacagawea?"

Original Publication Citation

Burgess, Maren, and Jay H. Buckley. “Seeking Sacagawea: A Comparison of the Accounts of Bird Woman’s Birth, Life, and Death. We Proceeded On 49, no. 3 (August 2023): 4-30, 54-55.