Sakakawea (Shoshone) Charbonneau (abt. 1788 - 1812)

Born about 1788 in Shoshone Nation

Wife of Toussaint Charbonneau — married about 1802 (to about 1812) in North Dakota, United States

Died 12 Dec 1812 at about age 24 in Fort Lisa, Mercer, North Dakota, United States [uncertain]

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Sacagawea (Shoshone) Charbonneau was involved in the westward expansion of the USA. Westward Ho! Join: Lewis and Clark Expedition Project Discuss: lewis_and_clark

Shoshone woman with child

Biography

Sacagawea was Lemhi Shoshone.

Sacagawea (Shoshone) Charbonneau is Notable.

Other Name spellings - Sakakawea, Sacajawea, Sakagawea
Sacagawea also known as Sakakawea or Sacajawea (rendered in the modern Hiraaciré’ orthography as Cagáàgawia, pronounced /tsakáàkawia/^[1]), was a Lemhi Shoshone woman, who accompanied the Lewis and Clark Expedition, acting as an interpreter and guide, between 1804 and 1806.

She was of the Agaidika Tribe (Lemhi Shoshone) and had been kidnapped around age 12 by a Hidatsa group. She was given or sold to Charbonneau.

Her name that is familiar to US history, "Sacajawea," is likely a Hidatsa word (so not her birth name). Hidatsa nouns combined cagáàga ([tsakáàka], 'bird') and míà ([míà], 'woman') into Bird Woman, which she is sometimes referred to. Spelling varies, as it has been interpreted through several languages [Hidatsa > French > US English].

There is not much known about Sacagawea's early life. She was born into^[2] the Agaidika tribe of Lemhi Shoshone. Her father was a Shoshone chief. In 1800, when she was about twelve, she and other girls were kidnapped by the Hidatsa tribe. Sacagawea was taken as a captive to a^[3] Hidatsa village. When she was thirteen years of age, Sacagawea was taken as a wife by^[4] Toussaint Charbonneau, a trapper who lived in the village. He bought Sacagawea and another Shoshone named Otter Woman from the Hidatsa.

In 1804 when the^[5] Corps of Discovery (co-led by Captain Meriwether Lewis and Captain William Clark ) arrived near the Hidatsa villages to spend the winter, Sacagawea was pregnant with her first child.^[6][7] The Lewis and Clark Expedition built Fort Mandan for the winter of 1804-1805.^[8] They were looking for interpreters and guides for their expedition up the Missouri River. They agreed to hire Toussaint Charbonneau as an interpreter when they found out Sacajawea spoke Shoshone. They knew they would need the help of Shoshone tribes on the journey.

William Clark

Meriwether Lewis

William Clark and Meriwether Lewis

Clark recorded in his journal on November 4, 1804

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 the expedition's fort . Clark called her Janey. Sacagawea's son^[9] Jean Baptiste Charbonneau was born on February 11, 1805. The expedition left Fort Mandan in April. They headed up the Missouri River. Even with a young baby, Sacagawea proved to be helpful in many ways on the trek. She found edible plants for the explorers. When a boat she was riding on capsized, she was able to save some of its cargo, including important documents and supplies. They named the Sacagawea River in her honor on May 20, 1805. The expedition had located a Shoshone tribe in August 1805. They wanted to trade for horses to cross the Rocky Mountains. Sacagawea interpreted for the expedition and discovered that the tribe's chief was her brother Cameahwait.^[10]

Sacagawea

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 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.

Clark recorded also their reunion in his journal

The Intertrepeter & Squar who were before me at Some distance danced for the joyful Sight, and She made signs to me that they were her nation

Lewis and Clark on the Lower Columbia

The Shoshone agreed to the trade for their horses. They also provided guides to lead the expedition over the Rocky Mountains. On the trip over the mountains, they had to eat tallow candles to survive. When the expedition reached the Columbia River, Sacagawea gave Lewis and Clark her beaded belt so they could trade for a fur robe they wanted to give to President Thomas Jefferson.

Clark wrote in his journal on November 20, 1805

One of the Indians had on a robe made of 2 Sea Otter Skins the fur of them were more beautifull 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 the Squar—wife of our interpreter Shabono wore around her waist.

When they reached the Pacific Ocean, they built a winter fort. On July 6 during the return trip, Clark wrote 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 which is now called Gibbons Pass. On July 13, Sacagawea told Clark to cross into the Yellowstone River basin, what is now known as Bozeman Pass. While traveling through what is now Franklin County, Washington, Clark wrote The Indian woman confirmed those people of our friendly intentions, as no woman ever accompanies a war party of Indians in this quarter, and the wife of Shabono our interpeter we find reconsiles all the Indians, as to our friendly intentions a woman with a party of men is a token of peace.

Sacagawea with Lewis and Clark at Three Forks

At the end of the journey, Clark 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 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 the boy until I get him.... Wishing you and your family great success & with anxious expectations of seeing my little dancing boy Baptiest I shall remain your Friend, William Clark.

Sacagawea and her husband spent three years among the Hidatsa after the expedition. In 1809, William Clark invited them to move to St. Louis, Missouri. William Clark enrolled their son, Jean-Baptiste, in a Saint Louis Academy boarding school. Sacagawea had a daughter, Lizette, sometime after 1810.^[11]

Questions Surrounding Sacagawea’s Death Date and Place

Sacagawea’s death has been a constant controversy even to this date. Two sites lay claim to her burial with strong tradition linked to both. History tells us that Charbonneau had (at least) two wives, with Sacagawea and Otter Woman, both Lemhi Shoshone, the only ones named. With little written documentation concerning either woman’s death, speculation and supposition abound as the questions linger.

1812 - Mobridge, North Dakota^[12]
Sacagawea is honored by an obelisk marker in Mobridge, North Dakota as a member of the Shoshone tribe “for efforts and contribution to the Corps of Discovery expedition.” This marker dates her death as December 20, 1812, and states that her body must be buried somewhere near the site of old Fort Manuel located 30 miles north of the marker. This date is supported by two independent and contemporaneous journal entries, and the fact that William Clark adopted her children in 1813.

An 1811 journal entry made by Henry Brackenridge, a fur dealer at Fort Manuel Lisa Trading Post on the Missouri River states that both Sacagawea and Charbonneau were living at the fort. He wrote that Sacagawea had become sickly and longed to revisit her native country.^[13] The following year, John Luttig, a clerk at Fort Manuel Lisa recorded in his journal on December 20, 1812, that “This Evening the Wife of Charbonneau, a Snake Squaw, died of a putrid fever she was a good and the best Woman in the fort, aged abt. 25 years she left a fine infant girl.”^[14] At her death both her children, Lizette and Jean Babtiste, were entrusted to Clark who formally took their guardianship by a St. Louis Orphan’s Court proceeding dated August 11, 1813.^[15]

1884 - Fort Washakie, Wyoming^[16]
The Wind River Reservation in Wyoming is also the supposed burial site of Sacagawea. In 1924 Dr. Charles Eastman was hired by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to locate where Sacagawea’s body might rest. He interviewed many elder Native Americans and learned of a Shoshone woman named Porivo who had claimed she was part of the Lewis and Clark expedition to the Pacific.

According to the oral narrative told to Eastman, Porivo had lived in Wyoming with her two sons, Bazil and Baptiste*, who spoke several languages including English and French. The details state that Sacagawea left her husband, Charbonneau, married a Comanche, and later in life (during the 1860's) returned to her people where she died in 1884, at an advanced age, only known as “Bazil’s mother”. This information was supported by Dr. Grace Raymond Hebard of the University of Wyoming in her book “Sacajawea: Guide and Interpreter of Lewis and Clark” published in 1933. A modern gravestone placed in 1963 states her death date as April 9, 1884.

*It should be pointed out that Sacagawea’s son Jean Baptiste Charbonneau (1805-1866) lived in California for a least a decade prior to his 1866 death as he traveled from there to Oregon, and this does not fit the narrative provided for Porivo.

Sources

1. ↑ Wikipedia Contributors. “Sacagawea.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 4 Mar. 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacagawea.
2. ↑ Lemhi-Shoshone.com - Sacajawea and her people Lemhi-Shoshone Tribes
3. ↑ Hidatsa - The Hidatsa are a Siouan people
4. ↑ Toussaint Charbonneau - was a French Canadian explorer and trader, and a member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, and the husband of Sacagawea
5. ↑ Wikipedia - The Corps of Discovery was a unit of the United States Army which formed the nucleus of the Lewis and Clark expedition
6. ↑ Fort Mandan - Fort Mandan was the name of the encampment which the Captain Meriwether Lewis and Captain William Clark built for the winter
7. ↑ Lewis and Clark Expedition - The Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery Expedition, was the first American expedition to cross what is now the western portion of the United States
8. ↑ Louis and Clark Journals - The Journals of the Louis and Clark Expedition
9. ↑ Jean Baptiste Charbonneau - Jean Baptiste was the son of Sacagawea and her French-Canadian husband Toussaint Charbonneau
10. ↑ Cameahwait - Cameahwait was the brother of Sacagawea, he was a Shoshone chief
11. ↑ Bonnie Butterfield - WHAT HAPPENED TO SACAGAWEA AFTER THE EXPEDITION RETURNED?
12. ↑ Margolies, John, photographer. Sakakawea Monument, Route , Mobridge, South Dakota. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://lccn.loc.gov/2017709043
13. ↑ Brackenridge, H. M. & Thwaites, R. G. (1905) Brackenridge's Journal of a voyage up the river Missouri in. [Cleveland, Ohio: The Arthur H. Clark Company] pg 33
14. ↑ Luttig, J. C., Drumm, S. M. (1920). Journal of a fur-trading expedition on the upper Missouri 1812-1813. St. Louis: Missouri historical society. pg 106
15. ↑ Original Adoption Documents. Orphans Court Records, St. Louis, Missouri, August 11, 1813.
16. ↑ Sacajawea - Wind River Country https://windriver.org/experience/sacajawea/

See Also:

• Wikipedia: Sacagawea
• Wikidata: Item Q238960, en:Wikipedia
• Find A Grave: Memorial #2321 - Burial - Sacajawea Cemetery, Fort Washakie, Fremont County
• Lewis and Clark - The Journey of the Corps of Discovery
• National Parks Service - Sacagawea
• Pinterest - Sacajawea
• Native American History - Sacajawea
• Sacagawea Historical Society
• Space American Indians
• Lewis and Clark Space Page
• Chanson/Song : La balade de Sacagawea. Légendes d’un peuple : tome 3, Alexandre Belliard et Gilles Laporte, Éditions Les disques Gavroche, 2013, 93 p. https://alexandrebelliard.bandcamp.com/track/la-ballade-de-sacagawea