By Allison K. Lange, Wentworth Institute of Technology
In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson sent Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to lead an expedition called the Corps of Discovery to extend the reach of his government over a large swathe of what is now the middle of the United States. Sacagawea, a Native woman, also joined the group along with her husband. How did she contribute to the mission? And, what happened later to Sacagawea, the only Native woman in the expedition.
Sacagawea and her Shoshone Homeland
On April 7, 1805, the Corps of Discovery left their fort and ventured west. Lewis noted that Sacagawea pointed out important landmarks as they neared her Shoshone homeland. On July 22, 1805, Lewis wrote: “[She] assures us that this is the river on which her relations live, and that the three forks are at no great distance.” The comment reveals that they looked to Sacagawea for direction and trusted her knowledge of the region.
Soon, they found the Shoshone tribe of her birth. Lewis wrote in his journal that he planned to send Sacagawea to approach the tribe, so he trusted her as an intermediary. When she went to them, she sucked on her fingers to give them a familiar sign that she was one of them. Sacagawea reunited with her original community and found out that her brother was actually the chief. According to Lewis and Clark, Sacagawea was happy to reunite with her family.
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Loyalties of Sacagawea
The expedition needed to purchase horses from the Shoshone to continue on their journey. While her brother, the chief, initially agreed, he decided to take the horses on a buffalo hunt instead. Sacagawea found out about his plan first. This put her in an important, but complicated, position. She had to decide what to do. She was kin to this powerful chief, but he was someone she had not seen for about five years. Now, she was linked to Charbonneau and allied with the US government. Where did her loyalties lie?
She decided to tell Charbonneau, who told the leaders of the expedition. Clearly, she valued her position within the expedition enough to report the story. Perhaps Sacagawea even liked that she was gaining influence with the US government that might later be useful for her community. She might have also been trying to preserve a strong relationship between the Shoshone and the US government. We can’t know exactly how she weighed her options in this situation.
Sacagawea behind the Success of the Corps of Discovery?
In addition to acting as an envoy to Native tribes for the expedition, Sacagawea also helped the group with survival skills like finding food. Lewis and Clark wrote that that she helped them find wild artichokes, root vegetables, and apples. Sacagawea preserved food, and also knew how to make the most of the meat that they had.
According to Lewis and Clark’s writings, Sacagawea helped make the expedition a success. Without her, the group would have had far more trouble trying to communicate with Native tribes. They probably would have gone without food and important nutrients for longer, and they might have got a little more lost, too.
By August 1806, the group returned to the fort where Sacagawea joined them. After more than a year, her journey with them ended. Charbonneau was paid a significant sum of about $500 for his work, and none of that went to Sacagawea. In the early 19th century United States, women rarely controlled their own money. Even though they valued Sacagawea’s labor, that doesn’t mean they would officially pay her separately for it.
After the Expedition
Unfortunately, we have little information about what Sacagawea did next. Her child had become a toddler over the course of the expedition, and Clark had formed an attachment with little Jean Baptiste. It’s likely that Sacagawea and her family moved to St. Louis, Missouri.
Clark invited the family there, and we know her Jean Baptiste lived there, too. Clark paid for him to attend St. Louis Academy, and he graduated in 1823. He died in 1866, a year after the end of the Civil War.
After the expedition, in 1811, Charbonneau went west again to Fort Manuel. He started working with the Manuel Lisa Fur Trade Company. In December 1812, one of the other workers noted that Charbonneau’s wife had died of a fever. Some accounts suggest she left behind a newborn daughter. We can’t be positive that the wife was Sacagawea, but many scholars believe that it was. She would have been about 24 years old.
Another story suggests that Sacagawea lived with the Comanches for almost three decades under a different name before returning to the Shoshone and dying in 1884, when she would have been about 96 years old. Oral history, rather than written records, tend to support this history.
Common Questions about Sacagawea and the Corps of Discovery Expedition
Though no on knows exactly how Sacagawea weighed her options in this situation, it seems that she valued her position within the expedition enough to report the story. Perhaps she even liked that she was gaining influence with the US government that might later be useful for her community. She might have also been trying to preserve a strong relationship between the Shoshone and the US government.
Sacagawea helped the group with survival skills like finding food. Lewis and Clark wrote that that she helped them find wild artichokes, root vegetables, and apples. Sacagawea preserved food, and also knew how to make the most of the meat that they had. They noted that without her, the group probably would have gone without food and important nutrients for longer.
Sacagawea’s son, Jean Baptiste, had become a toddler over the course of the expedition, and Clark had formed an attachment with him. It’s likely that Sacagawea and her family moved to St. Louis, Missouri. Clark invited the family there, and Jean Baptiste lived there, too. Clark paid for him to attend St. Louis Academy, and he graduated in 1823. He died in 1866, a year after the end of the Civil War.
