Sacagawea – Explorer of the American FrontierEssay Preview: Sacagawea – Explorer of the American FrontierReport this essaySacagawea – Explorer of the American FrontierIn order to understand how important Sacagawea was to the Lewis and Clarks mission to the Pacific, her history and the history of her people must be told.
An explorer known as Captain Clarke wrote that in order to pronounce the Indian words correctly, every letter sound must be made. There has been much debate on the spelling of the young explorers name, since the letters to not match the sound (ex. “Sacajawea” does not match “Sah-cah gah-we-ah). In fact, in finding her name written on multiple documents from various explores, there have been seventeen different spellings with only the “g” matching in all of them. When her name is divided in two, the Hidatsas translation is “Bird (Sacaga) Woman (Wea)” (Sacagawea, PBS – 2005).
In 1788, Sacagawea was born to the Shoshone tribe, (otherwise known as the “Snake Nation”) which was located in the Rocky Mountain region. If their territory was still around today, it would cover the states of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. Sacagawaeas tribe made up the more northern/eastern part of the territory, lived in tepees, and were superb buffalo hunters. These people, called Lemhi Shoshone, were great warriors and excellent on horses. It was around this time (1790s) that the Lemhi were forced to retreat to the Rocky Mountains due to their enemy tribes, Blackfeet, Atsinas and Hidatsas, invading their land. These enemies carried muskets so they were much more forceful in making the Lemhi leave their land. The Lemhi would plan hunting trips back to their homeland when the village was terribly scarce on food. These trips were very dangerous, and on one of the trips in 1800 the Lemhi men were caught by the Hidatsas. The men were beaten, tortured, and killed while the rest of the village (located in present day Idaho) was destroyed and many were taken captive (Shoshone, PBS – 2005).
It was during this massacre that Sacagawea (approximately 12 years old) was kidnapped. She was taken to the Hidatsas-Mandan village which where Bismarck, North Dakota is located today. It was here where Sacagawea was sold into slavery to a man by the name of Toussaint Charbonneau. Charbonneau was a French fur trader from Canada. Four years later, the Corps of Discovery came to the village and built themselves a fort near the village. When Sacagawea was seventeen, she gave birth to her first child, who also became the youngest explorer ever, Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau (Sacagawea, PBS – 2005).
Captains Lewis and Clark felt as though Sacagawea would be an important factor to the mission. They knew that the expedition was in need of horses, and the Shoshones were known for having horses. Sacagawea could help with trading and could translate since she spoke both Shoshone and Hidatsas. Her husband, Charbonneau, could speak both Hidatsas and French. Together Sacagawea and Charbonneau made quite the translating team. Some have said, had it not been for Sacagawea, Charbonneau would not have been asked to go on the expedition because his wife was more off an asset to the mission. In order for the team to understand the trade with the Shoshone, Sacagawea would communicate with them, and then translate to Charbonneau in Hidatsas; he would then translate in French to Francois Labiche (hired by the Corp). He would finally translate to the Captains Lewis and Clark in English (Sacagawea, PBS – 2005).
Sacagawea also proved her talents in other areas during the expedition out and back. While carrying her child, Baptiste, she also collected berries, roots, and plants from the wild. These items were used to eat as well as medicine at times. Baptiste also rode on her back when she rode horse-back and was in her lap when she sat in the boats. She was the only woman on this expedition with thirty-three men, but there was no doubt her importance to the mission. In fact, one day during the mission Sacagawea was riding in a boat when suddenly the wind picked up on the river they were crossing. Her boat began to rock and was hit by a strong wave which almost capsized the boat. Sacagawea recovered the majority of the papers and materials that would have been lost to the water. The character she showed during this time of panic won her respect with Lewis and Clark (Sacagawea, PBS – 2005).
In August of 1805, Lewis decided to take a few of the men ahead of the core group in order to scout the land. On August 13, the four were about 75 miles head when they came upon a Shoshone tribe. The tribe was living in the mountains, off of mostly berries and roots. At various times they might have a few fish, but the tribe was in the process of planning a small group trip to the plains in order to hunt buffalo. A woman was gathering food away from the village when she spotted the men. She called to other women and they gathered together as the strangers came closer. The men, led by Lewis put down their guns to try and show they were friendly. Lewis actually painted the face of the women with vermilion, which he had learned was a mark of peace. Once the women had convinced their people that Lewis and his three men were friendly, the Shoshone chief Cameahwait had the village share their food and make a tepee for the “white visitors” to sleep in. The Shoshones had never seen white people before this event. (Shoshone, PBS – 2005)
Once settled, Cameahwait told Lewis the news he and Clark had been expecting: there was no all water route in which the expedition could take to reach the Pacific Ocean. The main reason for Lewis and Clarks worry was the Bitterroot Mountains. Lewis knew that if the Shoshone would not trade with his group; the expedition would fail. He decided that Clark and the others needed to know the situation, so Lewis, Cameahwait, and their men journeyed to where Clark and the others had made camp (Shoshone, PBS – 2005). While the captains and the chiefs began exchanging words through the communication line, Sacagawea realized that not only were these men from her home tribe; but Chief Cameahwait was her brother! The reunion of the two Shoshone people was very heart warming. After the reunion and the communications were over, the expedition was able trade some gifts for the horses they needed (Sacagawea, PBS – 2005).
The expedition and the settlement of the Shoshone. During the day, this tribe was settled on lands not known by the Shoshone, but by their fathers: the Shoshone people had lived in a colony of Indian tribes, not far from the border of the Shoshone at the mouth of the Missouri River, but far from the border of the Shoshone with other communities of Native Americans. They knew that the Shoshone had long gone far to the east and west, seeking refuge in one of the great forests on their foreheads (Sacagawea, PBS – 2005). The Shoshone learned that the Shoshone Indians had built a large settlement where they called their ancestors “Shoshinas.”
A small band of the Shoshone, also called Asiatic Indians, lived in the Tenderloin Tribe of the Indian Plains. Asiatic was, in fact, a nomadic tribe, living in their foredocks within their tundra, where there was little trade. The Tenderloin Indian people would buy animals or provide them with shelter and water when needed. When the Tenderloin were able to get enough water and feed themselves, they would start to eat buffalo meat for money at the local tribal market (Lamb et al., 2001). The Tenderloin tribe was, in fact, a sub-continental Indian tribe, with a small population of 2,650 (Cambreau, 1978, p. 39).
The tribe lived in its own small, single village, a relatively well-developed country with no formal government, and had no military or policing system. During its early years, the tribe had little or no agricultural produce. The lack of any food for survival was the primary cause of their problem. The family was poor, poor and weak (Schedler, 2000). In return, the tribes gave the Tenderloin community more than $15,000 to buy crops, which, if they could reproduce, would mean a huge income for this tribe. Even with such wealth, however, even without any supplies such as food, the Tenderloin would not have enough food to last a long life. If the tribe did not manage to produce enough to feed its people, the farmers would starve (Foster & Stegner, 1997); the Tenderloin would have to rely on the money to feed the people (Stegner, 1998, p. 12). With some amount of help from the tribes and government, the tribes could last one and a half years without a food crop. By the spring of 1851, while they were still living in this primitive country, the tribe had already received funding to cover food and water (Sacagawea, PBS ᾷ 2005). The two families were now in this primitive country, but the money needed for their upkeep was already considerable. Since the tribe had no economic system of its own, it could not support the members of the tribe until their food supplies ran out.
In mid-June 1851, the Tenderloin had sent Captain Stevens with a message, this time in a message to the Shoshone. “We have arrived, we call you from Shoshone, Tenderloin.” This message was delivered on a canoe in that small canoe with Captain Stevens sailing the Shoshone to their settlements. “This message,” explained Captain Stevens, “we are coming. Our great man, Captain Hood, can ride with us.
As the expedition proceeded to the west, Sacagawea continued to prove her importance to the group. When entering territories which belonged to other