Don Ryan/Associated Press
The story of Sacagawea that most of us know is incomplete and not entirely correct. The Hidatsa tribe and other tribes have a long oral history that tells a different story of her life, including that her name was not pronounced the way many of us were taught, she lived 50 years longer than the history books say and she had more children than the traditional written history tells. We speak with Christopher Cox, who wrote the article “What if Everything We Know About Sacagawea Is Wrong?” in the New York Times Magazine………Continue reading….
Source: NPR
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Critics:
Sacagawea was a Lemhi Shoshone or Hidatsa woman who, in her teens, helped the Lewis and Clark Expedition in achieving their chartered mission objectives by exploring the Louisiana Territory. Sacagawea traveled with the expedition thousands of miles from North Dakota to the Pacific Ocean, helping to establish cultural contacts with Native American people and contributing to the expedition’s knowledge of natural history in different regions.
The National American Woman Suffrage Association of the early 20th century adopted Sacagawea as a symbol of women’s worth and independence, erecting several statues and plaques in her memory, and doing much to recount her accomplishments. According to Toussaint Charbonneau, her husband, she was born c. 1788 into the Agaidika (‘Salmon Eater’, aka Lemhi Shoshone) tribe near present-day Salmon, Idaho.
This is near the continental divide at the present-day Idaho-Montana border.In 1800, when she was about 12 years old, Sacagawea and several other children were taken captive by a group of Hidatsa in a raid that resulted in the deaths of several Shoshone: four men, four women, and several boys. She was held captive at a Hidatsa village near present-day Washburn, North Dakota. She disclosed to Lewis and other expedition members that four Shoshone men and some boys were killed in the battle, and she was taken captive with other women and boys. Her captors were “Gos Vauntos Indians,” which some historians attribute to the Hidatsa.
According to an alternative theory presented in the Sacagawea Project Board’s 2021 book Our Story of Eagle Woman, Sacagawea was born as a member of the Hidatsa tribe, and was possibly abducted by the Shoshone (rather than the reverse, as in Charbonneau’s telling) before returning to her tribe. The authors cite a 1923 oral history told by a man who claimed to be her grandson, Bulls Eye, that was supported by contemporary elders in the tribe.
The Sacagawea Project Board conducted DNA testing that they say shows a genetic link between Hidatsa descended from Cedar Woman, who was said to be Sacagawea’s daughter (born after her supposed death in 1812), and French Canadians with the name Charbonneau. At about age 13, she was sold into a non-consensual marriage to Charbonneau, a Quebecois trapper. He had also bought another young Shoshone girl, known as Otter Woman, for a wife.
Charbonneau was variously reported to have purchased both girls from the Hidatsa, or to have won Sacagawea while gambling.[8]Following the expedition, Charbonneau and Sacagawea spent three years among the Hidatsa before accepting William Clark’s invitation to settle in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1809. They entrusted Jean-Baptiste’s education to Clark, who enrolled the young man in the Saint Louis Academy boarding school.
Sacagawea gave birth to a daughter, Lizette Charbonneau, about 1812. Lizette was identified as a year-old girl in adoption papers in 1813 recognizing William Clark, who also adopted her older brother that year. Because Clark’s papers make no later mention of Lizette, it is believed that she died in childhood. While the 1812 death date has been widely accepted by historians, recent scholarship has identified significant problems with the documentary evidence.
The Sacagawea Project Board’s 2021 book Our Story of Eagle Woman presents several challenges to the traditional narrative:
- Translation problems: Toussaint Charbonneau, the primary source for information about Sacagawea, had poor command of both Hidatsa and English. Communication required a complex chain of translation that, according to a contemporary trader, went “from the Natives to the woman, from the woman to the husband, from the husband to the mulatto” (René Jusseaume), and finally to the captains.
- Clark’s “cash book” reliability: The document that supposedly settled the question of Sacagawea’s death contains a significant error. Clark listed Patrick Gass as “Dead” in the same document, but Gass outlived Clark by more than 30 years, living until 1870.
- Identification issues: Neither Henry Brackenridge (1811) nor John Luttig (1812) identified the woman who died at Fort Manuel Lisa by name, referring to her only as Charbonneau’s wife or “a Snake squaw.”
Historian Thomas Powers, reviewing the evidence presented in Our Story of Eagle Woman, wrote that “One way or another, every future history” of Sacagawea “will have to take it into account. Sakakawea is the official spelling of her name according to the Three Affiliated Tribes, which include the Hidatsa. This spelling is widely used throughout North Dakota (where she is considered a state heroine), notably in the naming of Lake Sakakawea, the extensive reservoir of Garrison Dam on the Missouri River.
The North Dakota State Historical Society quotes Russell Reid’s 1986 book Sakakawea: The Bird Woman: Her Hidatsa name, which Charbonneau stated meant “Bird Woman,” should be spelled “Tsakakawias” according to the foremost Hidatsa language authority, Dr. Washington Matthews. When this name is anglicized for easy pronunciation, it becomes Sakakawea, “Sakaka” meaning “bird” and “wea” meaning “woman.”
This is the spelling adopted by North Dakota. The spelling authorized for the use of federal agencies by the United States Geographic Board is Sacagawea. Although not closely following Hidatsa spelling, the pronunciation is quite similar and the Geographic Board acknowledged the name to be a Hidatsa word meaning “Bird Woman.
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