SACAJAWEA

Sacajawea (ca. 1784? -1884) Expedition Guide: Born a Shoshone Indian, Sacajawea was betrothed as a baby, but was captured by Minnetarres when she was still a child. Her Minnetarre name, Tsa-ka-ka-wias, means "Bird Woman," and was sometimes spelled "Sacagawea" or "Sahcargarweah." Her Shoshone name, "Bo-i-nair," means "Grass Maiden." The young girl was gambled away to a French trader named Toussaint Charbonneau, who married her. The couple were living in the Dakotas when Capts. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark arrived there. Hired as guides, they spent the winter at Fort Mandan, where their son Baptiste was born on February 11, 1805. Sacajawea was the only woman on the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Proving herself to be an excellent guide, she led the explorers to Shoshone country, which she had not seen since her childhood. At one point, she rescued the records of the expedition from an overturned canoe. She also saved the lives of the explorers when she dissuaded the Shoshone from killing all the white men for their goods. When she met the Shoshone, she was recognized immediately. Her only surviving relatives, however, were her brother and the child of her deceased sister, whom Sacajawea adopted according to Shoshone custom. Sacajawea accompanied the expedition to the Pacific Ocean, which they reached on November 7, 1805. After they returned through Yellowstone and reached Minnetarre country, Charbonneau refused to go further with the explorers. Sacajawea stayed with him, then mysteriously disappeared. She was later discovered in the Shoshone Agency, an elderly woman. She died at the Shoshone Agency, in Wyoming, on April 9, 1884.