Sacagawea’s Life
By: Meagan Giancarlo
I bet you’ve heard of Sacagawea. She was helpful to Lewis and Clark, and there
are many monuments in honor of her. Though I don’t think you know all about her life.
For starters, she was a Shoshone Indian and was born around 1790. Many
Shoshone Indians lived near the Bitter Root Mountains near what are now Nevada,
Wyoming, Utah, Montana and California. Her tribe sometimes camped near the Snake
River so they were often called the Snake Indians. Some of the customs the Shoshone
have are beads and porcupine quills decorating their clothes, these Indians didn’t wear
feathers, they had facial tattoos and paint, they made there own moccasins, and they
cut their hair if they were in mourning. If you met Sacagawea her she probably would be
wearing a dress made of animal hide, her hair in two braids, and a belt of blue beads,
her prized possession.
Sacagawea had a very interesting life for a young Indian girl. When she was
about ten years of age her tribe was attacked by Minatatree Indians. This tribe had guns
while the Shoshone Indians had only bow and arrows, so there wasn’t a lot they could
do to fight them off. She was captured and taken almost a thousand miles from her
home. At this point she had no idea if she would ever see her family again and didn’t
even know if they were alive. That would make anyone feel lost. She was then traded
to a fur trader from Canada. His name was Toussaint Charbonneau, and she was to
become his wife. This all took place a few years before she met Lewis, Clark, and the
Corps Discovery.
Around this time the US more than doubled its size when it bought the Louisiana
Purchase. This was a huge piece of land west of the Mississippi River. They needed to
know what the unexplored land looked like; who lived there and what vegetation and
animals were there. In 1804, Thomas Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark on an expedition to
explore this mysterious territory. After they had gathered enough men for the journey
they named their little group the Corps Discovery. Before the end of the year, they set
out west from St. Louis. Before they reached the Bitter Root Mountains they needed to
get horses from the Shoshone Indians, which meant they needed a translator to speak
their language for them. This is where Sacagawea comes to help. Lewis and Clark had
stopped to build Fort Mandan in North Dakota, they started to ask around and see if
anyone could speak Shoshone. When Sacagawea’s Husband heard this he brought her
to meet them. He told them that not only could she speak Shoshone she was Shoshone.
And that’s how Sacagawea’s trip with Lewis and Clark started.
Anyone who has learned about Lewis and Clark’s expedition is fascinated by how
Sacagawea helped them get across the Louisiana Purchase. Many think that without her
help they wouldn’t have been able to accomplish what they did. During the whole
expedition whenever they were without food Sacagawea was almost always able to find
them some kind of root or plant that they could eat. When they had traveled past the
Bitterroot mountains they were almost starving to death. Sacagawea managed to find a
root called Camas to help them regain their strength. Another time, they came close to
losing all of their supplies when a canoe nearly capsized; Sacagawea had remained calm
and was able to save everything, including Lewis and Clark’s journals. Throughout the
journey she was a valuable guide especially near her homeland. She would be able to
locate where they were, by the tiniest landmark of a trail on the horizon or, one time, by
a mountain called the Beaver Head, while all the other explorers thought they were lost.
This shows how strong and Sacagawea was as a guide to Lewis and Clark on the
expedition to the Pacific Ocean.